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Why you can trust me in assessing the potential of your home golf greenI have often heard the question "What do I need to do to have a home golf green.?" Hello, my name is Mark and I have worked in the golf course maintenance industry for 20 years in all aspects from construction through maintenance. As with most golf course superintendents and even the USGA (United States Golf Association) consulting agronomists, my answer had always been don’t do it! Well after 20 years in the business and having seen many things, my attitude has shifted completely. Maybe I am mellowing with age, but I now see that it is not only possible but even not necessarily difficult to have a home golf green. Over the years I have known different people with their own home golf green. One gentleman wasn’t even a golfer, but just wanted the agronomic challenge of maintaining it. Another one with whom I was consulting had a large acreage on which he had 9 holes built. This person had the means to hire a 4 person gardening crew to maintain his grounds. I have even started to experiment on my own home lawn by cutting the turf to fairway heights to reduce weed invasion; a test of my theory that closely cut grass is a more desirable turf and can be environmentally friendly and require no pesticides. I have to admit that this experiment has come about only because of a pesticide ban in my city. I have spent 13 years of my career as either superintendent or assistant at high level golf courses, and learned that turf is rather resilient. Most people (and golf courses) that fail, fail because they do not follow some of the basic rules to give the turf what it needs to survive. There are small courses with extremely low budgets out there and even a very few that use no pesticides, that are good examples of how a home golf green can be accomplished with few resources. Once you start to maintain your own green, you will see how patience becomes a virtue, and accept that the turf is really a living thing. If it is acceptable to grow high maintenance roses or Bonzai trees, why not a home golf green? Essentially that is the purpose of this site; I want to be a resource for anyone looking to start their own home golf green project. My present position as Golf Irrigation Technical and Sales Representative for a large distributor gives me access to a wealth of resources and lets me see many different golf courses along with a few backyard greens. I will continue to add pages to the website as I have time, but if there are any specific questions you would like answered or topics added to the site, please do feel free to contact me . Mark Let's look at the nuts and bolts of building that home golf green.
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