Synthetic Greens

[jeffhale08]

Anybody out there have a synthetic green at their house or ever putted on one. I am looking to have one installed by next January. Just now started looking. I am a 5 and my son is an 8. Our shots we lose are always on the green. Let's get a good thread going on this subject. If you are in Texas and have had one installed, let me know by who. I am hoping I can work it into my new home loan as "landscaping"!!!

[Akers]

Anybody out there have a synthetic green at their house or ever putted on one. I am looking to have one installed by next January. Just now started looking. I am a 5 and my son is an 8. Our shots we lose are always on the green. Let's get a good thread going on this subject. If you are in Texas and have had one installed, let me know by who. I am hoping I can work it into my new home loan as "landscaping"!!!

From my experiences on them, it is just like putting on concrete. It is terrible, especially if they have hill's in them. The one at my mates place I can do a Happy Gilmore Put where you put roll the ball a few meters past the hole, it then stops and rolls back. They are just to quick, faster than any green's you will ever play on.

[iacas]

From my experiences on them, it is just like putting on concrete. It is terrible, especially if they have hill's in them. The one at my mates place I can do a Happy Gilmore Put where you put roll the ball a few meters past the hole, it then stops and rolls back. They are just to quick, faster than any green's you will ever play on.

That's mini golf. That's just thin felt laid on concrete.

I believe the guy is asking about stuff like http://www.allprogreens.com/ or http://www.southwestgreens.com/ .

[tmker]

I had a green installed last year by a great company, Texas Greens By Design. They have installed several in the Austin area for a variety of tour pros.

My green is 15' wide, 45 to 51 feet long (the last six feet is a "chipping collar" on one side). The green is NOT like concrete. I can chip to it from across the yard and spin the ball to stop. They were able to adjust the speed to coincide pretty closely to the local public courses that I play in North Austin and Round Rock. I can't remember the exact rating, but I believe the installer told me that it rolled to about a 9 on the stimp meter. Any time I want slower, I simply spray it down with the hose!

Five holes in three tiers and the landscaping they did is great (it sits along the back fenceline behind a pool and tropical garden.

There's no maintenance, except to take a blower and knock leaves off, etc.

The wife and I installed perimeter lighting (like sidewalk lighting) last winter and it was really neat being able to go out after dark and have fun or practice!

Does it work? Up to last year, I used to three putt about half of the holes that I played. Now, I'm down to about 1 or 2 per round, a significant improvement. My chipping has stayed consistent (I've not had major problems in this area) and I am very confident that I can make those 6 to 9 footers for par at the course. It's amazing the difference when you can tell yourself "this is just like the putt I make every night at home".

I wanted a green my entire adult life and now I have one. I think it's the best golf money I've ever spent!

[TD22057]

I'm on the path to getting one. Living in a desert is a royal pain for any normal plants. We're going to rip out our back yard (grass + plants), reduce the size of the patio we never use, and put in a putting green, and raised planter beds around the edges with cactus and succulents. I talked w/ several companies last year here in Southern California. Two seemed just fine, one was terrible. The terrible one happened to be the one that Furyk advertises (forget the name) - they wanted a ton of $$$, wouldn't provide an itemized quote, and broke the law. They tried to get 50% down which is violation of California contractor law and when I pointed that out to the guy he just laughed and stopped returning my calls. At least he made choosing a contractor a lot easier...

What kind of prices are you seeing in your area? I was getting quotes of roughly $8-10/sq ft for a polyethylene sand filled green assuming that the ground was roughly ready to go (no sod removal, no additional drainage to add, etc).

[jeffhale08]

Yeah, the greens I am looking at are the ones from Southwest Greens. The one "tmker" was talking about is what I want. The current USGA Junior Amateur Champ from Houston (Cory Whitsett) has one at his house in Houston. I have a 4 x 16 green made of a base of treated plywood and lumber and covered with a very fine astroturf. We use it to work on our stroke. It is ok, but you can't chip to or hit short iron shots. The Southwest Greens you can hit full shots into. I do want the chipping area for chips and bumps fro the edge.