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.