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Part time Green Keeper needs advice

R

rapper

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May 14, 2007
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Hi I am a part time helper on our local municiple golf course and i am sick of the negative comments the players continually make against the up keep of their course.
They are inevatably the god squad(play sunday mornings )and we get comments like
1 No faiway defiition in winter,i assume this means lack of cutting the fairways?
2 Bunkers ..too much sand in and not uniform in depeth ,should be level and not dep then shallow
3 leaves left in ditches and on the fairway,we have had to rake all these leaves up and have not had machinery to help us do this(may have some machines coming ..not holding our breaths)
4 no green staff on 2 consecutive sunday mornings to cut the greens and rake the bunkers before they play their games
etc etc etc we have 4 regular workers and the occationl help from council emplyees,any constuctive comments for us to shut the winggers up please......................................................................................................................................................Over worked and underpaid skivvies for cat1/2 golfers
 
i would remind them its a muni course. most muni's seem to be council owned as as such with all the cut backs the courses are struggling a bit.

Ours for example is a muni, the rake the bunkers mondays and fridays, and most of the cutting is done on fridays or mondays alike. its a bitch because come medal day like yesturday the bunkers were not good based on the fact that they hadnt been raked by green staff since friday, and with rain on saturday and no players being bothered to rake them after go in some of the bunkers looked like building sites. Its a muni course and i accept this as par of the course, yeah we have the odd winge but at £24.00 a round with no financial commitment to the club funds are obviously limited.

if i was paying £1000-£1200 a year membership, then id expect the things you have mentioned to be done or they would be an issue, but at a muni... its expected in my opinion.
 
Are the comments negative or constructive? Just because golfers criticise they shouldn't be looked on by green staff as "negative". If the fairways are too long or the sand in bunkers is too deep/shallow or, worse still, inconsistant or the other things that you write about, then the players will not get the best out of their game and be able to play to their handicap. At my course I pay £1000 per year to play and, I believe rightly, get annoyed when the course is not presented as well as I believe it should be.

The pay you get is not the golfers concern and whilst it is inveriably cat 1 and 2 golfers who are the most affected when a course is in poor condition it is everyone's handicap that will suffer. I think that you have developed a "them and us" devide and you now call them whingers, where they are just trying to get what they feel they pay for.

The best thing is to get proper staffing levels and dialogue between you and the whingers so that the work that you do is the most important to the golfer and should take precedence. The golfers are the customers and need to be treated as such otherwise they will vote with their feet!

You may be overworked and underpaid but thats not the fault of the golfers !


Chris
 
Perhaps try and engage the whingers in conversation and explain the problems you have? At our course I recently got to know a few of the greenkeeping staff and was surprised that they both took an interest in competition results and played golf themselves. There did/does seem a bit of a them and us mentality and I feel less negative about the job they do now I feel I know them and understand the process a little more.

Before I felt I knew the guys I used to think - they were plain ignorant when it came to waiting beside a green before cutting (or not as I approached)...leaving their radios blaring in their "cabs" and totally ignorant of golf judging by the places they put the pins and the standard of the hole cutting! The collecting of leaves is something I'd like to see done as it's a nightmare but there's only so much work the team can carry out in daylight hours so something has to give...

I guess I still have some gripes but feel less inclined to voice them and more inclined to understand their difficulties now I actually speak to them !
 
muttleee said:
Do the whingers always replace their divots, repair their pitchmarks and rake bunkers, I wonder?
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spot on, ive pulled a couple of our members up who dont rake buinkers... do as i say not as i do and all that. if everyone raked bunkers, the green staff instead of raking bunkers could collect leaves or do other stuff.
 
Am an ex greenkeeper of about 10 years experience, am now a GC member and have nowt to do with course mainteance now.

Not sure where you are based (makes a difference in some of the answers) and access to machinery/expertise but here goes.


