**Ask a golf course employee**
 

Thought this could be interesting.

I've worked as a grounds crew worker for 3 years and feel I know quite a bit about how things work.

ask me stuff and i'll answer if i know.

if this is no good please delete

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

How often do you cut the grass (fairway, rough, greens)?

How often do you water the grass (fairway, rough, greens)?

What's your typical day like?

Biggest peeve about golfers?

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

1. we cut the greens everyday, fairways are cut 3-4 times during the week depending on the events for that week and rough is continually cut by one old retired guy.

2. the course is in minnesota so depending on how much rain we get the grass is watered in cycles everynight and if we have not had rain in a while watering is done during the day both with sprinkler systems and sometimes by hand on areas like green collars.

3. my day this summer consisted of getting to the course at 6am and complaining about how tired i was. in the morning from about 6-10 is when greens, tees, and fairways are cut and the bunkers are raked. i usually cut tees which is done with a walking mower or i cut approaches on the fairway. all mowing is done on a riding mower except for tees. then there are odd jobs like divot service on some fairways and tee boxes, and trimming around the club house or weed whipping-the worst job.

4. biggest pet peeve are golfers that are too impatient to wait until a mower is out of range before hitting a shot either from the tee or on the fairway

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

n,

How much interaction did you typically have with golfers? Given your role I would say far less than cart shed or pro shop folks. Particularly since your job was specifically to get there before them and/or stay out of their way.

Also, is there a general air of disdain towards golfers by staff? I get this feeling from pro shop staff when I'm in there that they're fairly miserable in their moderate-paying jobs and hate the whole customer service aspect of it. It just seems to hang in the air. Then again I may be projecting that on them because when I was in the service industry "the customer is always right" mantra was the thing that drove me the most batshit crazy. That said, even if your job didn't pay as much the whole being left alone thing probably made up for it quite a bit.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

In season, how many grounds crew workers work per day?

And how much does this differ between a good private course and a decent daily fee course?

Do you move the pins everyday? (Who decides pin placement?)

How many groundhogs live on your course and have you ever tried to dynamite them?

How many un-fixed ballmarks are there per day and do you fix them (all)?

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

interaction is different from member to member, some of them are real jerks while others will talk to you, lets say if you are working on a tee. its probably like any other line of work some people are nice some are not. arrogance is a large problem you could say.

there are certain members that everyone on our crew will put effort into not getting out of the way in a polite manner.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

Until this last post I didn't know it was a private club. Interesting.

Also, it's always been a dream of mine to be the guy that cuts the holes, but I think it would get old after a day or two. Plus I think Troll completely missed your day-to-day job so I'm not sure you can answer his questions.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

yes it is private.

during the summer there is one superintendent, an assistant, a gardener, a mechanic and then about 8 grounds laborers you could call them, i'm a laborer, not too sure but my guess is that at some public courses that may have a championship and executive course they may have more employees.

i've never learned to cut cups 1. because almost everyone else knows how and 2. i dont want to do that id rather cut grass.

pins are moved almost everyday depending on events at the course.

no groundhogs.

unfixed ball marks are our responsibility because the old superintendent who had been working at the course for some 40 years decided that the sand/seed mixture that was given to the memembers to fix their own divots was not working. so now we have to go out every other day and fill divots on fair ways by hand-second worst job behind weed whipping. there can be hundreds of divots over the course of the week as the course gets a lot of play.

from what i hear from other guys is that cutting cups is a good break from time to time but if you were to get stucking doing it for a week straight it gets old real fast.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

- Do you like golf?
- Do the grounds crew get a chance to play?
- What's the policy on found golf balls? Could you conceivably start a little ebay side gig selling the crusty old farts' Pro-V1s?

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

yeah i like golf, terrible at it but i get to play for free on a private course that i help maintain which makes it that much better.

finders keepers losers dont care cause theyre rich i have 2 five gallon buckets full of balls, i usually just sell the pro v1s to my uncles

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

1. serious question: are you mexican?

i am in texas and i have never seen a white grounds crew worker (except for the super superintendent obviously). Is it a lot different in minnesota?

2. you guys do all of the work, good job. I worked as a cart boy/bag boy for 3 or 4 years and was always amazed at how little we do compared to the grounds crew. There were about 100 things everyday where I would think "Well who in the hell does that?" and the answer was always someone from the groundscrew.

3. As a golfer, I always got the feeling that the groundscrew really doesn't care if you hit into them. I mean i try not to if there is a significant chance of hitting them, but you can't just sit there and wait for them to mow the entire fairway.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

What height do you cut everything at? The course I grew up on we cut the tees/fringes at 1/2", fairways at 5/8", and greens at 5/32".

