I do understand, brother. I was the Assistant Super at one course who's annual maintenance budget was 1.5 million dollars and another whose budget was not even 1/5 of that. There are a lot of factors that go into what you can and can't do. The big budget place was easy. Just throw money at the problem. The other, not so much.
I do understand, brother. I was the Assistant Super at one course who's annual maintenance budget was 1.5 million dollars and another whose budget was not even 1/5 of that. There are a lot of factors that go into what you can and can't do. The big budget place was easy. Just throw money at the problem. The other, not so much.
For comparison, the private club had a HUGE driving range tee and had teeing areas at both ends. The lower budget place had a range tee that was 1/8 the size, teeing from only one end and did triple the rounds. See where I'm getting at? Sometimes the rate of growth doesn't keep up with the traffic. When you couple that with the fact that the range is the busiest, most used area of the entire facility, it can be difficult to keep up in certain situations. I feel really lucky to have earned my chops at both types of places, to be honest. Certainly gives you a sense of appreciation for both ends of the spectrum.
I was being snarky to you and that was the wrong way to approach it. For that, I apologize. But it just triggered me when someone assumes that someone else is being lazy when they have no context. You know as well as I do how hard that job is and 90% of the guys out there take a lot of pride in their work. Are there some lazy turds out there collecting a check? Absolutely. But they usually find a way to weed themselves out. And they're certainly the minority. Have a good day, man.
Ah, the life.......Yes sir.
At one point I had a PGA Tour budget and extra tournament funds to spend at will. We redid a main tee with Bermuda and had it playable in three weeks. I took the first divot as you know; “we give virgin turf to no one”. Same as you, migrated to a smaller budget on an island course that looked like a dog track. Prior guy was a total douche. My opinion was always to let the practice facility shine. Even so far as steel cups for the practice green. There’s nothing like that sound. It’s where I liked to mingle with members and guests and give our teaching pro’s something they appreciated for giving lessons. I certainly get the smaller facility issue, but a little seed, topdressing and a lawn-leveler goes a looong way, IMO. A busy range that can’t keep up says to me it’s time to invest more effort in it, if possible of course. Space is always a premium. I’ve never met a golfer in my life that didn’t love a pristine piece of grass to practice on.
Don’t mistake my passion as being an ass. I just remember the good days and wanting anyone that stepped foot on my “baby” to leave happy with what they found. Golf is so different from the inside out. You know the story: Weatherman, Chemist, Mechanic, Engineer, Accountant, Psychologist, Human Resources, Politician, Plumber, Electrician, Carpenter….all from a cold barn for little pay and free golf.
All good.
That pretty much covers it. On a super small range, "staggering" the hitting areas before moving the ropes up or back (depending on how you rotate) helps. The worst ones to keep maintained are the "free range" areas where it's just two ropes that define the hitting area. People just pound the sh!t out of every square inch. If you define specific hitting areas within the ropes with just simple 2X4s painted white it helps maintain some level of order and you can control the level of damage much easier. I've found this to be true regardless of the "class" of golf course. People are like sheep. You have to herd them. As @Bosco said, Bermuda is SO much easier than cool season grass to deal with when repairing damage. It does the work itself and is a lot less labor intensive. For some of these small courses or courses with small budgets, it's not even the cost of sand, seed, or peat. Labor costs are what kill you. And in an industry with such high turnover, it's hard to well train staff (let alone keep them).
Yeah, it does. And that's pretty much what I've been doing. Just tough when you're trying to make a swing change or work out a kink.
