What course maintenance features do you dislike the most?

[Ian Mackenzie]

7. The "Hogan" or courtesy cut in the rough from tee box to fairway

What is your reason for this? I think not having this is a pracfice I dislike. What's the problem with having a path to avoid walking through taller rough?

I love that cut, keeps your cuffs dry on a wet morning. 

I get it.
It's part of my overall theme of less visual distractions on course. Roll of your pant leg, like Hogan did, and relax knowing that your waterproof shoes are also doing their job.

[JMEvensky]

7. The "Hogan" or courtesy cut in the rough from tee box to fairway

What is your reason for this? I think not having this is a pracfice I dislike. What's the problem with having a path to avoid walking through taller rough?

Agree--how can anyone who walks be opposed to this?

Never heard it called a Hogan cut before. I've only heard ladies' walk or pro's walk.

[Will MacEwen]

Will,  so you have to carry the bunker and the rough? 

Yes. Maybe it was designed as such but clearing the bunker and staying in the rough is a major buzzkill.

All of our fairway bunkers are in the rough.

[Paul Gray]

I'm not sure there's too much which the treehouse won't universally agree on. Essentially, long, uniform grass in all its different forms, be it ruining strategy or greenside recovery options, too much water, too much sand and man made paths.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I don't like the rough striped.

[Ian Andrew]

Super tight fairways
I hate anything exclusive to the 1% who least need the assistance.

[Jon Wall]

Fairway striping which follows the shape of the hole. I've yet to see a situation where this looks good.

e.g.

[Adam Warren]

Three feet of 2nd cut around greens.

I have been curious about this a bit.  It seems that the "fringe" area of greens at most public courses is 3 feet or so, then in the private sector you see a mixture.  Some places with about 3 feet, some with 1 foot.  It doesn't seem to be exclusive to high or low end privates, it is just different from one facility to the next.  The only issue that I see, regardless the end of the spectrum, those with the 1 foot cuts tend to see more rough creep in than those with the 3 foot cuts, which would be backwards if it were a purposeful maintenance standard.  Thoughts?

[Greg Clark]

1) Green surrounds that due to overwatering turn into soupy marshlands that a ball cannot escape from when trying to employ the ground game.

2) Growth of fairway rough so deep that much of the round is spent looking for balls a few feet off the fairway.  Generally such practices are regarded with pride by the membership however.

3) Greens that are not rolled frequently enough and create the magical bouncing ball that will only find the hole if lucky.  I don't care as much about the speed, but I hate to see the ball bouncing all over the place when putted.

4) This is more of a golfer maintenance issue, but not raking bunkers or properly fixing ball marks (or feet dragging on greens for that matter).  This has become so much more prevalent an issue over my golfing life.  It is so easy to leave a course in better shape than you find it nowadays, because you can fix multiple divots in the fairways, ball marks on the greens and unraked bunkers on pretty much every hole.  Public and private.

5) While it is common on here to speak about greens speeds becoming to fast to handle the contour of the greens, I've found it at least equally as common to find green speeds too slow (or maintenance too poor) to bring out the nature of what the architect intended on the greens.

6) I too dislike the practice of surrounding bunkers with deep rough.  I'll bet this is the minority view of golfers in the US in regards to this however.  Most are pleased as punch their ball stopped short of the bunker.  And if the lie is poor, well you can always just fluff it up.

7) I've come to dislike massively hairy bunkers, but around the lip or on a tongue extending into the bunker.  I'm talking about dense grass a foot high where it takes a search party to find your ball.  Bunkers are hard enough as is to have your ball be damn near unplayable in the lip of one.  I do like the look of them however.

Lack of something resembling consistency in bunker sand.  I don't need perfection, but I don't like it when there is almost no sand in one bunker and then the entire sand from the Gulf Coast has been imported and stuck in the next.

[MClutterbuck]

Splitting the middle of the fairway by cutting in one direction to the left and the other direction to the right. Bad aesthetics and for the pro, I believe it might even alter certain shots.

[Mitch Hantman]

I'm not a big fan of the maintenance crew raking the faces of the bunkers toward the lips, thus winding up with too much sand there, compared with the centers of the bunkers.  This leads too often to plugged lies, some quite deep.

[Tom Yost]

Fairway striping which follows the shape of the hole. I've yet to see a situation where this looks good.

Would you send the mowers out with instructions to mow but not follow the shape of the hole?

[Adrian_Stiff]

Splitting the middle of the fairway by cutting in one direction to the left and the other direction to the right. Bad aesthetics and for the pro, I believe it might even alter certain shots.

This post shows whatever you do some will like and some wont. You can never please everyone, some will like red flags and some like yellow. Just please as many as you can.

