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Crummy season so far for you ?

M

Mystery Meat

Ben Hogan Fan
Joined
Nov 22, 2013
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Location
Groom Lake
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Bad Gas
So far I have played almost 10 rounds this year all at different tracks . Not sure about the rest of you but the course conditions/weather(up and down)/general course atmospheres have been horrendous. Fairways/greens / bunkers etc etc look like no one has been maintaining them all season. All the shops look somewhat cluttered and at times I had to search out for help to even pay my greens fees. The courses are literally a ghost town, I see no workers/ players on the courses as well. This has been a traveling year for me , and the once pristine/semi decent courses have really deteoriated IMHO. Anyone else notice this in their season so far ?

i wanted to post some comments on yelp or golf now about what i experienced. Golf is not a cheap sport; but just appears some courses are putting out a lackluster product this year. Maybe the overall economy in my area has something to do with this? But when you have to search out for staff to pay your greens fees twice , than that is an issue.
 
Not noticing anything like that here. Everything seems to be smooth sailing here.
 
Must be the economy here. Literally courses are a ghost town . Even on an 80 degree afternoon so far . Literally have the whole course to myself at any time of the day. Maybe upkeep is increased when rounds pick up ?
 
Courses here have been open 3 weeks. I've played two of them. Everything is wonderful here.
 
Haven't had any major issues other than some are wet because of the rain we have gotten lately.
 
DC area hasn't had good weather but my local courses are looking good and well staffed so far. Now just need my golf game to get going... Opened the season with an 81, 82, 83, and 84 in that order. Hope it starts trending down.
 
Lot's on ice damage on the northern Maryland courses but no real problem other than my lack of game!
 
Smooth sailing here also.
 
Not too many complaints here other than the rain and aerated greens. Play-wise the season has been trucking along well for me except for the pesky tee ball.
 
Generally okay, big swing changes over the winter, so i'm adjusting to a new swing. Dont have a steady set of irons at the moment, so playing with loaners is interesting (thanks again Byron). League starts next week, so that's when the progress will really start to set in.
 
Things are pretty soggy over the last month here but the courses are in decent shape. New owners at one track have been really investing time & money in the place and it shows. Paved cart paths at the end of last season, new gravel down on others. The owner even bought a couple of houses adjacent to the house for the superintendent and his assistant.

The local municipal course has really cut back on maintenance the last couple years but they are trying. They've let certain "out-of-play" areas go natural to save on fertilizer and mowing. It doesn't affect play much but there are more weeds throughout the course as a result. They have a limited staff so the fairways and greens on the front 9 last Saturday were a little shaggy but I figure it will only help the root systems going forward into the summer.

Both courses have been packed as we have had some ideal weather on the weekends.

Edit: I forgot, as far as my game goes, Yes quite a crummy season so far.
 
For it still being April and with the amount of snow,rain we have had over the last few months - I think courses are right where they should be. I expect them to be a little wet and soft right now, but I think that overall they are in pretty good shape right now.
 
ChristopherKee said:
DC area hasn't had good weather but my local courses are looking good and well staffed so far. Now just need my golf game to get going... Opened the season with an 81, 82, 83, and 84 in that order. Hope it starts trending down.
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i would be happy getting back to the 80s after my first several rounds this year have been mid-upper 90s...mostly trying to get my new swing stuff going.
 
We've been lucky. Once the weather turned to the good it pretty well stayed that way. Course is firming up. Tuff to get a tee time on weekends since tournaments have begun. Men's night had just under a 100 out which I expect will climb when those 'fair weather' boys jump out of hiding.
 
Mystery Meat said:
So far I have played almost 10 rounds this year all at different tracks . Not sure about the rest of you but the course conditions/weather(up and down)/general course atmospheres have been horrendous. Fairways/greens / bunkers etc etc look like no one has been maintaining them all season. All the shops look somewhat cluttered and at times I had to search out for help to even pay my greens fees. The courses are literally a ghost town, I see no workers/ players on the courses as well. This has been a traveling year for me , and the once pristine/semi decent courses have really deteoriated IMHO. Anyone else notice this in their season so far ?

i wanted to post some comments on yelp or golf now about what i experienced. Golf is not a cheap sport; but just appears some courses are putting out a lackluster product this year. Maybe the overall economy in my area has something to do with this? But when you have to search out for staff to pay your greens fees twice , than that is an issue.
Click to expand...

My course has been re-opened after a 5-year shutdown and the greens were completely redone. They are now very hard and very fast, with quite a bit of slope and very subtle breaks. The Bermuda rough is also very difficult to chip from. So yes, my handicap has shot up from 3.2 to 6.2 since I joined. But I'm hoping that the greens will mature and get softer. It's definitely my short game that has caused the rise in handicap.
 
Still pretty early in the season to complain about conditions. We just started growing grass in the last 10 days.
 
I certainly am looking forward to being able to play on dry courses with my new shoes
 
mikedean441 said:
I certainly am looking forward to being able to play on dry courses with my new shoes
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There's a 2 stroke improvement with new shoes for sure


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
all is pretty normal in my neck of the woods.
In fact one of my county munis just finished a 2 year total bunker renovation and there are about 150 on that course. Right now they just temporarily closed 4 greens on it which sucks playing wise but they are doing what is right for the course. All our courses in general are all well maintained and for public munis I have to say we are pretty darn lucky that we have nice courses. One of the 5 for some reason seems to always take a back seat in over all conditions wise vs the other 4 and I don't know why. But I have played at private clubs (on rare occasion) and also many people who do venture to many other courses very often mention how nice our county courses are.
Quite a number of people (who can afford it) have mentioned that they left a private club and/or after consideration to join one see no reason to do so because they feel - "how can ya beat this what we have right here" . So we are pretty lucky imo to have good golf here. I'm sure a lot of muni places are even better but still we are fortunate imo. and from what I know the county does well from it all. it certainly is no ghost town at all.

Its not cheap at $45 to walk (weekend)but I also know that's not real expensive and considering what we have conditions wise its pretty good. I would even sacrifice "some" conditions within reason if it meant cost was $25 because I would be able to play more but it is what it is.

The only thing crummy we can really gripe about is whether or not how well one is golfing.
 
I've played a couple of courses here and considering the winter that we had, they were in pretty good shape.

Also, they've been packed and crowded.

Most slots for this weekend are already filled up and it's Tuesday and the weather forecast is not ideal (I know I know, no one wants long term weather)
 
DawgDaddy said:
Not noticing anything like that here. Everything seems to be smooth sailing here.
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Our course is greening up nicely now and almost full blown green grass everywhere. The greens were beautiful yesterday and with a few days of sunshine we will be good to go. Way too much rain this season so far but hopefully we will get a break soon.
 
We've been in pretty good shape, and now that we got some rain, it should be even better. This is the first 'real' spring we've had in Iowa for the past few years.

~Rock
 
We may still be a month from playing. That's not typical, but other than that business as usual.
 
My play has been pretty crummy, but the courses I have played in our area have been in the shape I would expect. Every time I have been it has been relatively busy as well, that being said I have pretty much only played at peak times. The one thing that I have noticed is a lot of un healed punch mark from late aeration last year.
 
The golf course is not in the best condition. Haven't had much rain here, and the irrigation system has been under repair due to the usual pipe breakage during the winter. So the course has been dry, and there's been a lot of digging going on to repair the irrigation system.

Also, the fairways have yet to recover from the aeration last fall; they still have plug holes and washboard-like surfaces which collect the ball into 'low' lies.

The good news: I've played 22 rounds so far vs. seven by this time last season.
 
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