Over the last several days, I have been approached about our golf course maintenance schedule. Many of the questions/comments have been regarding greens speeds. I have discussed our current greens maintenance in a few prior posts, so I would like to concentrate on the bigger picture. Our course maintenance schedule has always been extremely transparent. I have shared our procedures and goals at several meeting, mix and mingles and even my Open House last fall. Below is a schedule of the major duties. You will see these not only fall inline with several of the best local courses, but they are also inline with the majority of the best courses nationally.
Greens - Mowed 6 days a week, but mostly 7. Our off day will either be a Monday or a Tuesday. Days we do not mow greens, we are providing other maintainance to them such as topdressing, fertilizing, etc. Greens are also brushed several times immediately prior to a mowing. This helps "stand the turf up" and cleans up any leafy material. There is no benefit to brushing everyday, we monitor turf conditions and base our decision to brush on our evaluation.
Roll Greens - 5 sometimes 6 times per week. Always rolled Saturday and Sunday. We only roll the Putting Green 3 times per week because of the amount of traffic it receives daily. If I were to roll the putting green as much as the other greens, the putting green would be much faster than other greens. Sometimes, based on stimp readings we will eliminate rolling the putting green completely because of the speed to inconstant with rest of the course. This is purely because of traffic.
Cups - These are changed 4 times per week.
Tee markers - These are moved every single day, but are moved more drastically on the days we change cups.
Collars - Mowed 3 days a week
Fairways - Mowed 3 days a week
1st Cut or Perimeter Cut - Mowed 3 days a week.
Tees and Approaches - Mowed 3 days a week.
Bunkers - Raked 4 days a week and mowed once a week.
Rough - The rough is mowed every single day. It takes us 3.5 days to mow the entire course once, so we typically mow the course 1.5 times per week
There is much more than just the above schedule that goes into providing our conditions at Hartefeld. The above is just a snap shot based on comments/opinions presented to me of what is completed daily on the course. The weather is the only issue that would cause this schedule to be altered. On occasion, in anticipation of rain we will increase these practices to keep conditions as consistent as possible. If you have any questions regarding these practices, please do not hesitate as always to contact me.
At my club course we golfers are constantly causing the grounds crew to stop their task as we pass through their work location. I estimate that there is a 25% to 30% loss in productivity of the workers because of this club maintenance policy. These tasks are everything except greens and tee mowing as that is done before the golfers take to the course. It seems like one solution is a exact location schedule for the work items based on the tee schedule for the day. We are open seven days a week but only have about 17,000 rounds per year so there are plenty of holes in our tee schedule.
ReplyDeleteOne solution is to have workers continue their work as golfers pass through, except where there is a sure playability or safety situation. A second solution would be some time of automated scheduling system so that work is taking place where golfers are not there. For instance, most work performed on the back nine in the 8:00AM to 10:30AM time frame.
Does there exist an automated app that does this kind of scheduling? Perhaps there is a position paper written by someone in the greens maintenance industry that describes a solution to this issue.
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ReplyDeleteDo you have a form that can be completed by the superintendent to alert the pro shop when maintenance work such as spraying or sanding greens is scheduled? The pro shop wants to know in advance so they can alert golfers and the super is reluctant to schedule work in advance and so notify.
ReplyDeleteHow many crew members do you need to do the above mentioned work?
ReplyDeleteThank you.