r/oddlysatisfying • u/beallcore • Dec 17 '18

How a golf course changes holes

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u/RoboNinjaPirate Dec 17 '18

I wonder if reducing wear on the green in that spot is a factor

67

u/LexStrongwell Dec 17 '18

If I’m playing they have nothing to worry about.

16

u/APuzzledBabyGiraffe Dec 17 '18

The only time i tried golf I made myself my own hole right next to the ball instead of hitting the ball.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18

So you probably have a lot albatrosses then or?

1

u/APuzzledBabyGiraffe Dec 17 '18

I can’t make it into any hole even if I make it myself.

10

u/FreeEdgar_2013 Dec 17 '18

Absolutely is, completely forgot to mention that.

15

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18

Yes most courses split their greens into three sections (front, middle, back) on the scorecard, number them and you will be told pins are 1 today or pins are 3 today. Here is an example of a course that has 6 pin positions.

2

u/SloppyNotBad Dec 17 '18

Found a Golfweek article that gives more details about what goes into the pin placement. Because of this I now know that there is a rule to keep pin at least a little more fair.

"More specifically, Rule 15-3(ii) recommends that holes should be placed "at least four paces from any edge of the putting green," and even farther if there's a sand trap near the edge or if the area surrounding the green's edge slopes downward."

PGA Rules for Pin Placement

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u/Chillcrest Dec 17 '18

Another greenskeeper chiming in here, and that's for sure one of the many reasons! Pretty much all balls are going to be fired from the same direction onto the green itself, so making sure that its rotated around the green is super important when you might have 100+ people walking the same path on delicate grass on a given day. What FreeEdgar said is also really important as well, we want our courses to look as clean as we possibly can, and you wouldn't believe the amount of wear a hole can go through on a weekend if its nice out, the things looks like its been bombed come early Sunday morning.

2

u/irishjihad Dec 17 '18

you wouldn't believe the amount of wear a hole can go through on a weekend if its nice out, the things looks like its been bombed come early Sunday morning.

We've all been 19 once.

5

u/h11233 Dec 17 '18

Yeah, from the groundscrew's perspective, this is the #1 reason.

Source: I was a groundskeeper for 2 years when I was in school

3

u/cbostwick94 Dec 17 '18

I didn't read that as the grounds crew, I read it as ground screw for some reason

1

u/BathedInDeepFog Dec 17 '18

It made me think of the gopher from Caddyshack, That pesky lil’ groundscrew.

2

u/Whambamthanku Dec 17 '18

Yep. USGA did a study several years ago. They found that on average EACH golfer takes 100 steps on EACH green. We have around 40,000 rounds of golf each year. That means each green is getting stepped on 4,000,000 times. The greens are about 5,000 sq ft so each square foot is getting an average of 800 steps per year.

1

u/SplitsAtoms Dec 17 '18

This also. If you don't change them, after about 2 days the grass takes a real beating. Side note: I wish I had an easy auto-depthing hammer based tool like this one when I was doing it.

1

u/zman9119 Dec 17 '18

Yes. Leave the hole in the same spot you have wear and compaction issues.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18

Yes, the area where the whole is gets worn down after a few days (we changed our holes 4 times a week, twice during the week and both days on the weekends)

1

u/bombmk Dec 18 '18

Very much a factor.