Is there any play December-February?

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

1. not mexican, two mexicans on the crew, everyone else white so i guess it is very differnt

2. yeah we do a lot of work and sometimes it feels like were under-appreciated but its really not a big deal its a summer job

3. i generally dont mind but then i also make an effort to get out of the way, having worked on a course i would never hit into a worker

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

not entirely sure what everything is cut at but those do sound familiar so your guess is as good as mine, it says on all the machines but i never really pay attention to that, usually concentrating on cutting straight lines.

play ends depending on weather but usually the end of october until march or april depending on how mild the spring is

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

So what's the grounds crew take on the guys that always have to pee in the bushes or on the trees instead of using the toilets? This seems to happen quite a bit at some courses even though the toilet is on the next hole or something.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

not a big deal we do it too

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

plus its a private club so we really arent in a position to say anything

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

What course do you work at? I got a degree from Anoka tech last year in turf management, have not actually worked since I graduated tho, so it was prolly a waste of time.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
What height do you cut everything at? The course I grew up on we cut the tees/fringes at 1/2", fairways at 5/8", and greens at 5/32".

Is there any play December-February?

[/ QUOTE ]

Those were the same lengths as the course I worked at except for our greens were 1/8th most of the summer except when we had the senior state amateur, and the club championship they were 1/10th.

The course I worked at was always closed the first week of Nov and opened in late march or early april. Some courses in central/southern MN do open on really warm days throughout the winter (50* degrees. and no snow on the ground obv which rarely happens).

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
In season, how many grounds crew workers work per day?

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35 on M/W/F...around 25 Tues and Thurs

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And how much does this differ between a good private course and a decent daily fee course?

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As few as 5 may be on the crew at a crappy 9 holer. I know the TPC course here has 60 on the crew leading up to the senior PGA tour event. The course I worked at w/ 36 was at a very nice city owned 27 hole course.

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Do you move the pins everyday? (Who decides pin placement?)

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Yep, maybe not in april, and beyond mid sept on really crappy days when hardly anyone will play.

Whoever cuts the cups decides the pin positions unless there is a big event, in which case the superintendent cut the cups where the 'Director of golf' told him to put them.

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How many groundhogs live on your course and have you ever tried to dynamite them?

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There was one that used to try and burrow thru the wall of a bunker, not sure what happened to him.

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How many un-fixed ballmarks are there per day and do you fix them (all)?

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I'd say 5-15 (from a full shot not hardly noticeable ones) per green. Whoever mowed the green was supposed to fix them, with a really simple device that does not require bending over at all.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

i work at Southview Country Club

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

Walking my dog early yesterday morning on the course, I see a gutted raccoon laying in the fairway. Coyote got it, I guess.
Never seen groundhogs, but sometimes beavers are pests.

Right now, a flock of Canadian geese that have settled into our lakes are the annoyance. Shxt everywhere.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

I don't know why it would be a "beat" to cut the holes. Sounds like fun. That said, their latitude as far as picking where to put them is very limited on every course out here, which either do zones like front/middle/back (often denoted by the color of the flag) or GPS systems, which typically have six fixed locations on the greens that dictate within a very tight range exactly where the hole is supposed to be cut for that day. If you ever see a situation where the GPS and the hole don't agree, it's human error - either the guy put it in the wrong place or, more likely, the pro shop didn't advance the pin set in the system to the current day and it's supplying old data.

Among the courses that babysat me all summer was a little 9-hole pitch and putt in front of a hotel. There was a 36 hole course affiliated with the hotel but it was actually several miles away. This little course's longest hole was maybe 90 yards. Anyway, I would be left there for twelve hours or so every day and would play the hell out of it (never paid, the place to pay was up the hill and I never went in there and they never bothered me).

One thing that annoyed the hell out of me is how they never changed the holes. As in, for years. I don't know how they didn't get totally grown over to be honest. I was super tempted to take my putter and gouge out a new hole location and move the cup to there. Surprised I didn't actually, because in my active imagination some of those holes would play totally different if the hole was elsewhere on the green, since several of the holes actually had sand traps. Never summoned enough courage to do it though, and some time later they did actually cut new holes. It was like christmas.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

LOL at GPS on a golf course.

