Standard of winter mats / tees

[Deleted member 16999]

Do people believe the greenstaff do stuff on the course like winter mats etc for the good of the course and to ensure the course is at its best for as long as possible or do you think they do it all just to annoy members ?

If a mat has been put out then it's for a reason -to ignore that and use the tee box is both selfish and ignorant and the sort of person who has no care about the course

Totally agree, Winter Tee boxes are there for a reason.

 

[Hobbit]

Totally agree, Winter Tee boxes are there for a reason.

But only for the unselfish. Selfish people ignore them.

 

[Imurg]

We have mats on our par 3s, have done ever since I've played there.
They come out mid-range November and stay until April.
Most of them are octagonal - and they put the markers, effectively, in the middle of the mat.
That means you only have half a mat to use....
I've mentioned it many a time but nothing ever changes.
Played at Whipsnade last week - no mats.....

 

[Capella]

On most holes our course has little areas on the front of the ususal tee box (yellow for the men, red for the ladies) which is laid out with rubber paviour, like it is normally used on playgrounds, for example. The advantage over mats is that you can put a tee into the seams between the stones, at least as long as the ground is not frozen solid (and when it is you would struggle to get a tee into the ground anywhere, I guess). Plust the rubber bricks are pretty much indestructable and stay out there all year without any noticable damage done to them by the elements. There are only two holes where we have actual mats (which are awful and get very slippery when there is frost on them) to stand on and only a small strip of those rubber tiles to hit the ball from. I have absolutely no idea why those two holes are different from the others, maybe they ran out of rubber tiles when they built them. They are normal par 4 holes, there is no more moisture in the ground than on the other holes ... there just does not seem to be a reason for it. And then there is one hole where they built a competely seperate normal tee box (well, two acutally, one for the men and one for the ladies) for winter use. Well, now that I think of it, that is not right. The tees now used as winter tees used to be the regular teeing areas and they later added new raised tees a bit further back. So I guess they figured they might just keep the old tee boxes in for winter use. That is the nices solution, of course, but I guess there is just not enough room to do that on every hole or the extra teeing areas are too expensive to build and maintain.

Those of you who hit of the ladies tees instead of the mats, please reconsider. Your club might have a lot less ladies playing than men (especially in the winter months) and therefore decided that the normal tees can remain in play. Also, most ladies will hit driver, woods or a hybrid off the tee there, therefore taking no divot at all, while you guys might just smack chunks of dirt out with your wedges. (If you still use driver even though you are that much further forward, forget what I said and go ahead and feel free to use the ladies tees all the time, please)

 

[chip barm]

15 of the 18 holes at my local club were mats. early on they were pretty slippy but not too bad. we saw quite a few lads walking out of the pro shop holding, what could only be described as, a carpet sample? 6" wide and a good foot long. half way round i got to have a look at one up close because one bloke using it nearly took my pp's head off with a wayward iron and played his next right beside us. it was covered in the type of artificial grass you see in a butchers window. so on every shot he'd pick his ball up, place it on this tiny portable mat and take his shot. never seen that before.

 

[BrizoH71]

We have them in play just now, but they are deadly once wet and then the frost gets onto them.

For H&S they are assessed prior to play, and we are allowed to tee off to the side of the markers if the mats are deemed unfit for use that day. We're not allowed to take divots though and must use tees if the mats aren't in use, or tee off using our own fairway mats.

 

[snell]

We have mats on a few holes at the minute. Unfortunately they're a necessary evil!

 

[HomerJSimpson]

We don't use mats on any hole and to be honest the green staff are brilliant at moving tee boxes around to rest most areas. In very icy conditions it's not unheard of for them to move it to a mown area at the front of each tee box. Not as well cut as a proper tee but more than sufficient in the circumstances.

That said, the tee boxes with mats at most clubs I've played are usually pretty poor, with the mats seldom replaced, the box itself usually too small for purpose and sometimes pointing at very bizarre angles to the intended line of play. That said, it is winter golf and if it means a chance to get out and play, then sometimes it's a price worth paying.

 

[Reemul]

No one minds a mat as long as they are in good condition, a good size and you can get your tee in them. My 2 local courses have mats and they are shockingly bad, tatty and a real struggle to get a tee in.

There is no way they would let a normal tea box be in such a bad state so why a mat, half the time the mat isn't even pointing in the correct direction either.

Very frustrating.

 

[patricks148]

i don't have an issue with mats at our place as they are to protect the course while the grass doesn't grow.

but do wish the green staff would put them down facing the target, some of ours look like they have just been flung from the back of a moving Vehical

 

[Coffey]

We have mats on every hole at our club through the winter. Most mats are in decent condition but a few are very hard and can be very very slippy when wet. All of them have holes to put tees in but people use wooden tees in the holes and they break and clog up the holes which can make getting your tee in very difficult.

