Cart Boundary Stake System

Have you ever noticed around greens or tee boxes that there are areas where there just isn’t any grass?  Maybe next to where everybody parks to walk up to the green? Or where everyone drives onto the fairway from their tee shot?  There is a solution for these cart stressed areas.  We have been working in the shop during the inclement weather times getting this stake system fabricated and we are now ready to put it in action.

4x4x18" posts - one of them placed near cart path and other on other side of fairway

 As you come out to play the courses this week you will notice these large wood stained 4x4 posts (18" tall) with either blue or red painted on the top on all par 4s and 5s on both courses.  The blue ones will be on the Cypress Course to go along with the blue flags, and the red ones will be on the Pecan Course, as it has red flags.  These stakes will be indicators for all carts to let you know where to enter and where to exit each hole with your cart.  There will be one placed just after the tee boxes and two of them up near the green on each side of the hole.  From the tee box you will need to keep your carts on the path until you drive PAST the marker and then you are free to drive anywhere on the hole until you get to the two stakes near the approach to the green, at which point you need to get back on the cart path BEFORE PASSING them.  Due to the shortness of the par 3 holes we are going to designate them Cart Path Only at all times, and there will not be any markers. 

 

You can see from these simple drawing diagrams what is the correct and incorrect ways to drive near the stakes. 

Past tee boxes - one stake near cart path - you can see from the arrows where you are allowed to drive - always go past the stake before entering fairway - imaginary dotted line horizontally from the stake and cart path



Near green - imaginary dotted line across both stakes showing where you are not allowed to drive

There has always been a large number of members at my previous clubs who pleaded with me to get this done to help the turfgrass around the high profile areas (tees and greens), and it works great provided we get membership buy-in.  We will rotate the location of these markers on a daily basis so we can spread out the traffic, but they will always be roughly 25-100 yards from the green.  This will allow the roughs around the tees and greens to grow without the additional stress.  It will give them a fighting chance to be the best looking grass on the course, which is what you would want and expect around your best areas.  We also have the smaller 8" wooden stakes along the cart paths near greens and tees protecting areas where carts park to walk up to these areas. 

Now that these markers are up and the stress is taken off, we will begin the recovery and healing process around these areas.  We will do some solid tine aerification to relieve the compaction that heavy cart traffic can cause, and then follow up with some needed fertility and deep watering to get the plant back to recovery.  It is work that you won’t really notice as a golfer, but the benefits will be very nice. 

We want to make your round as enjoyable as we can from an ease of access perspective as well as a quality of conditions perspective.  We feel these new guidelines will fit right in with both of those.  We can’t do it without the help of our membership.  We will also make announcements prior to golf outings letting them know the cart rules as there is a good bit of traffic from those groups.  Thank you for your understanding and help in spreading the word.  In order to make these courses the best they can be it is going to take more than just effort on the course maintenance staff to get it done - everyone can participate and help in the cause by leaving the course in better shape then you found it. 

 

 

New Golf Course Flags

One nice little change that you will see this week on both golf courses – a different look to the flags on each hole.  We went with a more classic style look and a little differentiation between the two courses. You will see blue flags on the Cypress Course and red flags over on the Pecan Course.  Not all that earth shattering, but just a little something to put some separation between the two.  It even says the name of the course embroidered on each flag underneath the embroidered logo.  We also made little putting green flags in blue and red with the course logo instead of the plain white flags.  We will continue to use the white flag sticks with yardage reflector.  Just another small step towards improving your experience here at Sweetwater. 

New Flags with course name below logo

 

New Tee Markers and Cart Path Stakes

The weather hasn’t exactly cooperated much with us over the last month, but that isn’t slowing us down from getting ready for spring.  There are a number of projects that we have been working on and cleaning up some of the course accessories is big on our list.  One of my first impressions when I started a month ago was that a lot of the course accessories (tee markers, stakes, rope, flags, ball washers, flags, etc.) didn’t match or have any theme to them.  Sometimes the accessories on a golf course can make or break you, and leave the member or guest with a bad impression of the place.  I’ve always tried for a simplistic, classic look with course accessories – you don’t want the accessory to overpower the course, let the architecture do the job. 

Tee markers were in need of a change, as it had been a little while since the last ones were done.  We decided the best thing to do for now was recreate what had been used, but give it an upgrade so it would last longer.  All landscape timbers were angle cut, sanded, stained, and painted for completion.  The stain waterproofs the wood to prevent moisture damage, and also has a protective coating to prevent mildew buildup which was an issue with the old ones.  It should also give it a new, fresh look that lasts much longer.  We will redo tee markers every winter.  We put the new ones out this past weekend.

 



Sanding down the tee markers for smoothness

 

Staining them for water and mildew prevention

 

Painting the edges for each tee box location

 

Blue tee markers in place

One other thing that I saw as an opportunity to spruce up the place and improve grass conditions was to make new wear area stakes.  With any golf course that uses golf carts for the players you are always going to have areas where the grass gets worn down.  I’m sure you saw a bunch of the little green and white stakes all over the place that prevented you from driving in certain areas.  I have used those at my previous courses, but I thought this place might be better suited to stay with the wood theme.  We took the same material we use for tee markers and cut them straight at 8” and added a 3/8” galvanized stake to keep them in the ground.  These stakes were also sanded and stained with the same material used for tee markers.  We will use these around tees, greens, and high traffic spots around cart paths.  I would prefer to never use any type of stake, but I feel it is necessary if you want to have grass in all areas.  We need the help of the membership to obey the areas where there are stakes and not drive through them.  We will straighten these daily and move them around to areas of need as we see fit.  We started putting these out last week. 

Staining wear area stakes

Placement of wear area stakes along cart path near a green where carts park

Once these are complete we will move on to a few other things, including painting all hole signs and ball washers. We will also create a boundary system around tees and greens to try and minimize unnecessary traffic around these important areas to improve the aesthetics and playability of some of our most important grass areas.  I’ll talk about this more in depth next week once the stakes are ready to go.  They are in addition to the little stakes used around cart paths. I’ll talk about their importance and what we will do agronomically to get grass back in a lot of these areas.