Course superintendents call it their ‘worst nightmare’, yet it’s easily avoidable.
Replace your divots, fix your pitch marks, rake the sand. Golfers know the basics of course maintenance etiquette yet are still making a common error that one superintendent calls his “worst nightmare”. You’ll often see the grass around cartpaths is often dead or non-existent, the result of golfers leaving two wheels on the path and two off.
Why is this such a common mistake, what damage does it cause and why should golfers care? Those are the questions we put to two top golf course superintendents, Jason Meersman from the Patterson Club in Connecticut and Paul Dotti from Arcola Country Club in New Jersey.
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Australian Golf Digest: I’ve seen so much damage around cartpaths recently. What’s going on?
Jason Meersman: Oh, my God, it drives me up a wall. You could have a hat that has a picture of a golf cart half on and half off a cartpath. It’s a superintendent’s worst nightmare.
The issue usually happens around turns. The cartpath turns at the apex, and that’s where people will cheat. They’re always trying to get from point A to point B to as quickly as possible. We’re like cows, so we’re going to go from point A to point B unless something interferes with us.
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Paul, do you notice this as well?
Paul Dotti: Yeah, absolutely. You’ll often see kerbing around the tees and greens to try to prevent that from happening, but especially around those areas, that’s where golfers tend to want to just pull two wheels off the path for some reason. I don’t know why it happens, but it is definitely a concern.
The issue with it is that over time on a course that has a lot of carts, you’re going to start to get a dirt strip along the edge. Essentially, the cartpath creeps out a few feet, and it’s usually just dirt because the ground is so compacted from the carts. Then, that area doesn’t get irrigated properly and since it’s compacted, the grass won’t grow back.
It’s a baffling thing, I don’t know why people do it. When people go to their houses, they don’t pull two wheels off their driveway, but when they’re in a golf cart, they do it. It’s really bizarre.
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What can superintendents do to try and get golfers to stay completely on the path?
Meersman: Some supers will put stakes at the apex of turns to try to prevent golfers from cutting the corner. If you don’t have those, then golfers will just cut the corner.
Dotti: Exactly. You’ve got to put some kind of kerbing or stakes. An issue with stakes, though, is that they quickly become labour-intensive to move when you’re trying to mow. If you don’t move them, they’ll get run over by the mowers, so we have to get them out of the way.
Some supers will put a layer of brick pavers over the area that’s been damaged by the carts. That expands the cartpath a little further. But what you’ll notice is that golfers will just go a little further off the brick paver, so you get the same issue.
Photograph by chris boswell/getty images
