Course Setup

Published February 18, 2004

Course set up is typically carried out seven days per week and always for tournaments, weekends and heavy traffic days. Typical daily tasks are as follows:

• Change cup locations daily (practice greens are changed 3 times per week). See below for more on cup locations.
• Relocate tee markers and remove broken tees.
• Repair ball marks on greens. (See Ball Mark Repair Guide)
• Refill water coolers and cups.
• Service trash receptacles.
• Adjust any ropes and signage.
• Service ball washers: add clean water, cleaning fluid and fresh towels as needed.
• Repaint traffic control lines (weekly).
• Service practice facility - adjust teeing area and yardage, topdress divots as needed.
• Topdress divots on tees (2 times per week).

Pin Placement Selection

Pin location is determined by several factors with the ultimate goal to provide variety as well as a fair but challenging test of golf. Each green is divided into 3 zones: front, middle and back. Each green is further divided into left and right halves. This allows for a total of six cupping zones on each green with three to five cupping spots in each zone. This affords us an average of eighteen to thirty unique cup placements on each green.

By following a predetermined sequence we are assured that wear can be distributed evenly throughout the green regardless of who is performing the task and allowing at least six days of recovery before returning to the first zone in the sequence. Other factors that determine hole location include; slope, green speed, wind speed and direction, bunker location, softness of the green, the clientele playing that day as well as the length of the shot to the green.

The graphic above shows the cupping zones for the first six greens on day one. The red dot indicates the pin location. On day two the cupping area would change to the next zone. For example; On day two, green one would be in zone two and green two would be in zone three and so on. Once the rotation hits zone six the process starts over again. Based on a six zone rotation, the sequence repeats itself on holes seven through twelve and then again on holes thirteen through eighteen. Using the six zone method not only allows us to distribute wear evenly, it affords the golfer advance notice of pin locations. Flag colors also indicate which zone the pin is located in. Red is for a front pin, white is a middle pin and yellow is a back pin. With this method a golfer, by knowing the location of any of the pins, can forecast the position of the remaining pins. This eliminates the need for creating paper pin sheets and the additional costs associated in their creation.

As a result of the movement toward faster paced green speeds the cupping areas on our greens have been severely reduced. On several greens we are unable to use large portions of the greens and are limited to as little as three zones. On some greens we are limited to as little as five actual cup placements on the entire green. This makes it difficult to evenly distribute the traffic thus we are occasionally inclined to put the hole location in challenging areas to allow for recovery of the most cupable areas. On these days it would be most prudent to stay below the hole.

Occasionally, because of limited cupping areas some green may be out of sequence. Typically the greens affected are #11, #13 and #14. The remainder of the greens would follow normal sequence.

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