Why Don't More Clubs Paint The Holes?

[iacas]

1 hour ago, NEhomer said:

I reject that it's expensive or all that time-consuming. It's also not a difference maker as to whether I would play or join a course.

The expenses (both time and money) have been shared. They're now "known." You can make a value judgment, an opinion, on whether that is actually "expensive" or "time consuming" but you can't just "reject" that it costs cost money and time.

It's a very simple thing, really: if places thought it would improve their bottom line, or if they thought it was an important thing to affect the "feel" of their course, they'd do it.

Most courses don't seem to feel the value is worth the cost.

Most golfers, it seems, don't even really seem to notice.

You can feel differently than the majority of the players or the ownership of various courses, but you can't "reject" the facts.

---

I'd like it, too, if courses could do this.

But I understand why they don't, and it has never and will almost surely never be in my top 50 reasons why I play or don't play at a particular course.

[NEhomer]

21 minutes ago, iacas said:

The expenses (both time and money) have been shared. They're now "known." You can make a value judgment, an opinion, on whether that is actually "expensive" or "time consuming" but you can't just "reject" that it costs cost money and time.

It's a very simple thing, really: if places thought it would improve their bottom line, or if they thought it was an important thing to affect the "feel" of their course, they'd do it.

Most courses don't seem to feel the value is worth the cost.

Most golfers, it seems, don't even really seem to notice.

You can feel differently than the majority of the players or the ownership of various courses, but you can't "reject" the facts.

---

I'd like it, too, if courses could do this.

But I understand why they don't, and it has never and will almost surely never be in my top 50 reasons why I play or don't play at a particular course.

The only reference to expense in this thread is by a poster who made his assumption based upon the holes being changed each day. I appreciated his input assuming he knows the pricing and such. First off, I don't know of a muni course that changes the holes every day but even if that's true and even if we assume that the poster is correct in his cost estimations, that the practice would cost a club $100.00 a month and be "too expensive" is certainly open to opinion. $100.00 a month may well prove to be factual but it is not a fact that it's too expensive. That is an opinion and I am free to reject that opinion.

....and for the last time, I have never stated that it's any kind of deal breaker as to playing or joining a course so I don't know why that point keeps being brought up. 

[3jacker]

Hung over grounds crew guy would probably make a big old mess all around the hole.

[jsgolfer]

3 hours ago, NEhomer said:

I'd be interested to hear what folks think at your club. Do you know how the decision came about?

I'm at the same place I started with this. It would be a nice touch if more clubs did it. I reject that it's expensive or all that time-consuming. It's also not a difference maker as to whether I would play or join a course.

Someone on the green’s committee  thought it would be a nice touch, so after discussions with our greenskeeper and he said it takes minimal time and the cost wasn’t excessive.  I’m on the greens committee, everyone on the committee thought it would be a nice added benefit. So they are going to start doing it sometime next month.  I’ll let you know what I hear from other members

[NEhomer]

1 minute ago, jsgolfer said:

Someone on the green’s committee  thought it would be a nice touch, so after discussions with our greenskeeper and he said it takes minimal time and the cost wasn’t excessive.  I’m on the greens committee, everyone on the committee thought it would be a nice added benefit. So they are going to start doing it sometime next month.  I’ll let you know what I hear from other members

Terrific....sounds like a cool experiment to try.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, NEhomer said:

The only reference to expense in this thread is by a poster who made his assumption based upon the holes being changed each day.

a) He didn't make an assumption. He works at a golf course.
b) Changing the holes daily is pretty common.

Regardless, what I said remains true:

• The expenses (time and $) were listed in this topic. Neither are "free" or "zero minutes"
• Courses will most often make this decision based on whether or not it adds more value than it costs.
• Most golfers don't seem to care.

YOU care. Which is fine, and obvious.

1 hour ago, NEhomer said:

First off, I don't know of a muni course that changes the holes every day but even if that's true and even if we assume that the poster is correct in his cost estimations, that the practice would cost a club $100.00 a month and be "too expensive" is certainly open to opinion. $100.00 a month may well prove to be factual but it is not a fact that it's too expensive. That is an opinion and I am free to reject that opinion.