1 No faiway defiition in winter,i assume this means lack of cutting the fairways? - this will be the delineation between the first cut of rough and fairway. I would not be cutting fairways from Oct until Apr, why not get the brushes onto the back of the tractor or use a litermiser to give some defintion on the fairways - use as per the gang mowers.
2 Bunkers ..too much sand in and not uniform in depeth ,should be level and not dep then shallow - big bugbear of mine, winter maintenance to dig and reditribute sand, although education of members on how to rake bunkers will give a more consistent sand depth.
3 leaves left in ditches and on the fairway,we have had to rake all these leaves up and have not had machinery to help us do this(may have some machines coming ..not holding our breaths) - see number 1, machinery is key but you could use a drag mat attached to a mechanical mower / tractor to move these from the fairway or a hurricane!!
4 no green staff on 2 consecutive sunday mornings to cut the greens and rake the bunkers before they play their games - you pays your money, if you expect private GC conditions you must pay the fees.

Sounds like you guys are doing a good job of maintaining the place, I would concentrate on working with golfers, educating them, have an open day to show what is involved in the management of a golf course. Most important thing is to have a schedule of works and a maintenance plan available to the golfing public so they can appreciate what is going on with their course. Much better to talk than fight!!
 
Ask them when you could go round to their house and see their lawns as they obviously all experts they will have perfect grass and they can show you how it's done.
 
Greenkeepers need to realise that :-

A) We golfers are all experts in how the course should be presented
B) We know best
C) We would do a better job
D) We would do it differently
E) We know the course better than them
F) We would use the budget better
G) We would have EVERYTHING perfect!

So remember that we golfers and we members are correct, just you get on with it and accept we are right, you are wrong, be thankful that us Gods of the fairways are giving you employment!!!


(I would insert a wee smillie but still aint figured out how to do it!)
 
1. Greenkeepers
2. Polititions
3. Traffic wardens
4. Tax collectors
5. Estate agents
6. Airport security staff
7. Baggage handlers
8. Call centre staff
9. That bloke who keeps shoving takeaway leaflets through my door
10. Lollipop ladies

All in that order, that’s life I’m afraid, just get on with it :(
 
Doh said:
Whats wrong with Lollipop ladies/men they do a great job keeping our kids safe.
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Eh! excuse me! did i say anything was wrong with any on the afore mentioned list :D.

But you have a good point, it's just when they stick their lollypops up waiting in the middle of the road waiting for two gassing mothers 100 yards away from reaching and who have already dropped their kids off, that distorts my vision of them, and i think :mad: greenkeeper!
 
Don't really see the point in the OP??

Is there information displayed/ distributed as to why certain things look the way they do? If not then why shouldn't the customers question why it looks so shoddy?

The same situation was present at my current (soon to ex) club. It was as though the greeenkeeper thought he should be unaccountable. Every time you asked why something was looking a certain way or what was the need for a particular treatment or maintenance program you were thought of as a whinger or just complaining without reason.

It come to such a head for me that i have chosen to spend my membership fee elsewhere next year. If I had got sufficient info back from them with some sort of rationale then i would have stayed.

We didn't just say stuff like "the greens are crap" or "the bunkers are rubbish" etc.

We asked for a reason, if any, that the greens appeared to becoming poorer for longer periods year on year. Was it due to lack of cash/ manpower/ enviromental restrictions etc etc?? The reaction to that was a case of "Oh stop your moaning, we are doing the best we can. We are the experts so let us get on with our work"


They obviously didn't need my cash for next year.
 
The definition between fairway and rough gets more important at this time of year, as rolling over kicks in. How are you supposed to know if you are entitled to a preferrential lie, if you can't see where the fairway ends and the rough begins?
 
murphthemog said:
The definition between fairway and rough gets more important at this time of year, as rolling over kicks in. How are you supposed to know if you are entitled to a preferrential lie, if you can't see where the fairway ends and the rough begins?
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Rolling over? Please explain.
 
Winter rules. A ball lying on the cut stuff can be marked, cleaned and replaced within 6 inches, not nearer the hole. Like they were playing at the HSBC in Shanghai recently. Happens when it is muddy and wet.
 
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