Less mowing on your golf course?

[beaglehound1959]

What height does your course keep the rough at play?

Has anyone notice less mowing on their golf course?
It appears to me that our club is mowing less around the fairways and letting the high grass (heather or grass higher than our primary rough)grow up under tree lines that use to be mowed. I 'm sure it's a gas saving issue?
I fill like it's now slowed up play as people end up looking for 5-10 min. for a ball. Some players come back to replay it at the tees because they never played a provisional ball as a back up.
Has anyone else notice different ways courses that they play changed the layout for this year? What height does your course keep the rough at play?
I like change but not when it slows down play.

[Fourmyle of Ceres]

I think the labor for mowing outweighs the gas cost but cutting back (no pun intended) to less mowing saves on both.

Our course has Bermuda grass so to the extent they've moved toward trying to save a little mowing here and there, they've done it by narrowing in the "fairway" areas slightly while still keeping the "rough" cut low enough to be playable and where you can see the ball. One advantage (such as it is) to Bermuda roughs is that a cut of 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" that lets you see the ball easily, rather than having to practically step on it to find it, is that length of healthy, juicy Bermuda is still a substantial penalty for missing the fairway. With some cool climate grasses if you want to make missing the fairway a half-stroke penalty, the grass needs to be so tall the ball just disappears in it.

[larrybud]

The local Dump of a Muni (Royal Oak golf course in Michigan, if anyone is interested) has decided that just stopping cutting the fairway in the middle of a hole sounded like a great idea, and has been doing it for over a year. It's ridiculous. The fairway just ends for about 40 yards, then starts up again on the 2nd hole.

On another hole (#6), the fairway pinches down to something like 7 or 8 yards!!! It's the most insane thing I've seen.

What they also don't realize is that the grass that they are now letting grow isn't designed to be grown at the length they're allowing it.

Oh, they've also decided to cut back on the tree trimming and just let everything grow in around you, to the point of where a couple of willow trees decided to just fall over because they were rotted out.

[fore]

[quote name='larrybud' timestamp='1336582809' post='4880674']
The local Dump of a Muni (Royal Oak golf course in Michigan, if anyone is interested) has decided that just stopping cutting the fairway in the middle of a hole sounded like a great idea, and has been doing it for over a year. It's ridiculous. The fairway just ends for about 40 yards, then starts up again on the 2nd hole.

On another hole (#6), the fairway pinches down to something like 7 or 8 yards!!! It's the most insane thing I've seen.

What they also don't realize is that the grass that they are now letting grow isn't designed to be grown at the length they're allowing it.

Oh, they've also decided to cut back on the tree trimming and just let everything grow in around you, to the point of where a couple of willow trees decided to just fall over because they were rotted out.
[/quote]


In Michigan that's not surprising. You state government is instituting some serious budget cuts. Have they kicked out the elected officials in your town and appointed a financial manager yet? At least the businesses in Michigan will see tax breaks saving them $1.5 billion.

[Golfwolf]

We have not changed our mowing routes/frequency at the course where I work. The rough is cut daily in a rotation, all of it gets covered at least once per week. Fairways are done 3 times per week, greens are done daily.

[larrybud]

[quote name='thatsone' timestamp='1336591195' post='4881826']
[quote name='larrybud' timestamp='1336582809' post='4880674']
The local Dump of a Muni (Royal Oak golf course in Michigan, if anyone is interested) has decided that just stopping cutting the fairway in the middle of a hole sounded like a great idea, and has been doing it for over a year. It's ridiculous. The fairway just ends for about 40 yards, then starts up again on the 2nd hole.

On another hole (#6), the fairway pinches down to something like 7 or 8 yards!!! It's the most insane thing I've seen.

What they also don't realize is that the grass that they are now letting grow isn't designed to be grown at the length they're allowing it.

Oh, they've also decided to cut back on the tree trimming and just let everything grow in around you, to the point of where a couple of willow trees decided to just fall over because they were rotted out.
[/quote]


In Michigan that's not surprising. You state government is instituting some serious budget cuts. Have they kicked out the elected officials in your town and appointed a financial manager yet? At least the businesses in Michigan will see tax breaks saving them $1.5 billion.
[/quote]

The course is city owned, not state owned, and it's managed by a management company.

[SpinMill75]

Less mowing doesn't save money.....it slows play to crawl when golfers lose balls in tall grass and spend extra time. As soon as that becomes the norm for that course and word gets out, people tend to play somewhere else.

[ochowie]

My country club is really letting the rough grow out so far this season. It's getting to be really bad, and I am also noticing people spending a lot more time looking for their ball as our rough tends to make the ball sit down.

[Jorgo107]

A lot of clubs have taken up this practice of letting some areas of rough grow long.
The reason is to make the course more difficult in order to achieve better rankings I believe, but I could see how some clubs might do it to save money

[JonT]

Actually, it is all about the money. The person who owns the course where I play has been cutting back (no pun intended) on maintenance for about four years now; as business drops so does maintenance. It has become a vicious cycle, and this year the remaining employees who weren't layed off, or fired, are having their hours cut back. Wherever they are mowing, they have to stop and punch out when they reach six hours; leaving greens, fairways, and rough to be finished the following day. The owner owns several courses with all the money being dumped into the higher end ones, while the courses he owns now (and previous courses he has owned like ours) are slowly being killed off, then sold at a loss as a tax write off (IMO).