Future of golf ? "World's first 'synthetic' course" in Australia

[Sébastien Dhaussy]

From GolfObserver.com :

http://tinyurl.com/yoe2m9

The course in not all synthetic : tees & greens with synthetic grass, fairways with real grass.

As to the claim of "World's first 'synthetic' course", this old GCA thread makes me think it's a little bit presumptuous :

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=7228

Your thoughts on use of synthetic grass for a golf course ?

[Eric Franzen]

Wasa Golf, 30 minutes outside of Stockholm, will contain 27 holes with syntethic greens and tees. Seven of the holes opened for play last year.

[Chris Kane]

I played a pitch-and-putt course with synthetic greens at the Greenhills Adventure Park in South Australia years ago - impossible to get the ball close with rock hard 'greens' and very soft grass surrounds!

[RJ_Daley]

My understanding is that there is or was a fully synthetic course tee to green built in Colorado.   Not sure if it is 9 or 18 holes.  I remember seeing photos of it in some mag.

[Sébastien Dhaussy]

RJ,

Is it Echo Basin Ranch and Golf Club (see the old GCA thread I've posted on the first post)?

Is anybody has an idea of the status of Echo Basin Ranch synthetic course ? GCA thread date to 2003 and I'm not sure the project has been fully completed.  

[RJ_Daley]

Sebastien, (how do you type the accent over the 'e'?   )

Yes, I think that is it.  It may have been a feature in Golf Course Management Magazine, several years ago.  I think we had another thread on it besides the one you posted.  Sorry, I didn't see the link at first.  There were photos, and I seem to remember something about the clubhouse that might have been unique.  It was a split log building as I remember.  I think, as one would expect, that a number of supers weighed in on that old post, besides the one you have linked...  I don't know anything further than that...

[Tim Copeland]

Firm and fast at its finest

I bet if they had ragged edge bunkers the edges would stay.....

On this same wacky side of things....I heard of an indoor course somewhere in MISS when I was doing a course there a few years ago....any news??

[Jim Adkisson]

My brother used to work for a landscape architect in Germany.  They would build pitch and putt courses in unused green spaces within housing complexes using synthetic tees and greens.  He wasn't too impressed, but I'll ask him if he has any photos of these urban projects.

[Ulrich Mayring]

I live in Germany and I never heard of anything like that. Would be very interested to hear details.

Ulrich

[peter_p]

Tim,
It was the Myriad Botanical Resort, outside of Memphis. I started a thread in 2004, which I just added to.
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=13993;start=msg238875#msg238875

[astavrides]

I called Echo Basin this morning and some woman told me that the course 'was not going to happen'.  It sounded like I woke her up, even though it was not that early, so I didnt press the matter or ask for an explanation.  

[Gib_Papazian]

Well, our "woods" are made of some bizarre super-secret alloy, our "irons" are made in molten casts, our golf balls are so far from gutty as to be beyond recognition and our golf carts are equipped with the same technology that allows the miltary to target a white-head pimple on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ass within a five centimeter tolerance.

Why not an artificial golf course? We have GPS . . . . . right? Harry Vardon would retch in the mens room.

I was thinking today about this very subject with the query as to why some investor has not built an enormous in-door golf course somewhere in Minnesota or Wisconsin - or even Canada. Has this been done?

We have a gigantic blimp hangar near Shoreline, adjacent to the NASA research center. If you move that useless building to cold weather climates and install artificial turf and greens, it seems like a guaranteed revenue stream six months a year . . . . .

Am I being a provincial west coast idiot here?

[Brad Swanson]

Am I being a provincial west coast idiot here?

Idiot, no, just someone that hasn't had to pay a winter heating bill in the Midwest.  

Cheers,
Brad

[RJ_Daley]

Brad, he may not know winter heating issues, but if you ever need you tomatoes gassed, Gib is your man!  

Indoor golf courses in Wisconsin; "its the way-a-the-future, way uf-the-future, way o-the-feutchur... ad infinitum..";  HH.