Course Mowing Part II

[skipneumann]

Hoping for a quick survey of opinion: Do you hit into the green when the mowing crew guy is sitting off the green 10 feet on the first hole of the course? He keeps doing this and waving us on to hit. This is a public course at 7:00am; a half hour after the course has been open.

[Titleist_ProV1x]

  skipneumann said:

Hoping for a quick survey of opinion: Do you hit into the green when the mowing crew guy is sitting off the green 10 feet on the first hole of the course? He keeps doing this and waving us on to hit. This is a public course at 7:00am; a half hour after the course has been open.

sure, they usually wear hardhats ...... I like to aim for them when they wave me up, hehe

[alomar123]

If he waves you on go head. But, otherwise I either try and get his attention. Or waits till he sees me.

[CarlSpackler]

  alomar123 said:

If he waves you on go head. But, otherwise I either try and get his attention. Or waits till he sees me.

+1 for me.

[TourSpoon]

When they are waiving you up and standing off the green its time to hit your shot. It wouldn't be much different than playing through on a par three.

[double_j]

Indeed. Get their attention, show that you're going to hit, and wait for them to acknowledge. They'll usually stay where they are but will watch your ball just in case they have to dodge.

[Jay-Bird]

The public course I grew up playing has a sign posted saying:

"Early morning golfers, please give Right of Way to maintenance crew"

[skipneumann]

well he's not mowing around the green, he's mowing the fairway... instead of parking the big mower right off the green, we're thinking he should just keep mowing and then we'll hit our approach shots

[rwfastrax]

I HATE hitting a golf ball towards anyone within range. I don't care if they're sitting there watching me or not. Case in point. Last week in my league play we're on the last hole, waiting for the group in front to finish their approach shots. As they finish and head for the green a cart from the hole to our left enters our hole through the tree line on the left. I suppose he wanted to play his ball from the rough on my hole instead of pitching it back to his fairway. He starts flailing his arms for me to hit and I refuse. His cart is parked 10feet from our fairway and only about 240 yds away from our tee. After about 60 seconds of this stalemate...I yell for him to "MOVE" and he yells back for me to "HIT!!!" To me...it's not the point of whether or not he can see my shot, know it's coming towards him...and get out of the way. It's more about me knowing he was there, and suffering some sort of psychological muscular bailout and blocking my tee shot to the right. He finally moved back into the treeline and I cracked the drive past him on the fly into the fairway. That felt good.

[skipneumann]

You have hit the problem for me too. I have seen guys get just missed by a line drive from the other fairway and it's really scary. This shot he is asking me to take is my first iron shot of the day on the first hole ... 5 iron from 185 out of the rough.... it's hard enough without having to deal with the giant mower with a guy sitting on the left of the green where I have to come in from... big bunker is on the right side of the green so we have to stay left anyway. The management told me they have to mow so deal with it... looking for a new course to join next season. Why are they mowing the first hole 1/2 hour after the course opens? Shouldn't that be done earlier?

[NCSU_MSE]

Different scenario, but it also deals with grounds crews:

We play in a casual Monday night league. One night my group was 1st to tee off. Starting at hole 5 we noticed the mowers finishing up mowing the greens ahead of us. On hole 7 we hit our approach shots onto the green and I end up sticking mine to about 6 feet (which is great for me). Well about that time the crew cranks up the sprinklers for a good 10 minutes. Long story short, I miss the putt which was all my fault, but I wasn't too happy about having our round interrupted like that. Has anyone ever had that happen?

[Paradox]

my worst case with the maintainence crew came when they were getting my course ready for an upcoming tournament They were manicuring all the bunkers and it just so happened that I was following them(this seems to always be my luck when course work is going on). Anyway, 16th hole is a 2 shot par 5 for me and there just so happens to be 4 bunkers around the green . 1 is basically out of play for me but the other 3 are very much in play and the crew was working on the two most likely bunker spots. On top of that, the bunkers are only 5 yards at most from the greensides. So, I'm standing at the top of the hill waiting for them to notice me(too loud to yell with their power equipment) and when they finally noticed me and stopped to watch..not only did I have about 10 guys staring at me swing, I had one guy plus a gator in front of the front bunker and the others were gathered around the left greenside bunker. Where did my shot go? Way right...subconscious not wanting to hit anyone.

[Fourputt]

  skipneumann said:

You have hit the problem for me too. I have seen guys get just missed by a line drive from the other fairway and it's really scary. This shot he is asking me to take is my first iron shot of the day on the first hole ... 5 iron from 185 out of the rough.... it's hard enough without having to deal with the giant mower with a guy sitting on the left of the green where I have to come in from... big bunker is on the right side of the green so we have to stay left anyway.

If they say that then either deal with it or don't play at 7AM.

You don't really think that changing courses will make it any different do you? All courses mow at that time of morning, so if you insist at playing early then you'd better get used to working around the machinery on the course. I just don't get the problem. If they are nice enough to stop and let you hit, then go for it. You have to see it from both sides... you see them as being in your way, but from their perspective, you are in their way too. Relax and work with them or don't play until they are off the course. It's your choice.

[skipneumann]

Dear Fourputt Thanks for your reply... you say you don't get the problem... it's that this one mower guy decides that he is going to stop mowing fairway right next to the green rather then continuing to mow away from the green... all he has to do is keep going and he's out of our way; this is the problem-- he isn't being nice as you say. This is the same guy who stays in back of the tee box on other holes with the mower engine on full speed waiting for all 4 players to tee off; if we don't go he won't go

[mdbuschsr]

  NCSU_MSE said:

Different scenario, but it also deals with grounds crews:

So, they watered the green while your ball was on it? THAT is crazy. At the course I play the tends to mow the greens backwards, from 9-to-1. It's always interesting trying to adjust to putting on freshly mowed greens after putting on several long slow greens.

[NCSU_MSE]

  mdbuschsr said:

So, they watered the green while your ball was on it? THAT is crazy. At the course I play the tends to mow the greens backwards, from 9-to-1. It's always interesting trying to adjust to putting on freshly mowed greens after putting on several long slow greens.

Yep. In all my years I've never seen anything like it.