You've probably wondered if mowing a golf course was the same as in your garden. How many people are needed to maintain a golf course, or how much does it cost? To satisfy your curiosity, we try to answer all these questions.
Contrary to what one might think, taking care of a golf course is no more complicated than maintaining a football field every day. Nevertheless, there are many rules to follow, elaborated from the demands of golf and the imagination of an architect. To find out more, read this article on golf course management companies.
It is from a carefully drafted specifications by an architect that different companies such as Pinson Landscape will apply for the project of maintenance of a golf course belonging to a city. "The greens, the greens, the starts, the roughs, the bunkers, the fairways, the wooded surfaces, to direct the order of play, the distances between the start and the green ... all that is in the specifications ", begins by explaining this former technical manager of the sports department of the city of Versailles and former commercial in a company specializing in green spaces.
For him, only the form of the course obeys more aesthetic criteria, according to the hand of the architect. But for the rest, everything is planned upstream to allow an optimal golf practice. As for the green. "To have a beautiful green it must be composed of 80% sand, for its root system, for the development of the plant. You must also use on a green a certain type of grass." In each golf course, there is a green keeper. His role? "He is the one who monitors the possible diseases and who is there so that all the players are satisfied." For other workers, a little courage, a desire to work and a passion for outside trades may be appropriate.
As expected, these workers, who are usually 4 to 6 people for the maintenance of an 18-hole, mainly officiate with lawn mowers. (On this type of land, an investment of 600 to 1 million euros is made in the equipment park.) But as Didier Durand specifies, it is obviously necessary to know that "each zone of game has a different mowing thus a different material." Two types of mowers are used: helical blade for very fine, very short and high quality cuts on the starts, greens and fore-greens, and rotary-lawn mowers on roughs and fairways.
But hardware is not the only thing to consider. Indeed, the frequency of the mowing is a data to be respected to the letter. "A start, a green, and a front-end mow every day, maximum every two days for the front-greens and starts. A green must be shorn every day. Everything fairway, in times of important vegetation of the grasses, there will be a minimum mowing per week. The roughs, the exteriors, the edge of the course, for the classical golf courses, they will be shorn every month, for the others twice a month. "