Nobody said otherwise. (It costs more than $100 a month, because you're not considering the time it takes, too, not only to do the holes but to maintain inventory levels, etc.).

Of course you're free to reject it, but consider it from the course perspective. I suspect many view it as an unnecessary expense (time, money) that won't do a single thing to change virtually anyone's opinion. They likely won't get a single extra round because they do it, the greens staff might hate doing it every day, and it'll add overhead.

2 hours ago, NEhomer said:

....and for the last time, I have never stated that it's any kind of deal breaker as to playing or joining a course so I don't know why that point keeps being brought up. 

I never said you said it was. I simply typed out "not in the top 50 reasons" as a means of illustrating how meaningless painted cups are to the vast majority of golfers.

What do you want people to say? "Yeah, that'd be cool." Or are you just saying I don't get to have and express my opinion?

You asked the question in your OP. I'm discussing it.

On 3/20/2018 at 2:40 PM, NEhomer said:

It can't be all that expensive and it doesn't take much time to do so why don't all/most courses paint the holes white like they do in pro events?

Why don't they do it?

• It costs money.
• It costs time.
• It annoys staff.
• The vast majority of golfers couldn't care less.

[NEhomer]

I look forward to hearing about what folks think at jsgolfer's course.

[Phil McGleno]

14 minutes ago, NEhomer said:

I look forward to hearing about what folks think at jsgolfer's course.

My course did this for awhile. We got a kit with a new set of greens mowers.

When we made a point of asking the members they would say great things.-They loved them.

Only one person commented unsolicited.-He is the only one who noticed we had started painting the rims white.

Nobody noticed when the free cans of paint ran out and we stopped painting the rims.-Nobody except the hole cutter who was sick and tired of having to paint the rims every morning and getting paint all over his gloves and pants and bucket.

Almost nobody cares about this stuff.-Your course can probably do ten other things that are cheaper, easier, and have a bigger impact.

[NEhomer]

2 hours ago, Phil McGleno said:

My course did this for awhile. We got a kit with a new set of greens mowers.

When we made a point of asking the members they would say great things.-They loved them.

Only one person commented unsolicited.-He is the only one who noticed we had started painting the rims white.

Nobody noticed when the free cans of paint ran out and we stopped painting the rims.-Nobody except the hole cutter who was sick and tired of having to paint the rims every morning and getting paint all over his gloves and pants and bucket.

Almost nobody cares about this stuff.-Your course can probably do ten other things that are cheaper, easier, and have a bigger impact.

Fair enough but...

When we made a point of asking the members they would say great things.-They loved them.

Why do you detract value from a solicited response? What makes that response less than genuine? By what means do you determine that "almost nobody cares?"

Nobody noticed when the free cans of paint ran out and we stopped painting the rims.-

Again, by what means have you interpreted nobody complaining as nobody caring?

I appreciate your input as I've never seen it done at any course I've played and have never myself putted at a painted hole. It just looks cool and I'm imagining a brighter target would be easier to lock in on. I might not give a shit in reality.

 

 

[Phil McGleno]

Look-@NEhomer it seems like you only want answers that tell you how good your idea is.

We did it at my course and only one person even noticed.-After a week or two we asked people and they would say they liked it but not a single person noticed when we stopped. We asked them after a few weeks and the ones we asked before did not notice and the new people we asked did not notice we had ever done them.

But that is not what you want to hear so no need to reply-You just want to hear only how great your idea is.

Good luck. It is pointless.

PS-The hole is almost never your target putting.

[dave s]

23 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I've also seen "Par Aide" on ball washers, so Ii guess they help too.

As far as I'm concerned, the cup shouldn't be in your peripheral vision. Not even on a 2 footer!

I use the Par Aide regularly to wash the BOGIES off my golf ball! 

[No Mulligans]

Once they put more effort and money in Marshaling the pace of play maybe I'd worry about a little paint on the cups.... no, check that, I would never worry about the painting of the cups.

[Buckeyebowman]

On 3/21/2018 at 8:28 PM, iacas said:

 

Sorry I didn't include the quote, the OP said the cup would stand out more in his peripheral vision if it were painted. I thought the idea of putting was to concentrate on the ball, the line you want to start it on, and the speed necessary to get it to the cup. That seems to be the point of some of your following posts.

