consistent playing conditions will attract new customers and encourage a sense of loyalty. Improved Safety. Technology has had a big impact on safety. In the 1990s, we were designing public golf courses with landing areas at 210 to 260 yards. Today, our areas are at 250 to 310 yards. From an owner’s standpoint, technology has created a big liability issue. People are not only hitting the ball further, they’re hitting it further off line. It may be time to renovate if your club is relying on trees to keep golfers or adjacent property owners safe.
In this day and age, for most courses, adding more length and making the course more challenging is simply not the answer. We’ve all heard it said: “golf is too difficult, too expensive and takes too long to play”. The idea of making golf more difficult is likely to only farther reduce profitability and take money away from projects that could actually translate into attracting more customers. Reduce Turf Loss & Loss of Revenue.
If you have recurring issues with turf loss in your fairways or on your greens, it may be time to renovate. Often times, loss of fairway Improve Playability. turf is a function of poor drainage or fairways that are heavily infested This gets back to providing with Poa annua. Correcting fairway improved value and differentiating drainage and converting fairway turf your course from the competition. can not only improve playability, This might mean reducing forced but can help improve revenue. Loss carries, renovating bunkers, buildof turf on greens may mean its time ing new forward tees, improving to re-grass or conduct a more extenirrigation or removing trees to imsive renovation of the greens to reprove turf quality and restore play- solve underlying agronomic issues. ing corridors. Making the course From an owner’s standpoint, loss of more enjoyable for more people will revenue is a big concern so reducing translate into added revenue. susceptibility to turf loss is a good Page 30