[Jon Wall]

Fairway striping which follows the shape of the hole. I've yet to see a situation where this looks good.

Would you send the mowers out with instructions to mow but not follow the shape of the hole?

I meant that any other mowing pattern - Diamond Cut, 50/50, horizontal stripes, one direction all look far better than the above photo.

[MClutterbuck]

Splitting the middle of the fairway by cutting in one direction to the left and the other direction to the right. Bad aesthetics and for the pro, I believe it might even alter certain shots.

This post shows whatever you do some will like and some wont. You can never please everyone, some will like red flags and some like yellow. Just please as many as you can.

Maybe, but I have personally never heard complaints about single direction cutting, or diamond shape. Depending on the grass, both look a lot more natural. If you are going to have any pattern at all, straight lines are preferable to me than curvy lines or the split middle.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Splitting the middle of the fairway by cutting in one direction to the left and the other direction to the right. Bad aesthetics and for the pro, I believe it might even alter certain shots.
[/quote]This post shows whatever you do some will like and some wont. You can never please everyone, some will like red flags and some like yellow. Just please as many as you can.
[/quote]

Maybe, but I have personally never heard complaints about single direction cutting, or diamond shape. Depending on the grass, both look a lot more natural. If you are going to have any pattern at all, straight lines are preferable to me than curvy lines or the split middle.
[/quote]I think its the GCA preference to have fairways cut in halves, so my point is if I cut in halves I please him and displease you and if I cut the fairways with diamond pattern I displease him and please you....so you can't please everyone

[Jon Wiggett]

Maybe, but I have personally never heard complaints about single direction cutting, or diamond shape. Depending on the grass, both look a lot more natural. If you are going to have any pattern at all, straight lines are preferable to me than curvy lines or the split middle.

I heard some stuff on here but describing diamond cutting as natural takes the biscuit. It has to be the most manufactured and manicured look you can create on a golf course. Most natural has to be your other suggestion though which is cutting in one direction though I would suggest most natural look is achieved by grazing.

Jon

[Mark Jackson]

I despise fairways where the edges are mowed in a zig-zag pattern. As illustration, check out the photo on the homepage of this private club:

http://www.sugarvalleygc.com/

This technique results in artificial wide areas of fairway alternating with narrow portions. There are no design features such as mounding or elevation change that exist on the land to support the "fingers" that are created by the zig-zag mowing pattern. Rather, the land is primarily flat (albeit there are two fairway bunkers in two of the "fingers," but that does not explain the remaining zig-zags). This technique is all too common on many of the nondescript courses that I have played in the midwest. I guess some could argue that the members/superintendent/owner who directed this mowing pattern to be used is attempting to add character or difficulty to the course as an alternative to a straight, bowling alley fairway, but it looks and plays very artificial, unnecessary and too busy for my tastes.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

over watering certainly the biggest waste.
Green speeds that do not match the degree of contour simply beacuse of ego status.
Owners and superintendents that dont care about the architects planned lines of play and allow rough lines to intrude into the playing areas.
As a Brit peave number one Cart Paths.

[Chris DeToro]

1.  Cart paths
2.  Watering during the course of play on a slower weekend afternoon

[Tim Gavrich]

I kind of agree with the half-away-half-toward style of mowing fairways. I understand it's the "classic " look, but having players drive the ball into the grain on one side and against the grain on the other side of each fairway strikes me as a bit arbitrary. Not the worst thing in the world, but has always struck me as odd.

Fairway edges that have drifted 10 yards away from fairway bunkers slay me, though.

[Marc Haring]

Half and half or the traditional way is by far the most cost affective method of presentation. There is no lifting of the cutting units required, it is basically just bomb it down one side, turn, bomb it down the other. With gang mowers it is the only feasible way of mowing. Financial savings are significant.

[MClutterbuck]

Maybe, but I have personally never heard complaints about single direction cutting, or diamond shape. Depending on the grass, both look a lot more natural. If you are going to have any pattern at all, straight lines are preferable to me than curvy lines or the split middle.

I heard some stuff on here but describing diamond cutting as natural takes the biscuit. It has to be the most manufactured and manicured look you can create on a golf course. Most natural has to be your other suggestion though which is cutting in one direction though I would suggest most natural look is achieved by grazing.

Jon

Jon, i agree most natural is one direction. I also agree perfectly symmetrical diamond cutting looks unnatural. I should have said multiple and varied direction. Depending on height, the diamond pattern tends to disappear with some grasses. In any event, I prefer as little a pattern as possible.

[Thomas Dai]

Are gang mowers pulled by tractors used much these days?

I'm struggling to think of the last time I observed one in use.

atb

[Jon Wiggett]

Thomas,

I use a set on my semi rough and I know of several other courses in the area that do but not on the fairway.

Jon