Undersoil heating to greens

[Britishshooting]

I'm a member at two courses, one of which I was a childhood member and have literally just re-joined as I miss the social and it's okay to practice at when I can't make it to my preferred course.

There is a new owner who claims to have big plans for this very average if not sub-par golf course. Greenfee's are typically around £25 in peak summer to give an idea. Greens are in good knick due to keen greenskeepers but it's mainly sand based and the fairways are poor as it's a clay base, not your carpet fairways..you're usually thankful to not have a bare lie in summer. What i'm getting at is whilst it's okay to have a knock around it has many limitations currently.


ANYWAY...

Someone has recently acquired the course as the previous owner sold up having failed to develop the land adjoining the course.

He's making many bold claims however one major one was undersoil heating to the greens.

I can get my head around it for some top flight course but not a course of this nature. I see woburn has a system like this in place but has anyone ever been a member when such works have been undertaken?

It must be a lengthy, costly and disruptive installation to retrofit such a system not to mention the running costs unless technology has advanced somewhat.?

I'm sure it's one of the many bold claims that are made and quickly forgotten however it would be interesting to know what implications it would have should it go ahead?

 

[Bunkermagnet]

I have only heard of sub-air systems so that the greenes dry out much quicker after rain. To actually have undersoil heated greens would I imagine be massively costly to run, and a real pain for when you want to hollow core and tine a green.
I would imagine that someone has got confused about it somewhere.

 

[IanM]

Played Wentworth with the sub-air system on..... it's bloomin noisy!!

Someone has indeed got losts of cash to spend or has got the wrong end of the stick

 

[Britishshooting]

He certainly has an abundance of cash and seems to want to make it a better course than I believe it could ever be however usually such people aren't so happy to part with their money.

I' m aware of the sub-air system and whilst it's useful to have the greens are okay, there never going to be Augusta greens or Wentworth for that matter to justify such a cost. Even this system feels as though it would cost a lot of time, effort and be quite disruptive?

I wasn't at the AGM so I didn't hear this first hand however I was reliably informed by several members he definitely was discussing undersoil heating to counter the frosts. Which in fairness haven't been terrible so far this year.

 

[Deleted Member 1156]

Was there any mention of how much your subs will increase? This won't be cheap to install or run!

 

[shortgame]

Sounds very errrr 'ambitious'!

The cost / benefit analysis wold be interesting 💰💰💰

 

[SteveJay]

Never heard of such a thing for greens, but obviously most top football clubs have it installed but I assume only used in cold weather. If that's the case for a golf course would it only be used in frosty conditions? If so running costs may not be quite as high, but still sounds like a big investment for relatively light use.

Or...am I missing the point and is it used for other reasons...drainage, moisture etc?

 

[Jacko_G]

Can't imagine undersoil heating will be beneficial or do any good for greens. Are they getting confused/mixed up with the sub-air system that has already been mentioned?