What the Hell Happened to ________________ Golf Course?

[Bucki1968]

This summer our club has been closed to re-do the greens etc.  So my normal group and I have been traveling to different courses in the area to play. We have played some private and some public courses. One course in particular that I used to play a lot (Public) we played this week-end and couldn't believe how bad the conditions were. This place used to be one of the best around (maybe 3-4 years ago).  We have had a few courses close in the past two years which is strange considering the "golf boom" that the pandemic created. Is this just a local occurrence (central Florida) or is anyone else seeing this?

Edited September 8, 2022 by Bucki1968
spelling

[boogielicious]

3 hours ago, Bucki1968 said:

This summer our club has been closed to re-do the greens etc.  So my normal group and I have been traveling to different courses in the area to play. We have played some private and some public courses. One course in particular that I used to play a lot (Public) we played this week-end and couldn't believe how bad the conditions were. This place used to be one of the best around (maybe 3-4 years ago).  We have had a few courses close in the past two years which is strange considering the "golf boom" that the pandemic created. Is this just a local occurrence (central Florida) or is anyone else seeing this?

I think that happens with courses occasionally. Sometimes it’s a money issue, other times it may be drought. We’ve had a weird drought here in New England with some areas getting lots of rain and others nothing. Conditions will suffer if the course doesn’t have their own water supply. One course in Peabody, MA, the Meadow, had no water for almost two weeks due to a town issue. Luckily, they trucked in water for the greens.

[billchao]

3 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

I think that happens with courses occasionally. Sometimes it’s a money issue, other times it may be drought. We’ve had a weird drought here in New England with some areas getting lots of rain and others nothing. Conditions will suffer if the course doesn’t have their own water supply. One course in Peabody, MA, the Meadow, had no water for almost two weeks due to a town issue. Luckily, they trucked in water for the greens.

There’s a course by me that dried out because their water source dried up. Completely browned out except for the area around the greens which were the only places they were watering. We’re starting to get rain here and there but it will be quite some time before the course completely recovers.

Made for a really fun round of golf though.

[mcanadiens]

In my area, we actually had a couple of courses revived that had closed just a few years earlier.

 

[Bo the Golfer]

5 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I think that happens with courses occasionally. Sometimes it’s a money issue, other times it may be drought. We’ve had a weird drought here in New England with some areas getting lots of rain and others nothing. Conditions will suffer if the course doesn’t have their own water supply. One course in Peabody, MA, the Meadow, had no water for almost two weeks due to a town issue. Luckily, they trucked in water for the greens.

The Meadow is a quirky course. Did having it brown out make it easier or more difficult? I'm sure balls rolled forever but if my memory serves that might not always be a great thing there. 

[imsys0042]

Probably 20 years ago now, I used to play at Mercer Oaks in West Windsor, NJ.  One year there was a bad drought and the course had to go to court to get the right to water the greens only.  It was a muni, owned by the county.  So they had to sue the county over this.  There was a huge lake they could have tapped, but for some reason the lake level couldn’t get too low because it would cause downstream problems.   The fairways, rough and tees all were as badly burned as I have ever seen.

the other course is where I live now.  I don’t want to name it, in case it has come back, but it’s probably the worst maintained golf course I’ve ever seen   Greens were overgrown and slow,.  Weird, random swaths of grass that was way higher that around it.  Almost like someone mowed drunk.  They let the fairways and rough get really high, like to the point where you couldn’t find your ball in the first cut.  Although there was no real first cut,  the bunkers were unmaintained  and had grass randomly growing.  Not waste areas, obvious bunkers that they let go.  Word was that it was owned by a company that owned 4 others in the area and they starved this one while doing work on others.  I was honestly offended that they charged full greens fees, it was that bad,  I suppose they needed the revenue.

I left on 12.  I was also paired with two crazy people including someone who claimed he was a pastor (church was a trailer until they got “better space”) and he also had a grudge against the town I lived in because he was suspended from his carpentry business over a dispute with someone and the town wouldn’t let him do work there because of something he had done,

I’ve not been back.  

[boogielicious]

13 hours ago, Bo the Golfer said:

The Meadow is a quirky course. Did having it brown out make it easier or more difficult? I'm sure balls rolled forever but if my memory serves that might not always be a great thing there. 

I didn’t play it during that time but friend did. Back 9 was hard to keep in the fairway because the fairways are pitched sideways. It is quirky, but fun. Not really walkable in the summer. I may play it this fall and see if it recovered.