I'd say the average age of the courses I play is about 60 yrs with technology to match.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

Trolley,

What do you mean by "LOL at GPS"? A fairly sizable percentage of daily fees here in town have cart-mounted GPS systems, many with distance to pin (not just the center of the green). Also, I have a friend whose company has mapped thousand of course coordinates and sells GPS hand-held devices to sporting good stores. I find the technology very useful and quite accurate. The days of 150 markers being the only coordinates are long gone, as much as it pains HDPM to admit it.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

tug if you interpreted my explination as being a beat for cutting cups, that was not my intention. i was just saying that i hear it gets boring and i just never had interest in learning how to do it. cups are placed in a front, middle, back rotation as i'm sure you know. we dont have any GPS at our course

holes need to be changed on a course with a lot of play, after a round of a tournament at our course the area around the cup is probably the most undesireable thing to see on a green

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

the course i work at was founded in 1919 fwiw

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
The days of 150 markers being the only coordinates are long gone, as much as it pains HDPM to admit it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude. Ben Hogan did that [censored] by sight. Eff the 150 yd markers. Courses shouldn't have them. Maybe a rock. Or a tree (but it has to be a native tree).

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]

What do you mean by "LOL at GPS"? A fairly sizable percentage of daily fees here in town

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I'm sure it's common in areas that have new/modern courses. It's just completely foreign to me.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know why it would be a "beat" to cut the holes.

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I cut cups most days the when I was working maintenance and it was one of my favorite things to do. It was cool as hell playing after work knowing exactly where the pins were on 9 or 18 of the holes already.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

why are the greens always so damn slow?

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't know why it would be a "beat" to cut the holes.

[/ QUOTE ]

I cut cups most days the when I was working maintenance and it was one of my favorite things to do. It was cool as hell playing after work knowing exactly where the pins were on 9 or 18 of the holes already.

[/ QUOTE ]

my view is that i would rather be on a mower than cutting cups and figured not knowing how to do that would increase my chances, its all about me

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]


Dude. Ben Hogan did that [censored] by sight. Eff the 150 yd markers. Courses shouldn't have them. Maybe a rock. Or a tree (but it has to be a native tree).

[/ QUOTE ]

i worked at ben hogan's course and there were yardage markers all over the place.

sure, he was so insane he probably could tell the difference between 150 and 152 by sight, but I am sure he wouldn't of turned down the information if someone wanted to give it to him.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

Personally, I love cutting cups. What I don't like is when a daily fee player starts bitching and moaning about where they are placed. When I do it, I put them where they are fair but with some difficulty during the week and then on the weekends they are really easy.

For the guys that work at a course, what job sucks the most? For me it's any job where I am working with guys that don't speak English!

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
why are the greens always so damn slow?

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Find a new course?

Tuq,

I used to cut holes and it was cake... it always amazes me when courses put out some retard to cut holes and move tee markers. It's so easy to do right but also not too hard to [censored] up and it makes all the difference...the two things every golfer sees each hole are the tee markers and the cups so get it right imo.

And nothing would tilt me more than having to play the same course over and over with the same pins. Pisses me off just thinking about it.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

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For the guys that work at a course, what job sucks the most? For me it's any job where I am working with guys that don't speak English!

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my least favorite job is either filling divots on the fairway or weed whipping

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]

I used to cut holes and it was cake... it always amazes me when courses put out some retard to cut holes and move tee markers. It's so easy to do right but also not too hard to [censored] up and it makes all the difference

[/ QUOTE ]
That's a pretty snobby statement. Sure it's mostly simple to cut cups IF YOU ARE A SOMEWHAT KNOWLEDGEABLE GOLFER. But ask yourself, how many workers on the grounds crew have EVER played golf?

BO

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

Even for the non-golfer I wouldn't think that cutting cups with the instructions "find a flat spot near the middle, front or back according to the rotation" would be fairly simple.

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
Even for the non-golfer I wouldn't think that cutting cups with the instructions "find a flat spot near the middle, front or back according to the rotation" would be fairly simple.

[/ QUOTE ]

that may fly at a municipal course but try doing that at a private course and as soon as someone is upset with a hole it doesnt take long to get back the person that did it wrong

Re: **Ask a golf course employee**
 

[ QUOTE ]
Even for the non-golfer I wouldn't think that cutting cups with the instructions "find a flat spot near the middle, front or back according to the rotation" would be
fairly simple.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are a lot of things you can [censored] up cutting cups.

-Cut them too shallow or deep (I've seen it at [censored] courses where the cup cutter does not regulate the depth).
-Spilling dirt all over while moving the old plug and not cleaning it up.
-Not taking the time replacing the old plug so it is not level w/ the surface and thus sinks down further, or gets scalped.
-Cutting them on too severe of a slope/too close to the edge of a green.
-Not making sure the cup is perfectly upright/pin crooked.
-Not regularly sharpening the cup cutter so the edges don't become dull (cup cutters responsibility, some courses go a season without sharpening them)
-Cutting cups on stressed/diseased areas or spots with lots of ball marks
I could prolly think of 5-10 more but thats plenty, and they may sound obv but people making less than 10$ an hr that are not golfers don't rly give a [censored].