How To Properly Repair Ball Marks

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, billchao said:

I still need to get one of those sharp, pointy repair tools. Right now I'm using one with fat, rounded tines from a souvenir repair tool. Maybe I'll just take a grinder to it and modify it.

The good tools are cheap from many courses. Or free at some.

I’m curious to try out some of the new PitchFix tools.

[billchao]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

The good tools are cheap from many courses. Or free at some.

My county courses don't have them, but if I see one in my travels, I'll pick one up. Or I'll just buy one from the internet.

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

I’m curious to try out some of the new PitchFix tools.

Let me know how they are. I was thinking of getting one of theirs. I like the idea of the Fusion 2.5, but when the greens are soft I make mud craters that need to be repaired with a traditional tool, so I'll probably just get the Classic.

[iacas]

13 hours ago, billchao said:

My county courses don't have them, but if I see one in my travels, I'll pick one up. Or I'll just buy one from the internet.

Let me know how they are. I was thinking of getting one of theirs. I like the idea of the Fusion 2.5, but when the greens are soft I make mud craters that need to be repaired with a traditional tool, so I'll probably just get the Classic.

The Classic is too far apart, and a bit too thin.

IMO.

[colin007]

On 10/14/2017 at 9:45 AM, iacas said:

The good tools are cheap from many courses. Or free at some.

I’m curious to try out some of the new PitchFix tools.

 

On 10/14/2017 at 10:03 AM, billchao said:

My county courses don't have them, but if I see one in my travels, I'll pick one up. Or I'll just buy one from the internet.

Let me know how they are. I was thinking of getting one of theirs. I like the idea of the Fusion 2.5, but when the greens are soft I make mud craters that need to be repaired with a traditional tool, so I'll probably just get the Classic.

Those don't look like they'd work on my courses/my pitch marks. The bottom of my crater is almost always bare dirt, where it needs to have the sides pushed in and not just pulling the bottom up. Also, that design with the barbed tines looks great for tearing and ripping grass. 

[Vinny Cap]

Good thread with good info.

Me and my buds were all doing it a lil bit incorrect.  I showed them what I picked up from this thread and we all repaired awesome puck marks on Sat.  Even fixed some old ones that were horribly done.

 

Thanks!

[rehmwa]

On 09/10/2017 at 9:46 AM, Lihu said:

The holes I leave seem to be a lot larger than those shown in the video. They're about the ball width or wider in the direction it landed, like an ellipse. I needed to gently shove and didn't lift the grass from an inch in each direction inward. This leaves almost a 2" area of "loose grass" in the area of my repairs.

That part of the vid was annoying too, I would have liked to see him apply the correct technique to a bit more of a 'serious' ball mark than that little dent. - regardless, the concept still applies

[bkuehn1952]

We have all seen the dirt plug left from a badly repaired pitch mark.  At times,when I am excavating an old, poorly repaired mark, I wonder if I am going beyond "repair" and breaching the Rules.  Up to this point I have not worried about it and just dig out the dirt plug, tug the turf together and move on.

Education is the key here.  The more golfers that understand the proper technique, the better the results.  Keep spreading the word!

Edited October 16, 2017 by bkuehn1952

[yourgolfbuddyph]

Is it worth fixing a ball mark off the fringe?

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, yourgolfbuddyph said:

Is it worth fixing a ball mark off the fringe?

I do if there is time.

[bkuehn1952]

Check out @phillyk's video on@PitchfixUSA . We might have a future media superstar among us. Post #205)

 

[Zeph]

In my experience, the people that do it wrong often falls into two categories. Those that don't know how to do it and those that don't care. The first category we will probably find everywhere. The second might depend on the country, area, general state of the course, what kind of people that play it. Many that I've played with didn't know how to do it properly. They might have learned it at a course once and that information might have been wrong. Or they just do what a lot of others do. They're typically happy if they level out the spot, without regards to how they did it.

From my experience, people don't want to treat the course bad and most thank me when I explain how to do it properly. Some might thank me and not care the next round they play, but that's tough to do anything about.

My advice is to tell everyone you see do it wrong. Give them a demonstration and explanation of why it should be done this way. It can also help to reach out to the clubs and make them throw up some posters, roll the proper way to do it on screens in the club house. I once played on a course where they asked everyone that showed up to play how to fix the marks. Before letting them out to play, the players had to give a small demonstration. This can be a great way to reach out to a lot of players, but make sure it's done in a positive way. Some can fussy if they take it as a personal insult that you don't think they know how to repair the marks.

You find most golfers on the golf course. A very small percentage visit a golf forum.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Zeph

[NM Golf]

8 hours ago, yourgolfbuddyph said:

Is it worth fixing a ball mark off the fringe?

 

7 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I do if there is time.

Make sure you don't do this if the mark is in your line, its a penalty. 

Rule 1-2. Exerting Influence on Movement of Ball or Altering Physical Conditions

Edited October 23, 2017 by NM Golf

[inthecup]

On 10/6/2017 at 5:09 PM, sjduffers said:

I totally agree about the need to make this issue more visible.

Invariably, I play with people that have been playing for decades, sometimes 3 or 4 decades and still don't know how to fix ball marks. Pretty much any time I see somebody doing it wrong (not on the first few greens though if I don't know them), I tell them and show them, right then and there (even if that means redoing an improperly fixed one). They usually thank me and start doing it right almost immediately (it takes a little practice to really get it right).

But, I put the blame on the courses who do a piss poor job of informing the players, and on the pros, who only care about making the next putt flat for themselves, not realizing how bad an example they are setting for everyone else.

I see some people doing it right, but there a lot of folks who don't for sure, and they all claim they watch the pros.

As for bringing it up, I just tell them: "please don't lift up, it just kills the roots and it takes weeks for the green to recover instead of a few minutes/hours". They get it that it's not about them, because it is in the interest of everyone to have smooth greens. Then we talk about the pros and what they are really doing when prepping their line of putt vs. what they are doing when repairing their own ball marks (not the same thing, it turns out!). 

I like to think I leave the course better than I found it.  This includes ball marks, divots and trap raking (not that I am ever in traps).  I fix lots of ball marks on almost every hole.  I play mostly private and they are not a lot better than the public courses I play on.

I use a single tine tool or a tee.  FWIW at a  country club that I play regularly they give out the single tine tool and their "how to" specifically says do not twist a forked tool it breaks the roots.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, NM Golf said:

 

Make sure you don't do this if the mark is in your line, its a penalty. 

Rule 1-2. Exerting Influence on Movement of Ball or Altering Physical Conditions

Yes, of course. I would only fix it if I was waiting to putt and I noticed a pitch mark. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, inthecup said:

Those can work pretty well too. Sometimes the little plastic tine breaks easily though.

[Aguirre]

I'm pleased to report that I've been properly repairing ball marks forever. What do you do when a piece of turf comes out of the green and lands a couple yards ahead of the pitch mark? This happened a lot this year because we had plenty of rain. 

[paperclip]

Sometimes I just wish that people even attempted to repair ball marks (sigh)

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Aguirre said:

I'm pleased to report that I've been properly repairing ball marks forever. What do you do when a piece of turf comes out of the green and lands a couple yards ahead of the pitch mark? This happened a lot this year because we had plenty of rain. 

Throw it away off the side of the green. Replacing it slows healing quite a bit.