38 Putts

The budget was passed !

After 3 months of haggling with the board the greens budget has been approved. As a member of the greens committee I guess I am supposed to be thrilled. As a member of the club my stomach sunk as there is no way on earth we can cover this budget with the membership we presently have. Before I even had a chance to voice this minor point I was told that the member ship committee as a huge membership drive planned and they expect to attract a large number of new members. Hmmm, clubs are losing members all around the country. Other golf clubs in our region are also launching huge membership drives with both TV and Radio ads with moderate success at best. Part of me can't wait to see how this magic trick plays out.

You're closing the course for what !!!

For the first 35-40 years that I've playing golf, if you were playing a hole that had a sprinkler going you simply played around the sprinkler as you knew the course needed to be watered if you wanted to have any type of '"good" playing conditions and that included a private club and weekend afternoons. Well I don't know how it started but a few years back some one must have made a huge stink because we went from an automatic sprinkler system to a monitored system. The purpose of the monitor was to turn off the sprinkler as golfers approached so that they, heaven forbid, need not play around the spray or worse wait for the sprinkler to move away from their ball. Now this is a nice luxury if you can afford but the question is can you afford it ? And the price is not always clear. One of the unforeseen consequences of this "little modification" was that no got to observe the full cycle of the sprinkler heads and as a result "we lost track" of the coverage pattern. And the next thing you know your tee sprinklers are watering the woods all night long as the heads no longer turn, and the first hot spell not only leaves you with brown tee boxes but these lovely brown 1/2 circles in your otherwise lush green fairways. 

Now of course you can't expect your players to walk around running sprinklers anymore and you're running your budget so tight that the green keeper can't add any overtime to have the system monitored while the course is open so to make sure you sprinkler system is working properly you have to .....you guessed it close the course. Man I must be getting old as I just don't get it !

Come on can't we at least plant a tree !

At one of the first greens committee meetings I had attended there was a senior member present that had served on the committee for about 3 years. He had been involved in the firing of the past green keeper and the hiring of the current green keeper. Much of the meeting had centered around purchasing a specific piece of equipment ( a back hoe ) and the information from the green keeper that we would need to present this request to the board of directors. ( How that worked out is for another post. ) The remainder of the meeting focused on what I called green keeping 101 where the committee peppered the green keeper with questions that they really didn't care about and "listened" to answers they even cared less about. You know things like root structure, green compaction problems and re-routing cart and foot traffic, divot mix, irrigation issues etc.

Anyway when the chair presented the wrap up and the only follow up item involved the some additional work on the back hoe presentation the senior committee member piped up "Come on can't we at least plant a tree !"

The green keeper's barn, 6:30am Monday

"That ought to keep them complaining for awhile" was not really the greeting I expected when I walked in the green keepers yard but it was the one I got. "You see when it reaches the point where the only thing members can find to complain about is green speed then over all they think the course is in pretty good condition." When I asked about the weekend with the pin placements and increased green speed he just smiled and said that he never changed the mower hieght nor did he do anything else to "speed them up". He simply found some very tough pin placement and used them. We the players only thought the greens were faster.

Incidently he did later end up lowering the cutting hieghts just a bit for club championship and then again in the fall, but it was when he felt it was safe to do so and it was the last time for that year we heard the "green speed chant".

Green speed, we need more green speed....

A common cry, like that is going to help you putt better. Playing last evening I had all 3 other members of my foursome site the "lack of green speed" to be the courses biggest flaw, yet  none of us were banging directly at the hole nor were any of us 3 putting or worse picking up after 3 putts.  My first year serving on greens, come early June the committee started hearing the "green speed chant", and I dutifully wrote a note to bring this pressing issue up are are next meeting.

When meeting night came around though it was obvious that my note was not needed as the issue was brought up before we all had a chance to take a seat. The green keeper put up a minimal defense for the slower speeds and agreed that by the weekend he would have the green speeds up to where we wanted them. It turned out to be a very short meeting as after this opening all requests for this and that we replied to by "it's going to take some effort to get those green speeds up so I don't think I'll have time for that." Suspecting there was something else a going on I bit my tongue rather than blurting out "All you need do is lower the mower blades a few thousandths".

Upon the meetings adjournment I caught what I thought was a grin on the keepers lips I decided to ask him what was up when all he had to do was lower the blades. With that he broke into a smile and said he didn't have to do that much and if I came by to see him Monday am about 6:30 he'd be happy to fill me in. Casually interested I made a mental note and we parted ways.

Teeing it up Saturday morning I was anxious to experience our increased green speeds and to hear all the praises on what a good job the committee had done it "straightening out" the green keeper and getting those speeds up to "where they should be". The first thing I noticed was that we had to wait an extra minute or 2 in the first fairway while the group in front putted out. Hmm I thought to myself guessing people are having a touch of trouble and didn't think much of it until the we were waiting to approach the #3 green. It was taking forever. When it finally came time to play we all hit fairly decent approach shots my ending up pin high about 20 feet to the right of the hole.

Now this green is up a hill, with the 4th tee down the hill behind it and it is not uncommon for one group to watch the next hit up while waiting for the tee. When we arrived at the green they were still there and I was greeted with a wager, "I'll bet you $20 you can't 3 putt from there."  Not being a terrible putter I gave my situation a look, and thought to myself no way. The cup had been cut on a small crown that sat just below the top of a ridge that my putt would have to hold just to stay within 6 feet.

Anyway 4 putts later I joined the group on the back of the green and listened to the fireworks, "He's insane to have double cut the greens and use these pin placements"(note the greens were not double cut)  "We wanted faster greens not table tops" "These greens are unfair !" To be truthful I started laughing to myself and was afraid I'd laugh out loud and couldn't wait until Monday am.

Oh yes, before I end for now, the 4th hole was worse and the round took a Little over 6 hours to play !!

Water, we need lots of water

After attending a few greens committee meetings a "problem" kept being brought up and swept under the rug. Bring it up sweep it under the rug. I realize it was a minor detail but what it was is that we were being held hostage by our neighbor in that our neighbor controlled access to our water supply and although rent was "reasonable" at the time it was clear that it was only a matter of time before we began dealing with the heirs, who happen to live 2500 miles away and really didn't care about our precious golf course. To be honest I failed to get the board of directors attention on the matter when I served as green chair, however others did eventually pick up on it, take the ball and run. But it amazes me still how it just kept getting buried until it cost us 10 times what it should have. Now if we could only take of the pumping problems......