I find it sad that you don't seem to recognize when people agree with you!

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I find it sad that you don't seem to recognize when people agree with you!

x 2

You said this:

On 3/21/2018 at 7:43 PM, Buckeyebowman said:

As far as I'm concerned, the cup shouldn't be in your peripheral vision. Not even on a 2 footer!

Of course the hole is in your peripheral vision on a two-footer. That statement doesn't make any sense.

When you look at the ball, the cup is in your peripheral vision, even on a four-footer, five-footer.

[onthehunt526]

13 hours ago, iacas said:

The expenses (both time and money) have been shared. They're now "known." You can make a value judgment, an opinion, on whether that is actually "expensive" or "time consuming" but you can't just "reject" that it costs cost money and time.

It's a very simple thing, really: if places thought it would improve their bottom line, or if they thought it was an important thing to affect the "feel" of their course, they'd do it.

Most courses don't seem to feel the value is worth the cost.

Most golfers, it seems, don't even really seem to notice.

You can feel differently than the majority of the players or the ownership of various courses, but you can't "reject" the facts.

---

I'd like it, too, if courses could do this.

But I understand why they don't, and it has never and will almost surely never be in my top 50 reasons why I play or don't play at a particular course.

I agree 100% with all of this. It's mostly a labor and supplies issue... most courses (especially public and municipal courses) don't have the labor budget or the supplies budget to do this. It's all about money. 

Yes a can of spray paint is relatively cheap, but how much extra time is it going to take the kid cutting the holes to paint the sod between the liner and the green surface 18 times. Figure an extra hour of labor there, you need the more expensive quick drying spray paint. Say you pay the kid $10 an hour and the paint at bulk rate is $6 a can and it takes 2 cans to line all 18 holes. So $12 supply cost + $10 labor. Say you change the hole locations 3 times a week, that's $66 a week * 52 weeks = $3,432 a year, on a year round course... That $3,400 is better suited elsewhere. Maintenance on carts, mowers, gasoline for the mowers, green rollers, rakes, new tee markers and flagsticks every so often. 

If they're spending an extra hypothetical $3,400 on painting the holes, who do you think gets to pay this? Yup. you guessed it, we do. With raised greens fees that's how.

[NM Golf]

13 hours ago, NEhomer said:

First off, I don't know of a muni course that changes the holes every day

I don't know where you play, but we change the cups EVERY SINGLE day. All the Munis here do, in fact every course I play changes the cups every day.

13 hours ago, NEhomer said:

The only reference to expense in this thread is by a poster who made his assumption based upon the holes being changed each day. I appreciated his input assuming he knows the pricing and such.

I've worked at golf courses for over 20 years, I know what I am talking about. A case of turf safe paint is right at $100-$120 a case, you probably find some budget paint cheaper but it will kill the grass. Look it up.

13 hours ago, NEhomer said:

that the practice would cost a club $100.00 a month and be "too expensive" is certainly open to opinion. $100.00 a month may well prove to be factual but it is not a fact that it's too expensive. That is an opinion and I am free to reject that opinion. 

Have you ever seen the bottom line at a municipal golf course? If you had you would very quickly realize how ridiculous this statement is. Yes, it's too expensive, because it's totally unnecessary. I have played some great courses and I can't tell you if any of them painted the inside of the hole. I just played Pinehurst no 2, couldn't tell you if the holes were painted or not, but I really don't think they were. Why, because I, like most people, couldn't care less.

We used to paint the holes for our member guest each year we don't do it anymore because it was a pain in the ass, no one gave a shit, and they started making us pay for the paint.

 

[onthehunt526]

55 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

We used to paint the holes for our member guest each year we don't do it anymore because it was a pain in the ass, no one gave a shit, and they started making us pay for the paint.

 

Funny shit, right there, but you're right. That turf safe paint is expensive, and let's be honest, no one really pays attention to whether the hole is painted or not anyway... Spend more money on the stuff that matters. 

[NEhomer]

Well I have clearly gotten my ass kicked in this thread!