Magazine - Maintaining a Quality Practice Range Tee

By Greencast in Consultancy on 11th Jan 2010 6:00

With spring soon to arrive maintaining a quality practice tee through the season is a difficult challenge. Factors like size of the hitting area, and the intensity of use factor in the success of maintaining the tee. A few suggestions for maintaining a tee through the year are provided below.

 

Setup

The key to maintaining turf quality is to controlling where the golfers practice. Some suggestions on setup have been provided by the United States Golf Association. 

1. Place ropes approximately 2 to 2.5 meters apart across the width of the tee. Anchor the ropes so they can’t be moved.
2. Create hitting stations approximately 3 meters apart within the roped area. Hitting stations can be defined with dividers, bag holders, bucket of balls, or small buckets containing topdressing for divot repair.
3. Given that most golfers will use the right-hand portion of the hitting station, the following day move the hitting stations to the left (sideways). This will allow for 2 days of use within the same roped area.
4. Every other day move the roped area. Moving the ropes should be coordinated timed with the mower  operator to save time. The ropes can be moved forward (or backward) 1 or 1. 5 meters. They do not need to be moved 2 to 2.5 meters because golfers tend to shy away from hitting to close to the ropes.

Using the setup described above a practice range tee with a width of 30 meters, it would take between 40 and 60 days before returning to the same spot.

 

Topdressing

In addition to proper setup, daily topdressing and seeding of the damaged areas is needed. This can be done with the remaining topdressing mix(containing seed) in the divot buckets or from material provided. Additionally,some fertilizer should be added to the topdressing mix (topdressing/seed) to help in seedling establishment.If the golf professional is in charge of the range the topdressing mix can be spread in the evenings by the person or people responsible for range clean up. If the maintenance personnel are responsible the topdressing mix can be spread early in the morning prior to play.

Maintainence

The practice range tees should be cored twice yearly in conjunction with a mediumto heavy topdressing. The tee should be adequately fertilized. Summer annual weeds like crabgrass (Digitariaspp.)and goosegrass (Eleusine indica) are a serious problem on highly worn practice range tees. Although preemergent herbicides can be used to control these weeds they tend to lose efficacy toward the end of summer resulting in a burst of weed growth. In addition,the herbicides can/may restrict seed germination of tee topdressing mix containing seed. The most effective cool season turfgrass to use in the divot mix for quick establishment and most competitive against weeds is perennial rye grass.Golf Mats installed toward the back of the range can provide hitting station scan reduce wear and excessive injury tothe practice range tee during periods of inclement weather saving the practice range tee from excessive damage.

Reference:

Foy, J.H. and J. Beljan. 1994. Turfmanagement in a battle zone: Practice ranges. USGA Green Section Record 32(6):1-8.

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Read more articles in Consultancy, by Greencast or from January 2010.