Ask any Grounds Maintenance Supervisor
for a demonstration on
ball mark repair.
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Ball mark Repair tools
are available for free
in the Pro Shop.
Please talk with our
Golf Professional, Mark Ashton, about
"The Rules of Golf", local rulings and
other forms of golfer etiquette or read more
at www.usga.org.
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The Cost of Carelessness
(reprinted from The Private Club Advisor, Feb. 2004)
Do you golfers know the cost of golf course repairs from carelessness? At one facility the President and Superintendent reported in their monthly newsletter that the golf course spent $5,000 per year repairing areas where golf carts strayed from the cart path; $6,000-$7,000 per season fixing ball marks on greens and $8,000-$10,000 repairing divots on the fairways and tees.
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Ball marks, those indentations caused when a ball lands sharply
on a soft green, have been ruining good putts since the days of Old Tom Morris.
Un-repaired ball marks take two to three weeks to properly heal, leaving behind unsightly, uneven putting surfaces. On the other hand, a repaired ball mark only takes half that time to heal.
Beginner or pro, it is your responsibility as a golfer to fix your own marks. If you're truly a steward of the game, you'll fix yours and any others you see while your partners are putting. There's really not much to it, but there are a few guidelines you should follow when making these repairs.
• Use a pronged ball mark repair tool (preferably), or a knife, key or tee.
• Insert at the edges of the mark-not the middle of the depression.
• Bring the edges together with a gentle twisting motion, but don't lift the center. Try not to tear the grass.
• Smooth the surface with a club or foot. You're done when it's a surface that you would putt over.
Click here to view a Ball Mark Repair video: www.gcsaa.org/resources/rr/media_video2.asp
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If you play golf, you create divots -- it's part of the game. However, if you create divots, you should also repair them -- that's part of the etiquette of the game. Repairing your divots ensures that the golfers who follow you have the same level playing surface you had when you started your round.
A number of different methods are used to repair divots, and each of them is designed to make sure that the type of grass growing around the divot fills in as quickly as possible. We ask that you simply replace your divot in the same direction that it came out and firmly tamp it down. If your divot explodes on impact you may wish to fill the hole with sand from the bottle on your cart or from the divot caddy on the tee. The divot bottles on carts do not contain seed so that you will not accidentally contaminate existing grasses with the wrong seed. In this situation, fill the divot and then tamp down the sand so it is level with the surrounding area.
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The bunker bankings at Baker Hill are steeply sloped so please be careful when entering and exiting the bunkers. Choose an easy route to enter and bring a courtesy rake with you. After completion of your shot please rake smooth your divot and footprints from the sand. The purpose of this procedure is to insure that the folks behind you will not have to extract a ball out of a heel mark or divot. The Golf Committee has ruled that golfers should place a rake after use outside the bunker. The bunkers are typically raked by the maintenance staff 3 to 4 times per week, depending on the amount of play.
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