A Day in the Life of Golf Course Maintenance

As a golfer, when you are lucky enough to play on a fairway with diagonal or vertical lines in a nice striped pattern, you may think, ‘that looks pretty good’. As a non-golfer, you may admire the pattern. A gardener or horticulturalist would be in their element.

When you see a first cut of rough that has stripes leading up to the green, it looks well-maintained. A tee box that aligns with the pattern of the fairway is very deliberate. A collar that snakes around the flag – where the grass is slightly longer than that of the green but shorter than that of the fairway – is very aesthetic. And an approach leading up to the green that follows a parabola curve is downright naughty.

A parabola curve approach. You know?

These aspects of a golf course are no accident. It takes hours of work every day for a course to look this way.

Here is an insight into the work that goes into producing one of the Top 100 Golf Courses in Canada in 2022.

Day Begins: 5:30am

Its Monday. You’ve got 109 golfers on the tee sheet. First tee time is 7:22am, then 5 hours of budding Tiger Woods wannabes who have forked out 3 figures, fuel costs, a couple of lessons, and the cart fee to come and play your course. Best can concentrate. Don’t wanna leave a scalp. The temperature is 7 degrees above 0, but set to loiter around 30 in a few hours’ time. A wild country.

Radio? Affirmative

Coffee? Check.

Machine key? Yes sir.

Know your route? You bet.

Morning Task #1 – Mowing Greens: 5:45am

‘Route A – cut direction is 8 to 2 with a clockwise clean-up pass. Any questions?’

I imagine you have a few. However, we can break down this obscure language us Turf Care operatives are required to speak.

In a nutshell, Route A represents 9 of the 18 greens on the course. The job is shared with a colleague to speed things up. Secondly, when you cut grass, you operate on an imaginary clock face. 8 to 2 means a diagonal line upwards and across from the mouth of the green. Turning on this axis is sometimes easier said than done. A clean-up pass catches all the bits you missed as you blink the sleep out of your eyes.

Mowing Greens – A Roadblock – 7am

Mowing greens makes them look good and play nice. Pick your line, engage your reels, and off you go. You’ve done your first three greens, and all is well.

Now. Canadian wildlife has the tendency to foil even the best-laid plans – and we are no stranger to elk damage. That dreaded radio call – ‘the b*stards have done it again’ is a universally known cry of anguish. So, call in the reinforcements.

Teamwork – 7:15am

Picture 7 members of your team, on all fours – each with a screwdriver and a pitchfork, fixing holes made by innocent little baby deer or elk and their enormous mom or dad. As the sun rises over the mountains at about 7:15am, your Superintendent races to the pro shop to try and stall the first golfers of the day. Could be a big job. We’ve got a reputation to uphold.

After some perseverance, the collaboration of every spare team member available – and a very carefully selected pin position 45 feet away from the nearest hoof mark, we are up and running.

In The Groove – 9:30am

It has never felt so easy. Podcast in the ear – you’ve nailed your last green. The clean-up pass was exquisite. You’ve shed your morning layers and are basking in the sun admiring your own handiwork. Your buckets are full, meaning you have to deposit the grass you’ve collected in a convenient dumping spot. If you’re a golf nerd, you try and calculate exactly how much grass you probably collect in a day, and how many days before the greens looked like fairways. I reckon after three days they’d get bumpy. It helps knowing you’re needed at work.

Anyway, one green to go. The 16^th is difficult, the 8 to 2 direction makes lining up hard, and you don’t want to finish on the wrong note. Do this right – and the course is ready for the golfers. They’re probably three putting the 8^th green right about now, with that especially crafty pin position in location number 4. Always a sucker.

The hex plug method, when an area of ​​a green is badly discolored, sometimes it needs to be replaced.

Lunch – 10am

All done with the greens – you’ve radioed in and it’s time to see what’s next.

Well, what’s next is some food. The life of a Turf Care operative is fueled by snacks at odd times. My go-to is a bagel at 6:30am, some extra coffee at 7:30am, and a couple of cereal bars before 10am. We’re all jealous of the prepared guy who brings in a banquet, but usually, a sandwich will suffice.

Morning Task #2 – Mowing Tees – 10:30am

Alright, you and your machine are both clean (somewhat) and fueled up. Grab the next key, and head back out. Ain’t no rest for the wicked.

Now mowing tees is probably easier, but a bit more hassle. Your machine is a similar size, but the tee markers get in the way. So do the golfers. If you are caught up, Hunger Games style, by the never-ending stream of players, sometimes you just get a front row seat to some bad (and occasionally good) golf shots. Mostly I just make mental notes of where their Pro V1 went into the trees – so it can be retrieved tomorrow and added to the collection.

Okay so mowing tees. Usually just a 6 to 12 cut direction, careful not to engage the reels too early or too late, as scalping the grass looks very obvious. Much like if you got a #3 at the barbers on the back and sides with a #1 across the middle. If tees are neglected, the first thing golfers see looks furry and unkempt. Important job. The tees set the tone for the fairways and greens. So, pick up the broken bits, check the tee stones, and get busy.

Day End – 1pm

After 2 hours, its almost time to head back. You probably squeezed 45 minutes of work in between waiting for golfers and traveling between holes. Record your work, fuel the machine, wash it down, and sign out.

And that’s it! For you anyway. In the meantime, your colleagues were sweeping the driving range, changing hole locations, setting the course up for play, fixing bad spots on the green, raking bunkers, mowing fairways, mowing approaches, mowing the tee surrounds, mowing the green surrounds, trimming the rough, rolling the greens, spraying weeds, sharpening bunker edges, fixing irrigation pipes, checking water flow, or even fertilizing the course.

Tracking the line on a fairway unit requires a steady hand and a third eye to watch for flying golf balls.

The work and planning required to uphold the standard at a Top 100 Golf Course in Canada is mind-boggling. The varied state of the labor market provides its own set of challenges, and selling the 5am wake-up to youngsters proves difficult.

It’s cool to see some videos of the action, and Turf Today is definitely an Instagram account worth keeping tabs on. The rise of social media means people can get a feeling for the early starts and the complexity behind a finished product that looks so simple. Turf care is a rewarding yet challenging gig; to be doing the work that no one witnesses but everyone sees.

So, until next time, repair your divots, fix your ball marks, and smile when you see a fairway that has been cut properly. You can bet that we did.

---

Cover Image Via GolfCourseIndustry

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THESE STORIES