One of the most frustrating things at our club is that they close off the fairways, they have white markers on 'popular' areas of the fairways, if you land between the markers you need to lift off to the closest side and play from there. The side of the fairway is well cut so you do have a decent lie, the issue is when you have to move and you may be moving to behind a bunker or giving yourself a more difficult shot. They do have small mats which you can buy from the proshop and use on the fairways. Any other clubs do this?

 

[stokie_93]

The very good thing about our course at winter is our mats.

I don't mind playing off mats if they're a good size and decent to hit off.

Ours are about 3x3m & they're really nice spongy and thick astroturf mats. I have no hesitation hitting an iron without a tee off them. Tees go in easily they have dedicated holes to put them in.

We only have them on few selected holes to preserve the tees & then a few holes have dedicated winter tee areas.

 

[Matty6]

No mats or winter greens at our place. There is a lot of room on our tees so the markers can be moved frequently to allow the ground to recover after a comp etc..

 

[Deleted member 21258]

Don't think we have ever played off mats at our club here. Our club does have extra grass tees on a number of the holes that are used in winter(shorter as well, kind of red tee distance)

But mats were very common at clubs in Essex when I lived there and yeah some were good, some bad, some were terrible! but just used them and got on with the golf.

 

[Hosel Fade]

Its perfectly possible to have a nice artificial tee like for example the drop shot par 3 at Murrayfield where the tee is set in the woods and it would be impossible to grow grass. Bad mats just set the tone for the golfer to have a rubbish experience, wonder how much the cost difference would be over a period of years if you had two sets of decent mats and swapped them over on a weekly basis to stop them going awful and clean them

 

[Robobum]

On most holes our course has little areas on the front of the ususal tee box (yellow for the men, red for the ladies) which is laid out with rubber paviour, like it is normally used on playgrounds, for example. The advantage over mats is that you can put a tee into the seams between the stones, at least as long as the ground is not frozen solid (and when it is you would struggle to get a tee into the ground anywhere, I guess). Plust the rubber bricks are pretty much indestructable and stay out there all year without any noticable damage done to them by the elements. There are only two holes where we have actual mats (which are awful and get very slippery when there is frost on them) to stand on and only a small strip of those rubber tiles to hit the ball from. I have absolutely no idea why those two holes are different from the others, maybe they ran out of rubber tiles when they built them. They are normal par 4 holes, there is no more moisture in the ground than on the other holes ... there just does not seem to be a reason for it. And then there is one hole where they built a competely seperate normal tee box (well, two acutally, one for the men and one for the ladies) for winter use. Well, now that I think of it, that is not right. The tees now used as winter tees used to be the regular teeing areas and they later added new raised tees a bit further back. So I guess they figured they might just keep the old tee boxes in for winter use. That is the nices solution, of course, but I guess there is just not enough room to do that on every hole or the extra teeing areas are too expensive to build and maintain.

Those of you who hit of the ladies tees instead of the mats, please reconsider. Your club might have a lot less ladies playing than men (especially in the winter months) and therefore decided that the normal tees can remain in play. Also, most ladies will hit driver, woods or a hybrid off the tee there, therefore taking no divot at all, while you guys might just smack chunks of dirt out with your wedges. (If you still use driver even though you are that much further forward, forget what I said and go ahead and feel free to use the ladies tees all the time, please)

Our club puts the par 3s onto the ladies tee thru winter and we end up making a right old mess of them.

Even the long par 3s go from 200yds +, where a lot of men will be using timber down to the ladies tee where most men will be hitting irons and taking divots.

Strange

 

[PaulyMcK]

I don't want to start a thread, but I will be needing a Winter Rules Mat for the new club I've joined for the Fairway, the club shop doesn't have any more in stock and I would like to get one for this weekend?

I'm looking for the double sided plastic one, one that has a smooth back and the other is rougher, with more plastic grass. Anyone got any good links on where to get one?

 

[louise_a]

I would try another local club, although it seems strange that your clubs shop doesn't haven't any left.

There may be a spare in your locker room that you could use while you are trying to get your own.

 

[Ross61]

We have mats that are smallish but big enough to take a driver from. The mat is AstroTurf and you can get a tee in wherever you want. They generally are used in January to early march, but this year they were still in use up till May due to the poor ground conditions. At present we only have one mat in use and that is because the tee is being moved over the winter and the old tee is being made into a new putting green.
I am happy to use the mats so we don't wreck the tees over the winter.

Anyone using the grass tee when the mats are in use are totally selfish. Same as the people that insist on at tending the flag in bounce games over the winter.

 

[hovis]

teeing off mats, fairway mats and temp greens!!!! what i don't understand is how some clubs use them and some dont. however, grass is grass so why do clubs that dont use them still look great? is it down to saving work for the greenys?