Sand greens

[Tony_Moffat]

(cringe)

Hello, is there a web site dedicated to courses with sand greens?

I have been drifting in/out of this site for several years and rarely see/read about the topic.

Thanks

Tony

[A_Clay_Man]

Do you mean push-up or usga?

Hurzdan wrote a wonderful piece on his construction methods, I have no idea if it's posted on the web.

[Doug Wright]

Adam,

I think he means the REAL sand greens, where the greens actually are sand, you putt on 'em then rake them for the next players to come through. Lots of low budget 9 holers in eastern Colorado still have them.

All The Best,

[Mark Studer]

Tony , I do not know about a website about sand greens, but the first course I ever played(higginsville cc. ,a nine holer 50 miles east of Kansas City ) had sand greens about 75 feet in diameter. The flagstick had a string attached that you used as a compass line to measure the distance from the ball to the hole and swing your ball around to a  3 foot wide path that had been smoothed by a steel pipe. Each player would move their ball to the smoothed area and putt along the same 3  foot wide path.The ground was as hard as  a rock so you learned to bump the ball along the ground to the 75 foot circle of oiled sand. Never had any disease on the greens! Great times as a 12 year old visiting my grandparents.-Mark

[Dan Herrmann]

I think there's a sand green course in Woodburn, Oregon.  $5 to play.

Check out http://www.pasturegolf.com/woodburn.htm

[stevencollins]

I did a quick google search on sand greens and found a couple of interesting sites in their own way.

http://www.golfvic.org.au/dir127/vgasite.nsf/pages/local_rules_sand_greens

This site is an Australian site talking about the local rules for sand greens.  Interesting stuff on the ettiquette of putting on oil sand.

http://www.pasturegolf.com/courses/sandgreens.htm

This is a site on maintaining oil sand greens designed for the rural golfer (love the site name).

My Dad grew up in South Carolina and he tells me stories of how all the public golf courses, including one right next door to his house at the time, had oil sand greens because they couldn't afford to water and maintain a real green in the depression-era South.  It would be interesting, though almost all oil greens I've ever seen are completely flat for obvious reasons in terms of smoothing.

[Larry_Keltto]

When I was about 5 years old (1968), my family lived for a year in western North Dakota. I have fond memories of going with my dad to play a 9-hole course near Underwood that had oiled sand greens.

A few years ago, on the way back from Red Mike, I tried to find that old sand-green course. Alas, an energy company had purchased the land, and hundreds of acres around it, for mining purposes. A 9-hole track with grass greens was built to replace the old course.

One thing I remember about rolling a path for putting was that, in making the path, sand would fill the cup to about halfway full; I always wanted to be the one who got to pull up the cup and empty the sand!

I also remember that when our relatives from Ohio visited us in North Dakota, they were amused greatly by the sand greens. They still bring it up occasionally.

[BCrosby]

There was a thread here about 6 months ago on sand greens. You might try the search function.

[texsport]

There's a sand green 9 holer in Gonvick, Minnesota(NW corner of the state) that I've driven past, but never played.

The greens are flush with the surrounding terrain.

Texsport

[Doug Siebert]

All you east and west coasters probably think us Iowans would have plenty of courses with sand greens to choose from, but I think it is probably a relic of the past in most places.  My dad said one of the local courses used to have them when he first moved here in the 60s, but had grass when I started playing around 1980.

I did hear about one course about 45 minutes away with sand greens and went out there to play 9 holes about 10 years ago, just because I was curious.  The greens were flat to the ground, there was no architecture at all.  Just a big rolling field of grass, all mowed to the same height, with circles of sand here and there and tee markers stuck in the ground here and there.  Only way I knew I played to the right greens was that I had nine scores written down when I finished.  Ground was hard as a rock, as it was midsummer during a drought.  I shot worse than I do at much harder courses with stuff like rough, water, trees, bunkers, etc.  Only way you could hold those greens would be with that illegal face insert with the "inverse grooves" they advertise on infomercials and show backing up a ball landing on a parking lot.  If you want to know what it is like to putt on one, just putt on a flat section of a green under construction before the grass is planted.  Probably some of the fastest "greens" I ever played, good thing they weren't hilly!

$5, complete with an honor box (you put your money in an envelope and leave it in a combination mailbox/birdfeeder)  Try that at Pebble

[tonyt]

Guys,

Here in Australia we still have loads of sand green courses. Being a dry continent, small towns play only from February-March to October-November, due to heat and lack of water. Typically, a town with such a course expects to one day be able to convert to grass greens, if population and funds materialize. They are born of necessity, not desire.

The greens in my experience are always absolutely flat, at ground level, small and circular.

The courses are never great, obviously because they are usually volunteer run and maintained by a tiny band of loyal locals. I remember fondly heading out to some of these tracks in my junior days. Perhaps my fellow Aussies could volunteer a nomination for most interesting sand green course? Given their usual domain is flat, semi arid farmland, a pleasant deviation from this norm could hold some charm.