Top Tips On How To Keep Your Golf Course Maintained At All Times

Peter Hough

Nobody wants to play a round of golf on a course that isn't maintained. Can you imagine trying to find your ball on an overgrown fairway? Or trying to chip onto the green in a waterlogged bunker? It's impossible!

Club members and visitors won’t want to play on your course if you don’t look after it. There are over 2.3 million golfers in the UK and Ireland – think about how many people are walking through your course each year.

So many people use golf courses regularly. This means that over the years, your course will get damaged by people walking, hitting balls, driving carts, and playing on the course.

An average 18-hole golf course is approximately 500 acres – that’s a lot of space to maintain! If you want to keep your golf course in perfect condition, then you need to have a plan, the right tools and know exactly what you’re doing.

Different parts of your course need different types of maintenance, and today we’re going to show you exactly how you can easily maintain your golf course throughout the year.

What is golf course maintenance and why is it important?

Golf course maintenance is what you do daily to maintain your golf course.

Maintaining your golf course can include:

Golf course maintenance is essential for various reasons, but mostly because it keeps your club members happy. They come to your club to enjoy a round of golf with their friends and take in the natural environment of the course. They come to play golf to get away from stress so they don’t want to be faced with an unmaintained course.

Maintaining your course also helps ensure that you pass health inspections, keep pests under control, and give every player a positive experience.

What happens if you don't maintain your golf course?

Keeping up with golf course maintenance can be challenging. But performing little to no upkeep is much worse than putting in the effort to maintain your course.

If you don’t keep your golf course maintained, then you could run into these consequences:

Unkempt grass - players can't play a good game, it attracts pests, and it's hard to get back in a good condition.
Abandoned fairways - shaggy fairways make playing a round difficult for club members.
Pest infestations - nobody wants rodents, insects, and other pests on their golf course. It's unattractive and won't encourage people to play.
Burnt grass - your golf course needs to be kept watered; otherwise, the grass will go brown in the heat and look awful for players.
Weeds - If you don't stay on top of your maintenance, weeds will grow, and players will find it hard to play golf. They may even lose their balls. Weeds can also take over bunkers, making it hard to chip balls onto the green.
Neglected amenities - always keep your club amenities in top condition so your players will be happy. So many clubs abandon their benches, drinking stations, and bins.

Tips for golf course maintenance

A lot of areas need to be kept maintained on a golf course, so it’s often quite overwhelming to anybody who hasn’t done it before or who hasn’t done it in a long time.

To help make golf course maintenance more accessible for you, we’ve put together these five tips for maintaining a golf course.

1. Remove ball marks

When golf balls are hit far, high, and hard, they fall with force, marking the course’s turf. These marks create an uneven ground and are especially bad on greens. It’s tough to make a good putt on a rough green!

A ball mark repair tool is the best way to fix ball marks. It doesn’t take too long to repair ball marks if you get on them immediately, but if you let them build up over time, you’ll end up with a bigger job on your hands.

A great way to get rid of ball marks is to encourage your club members to fix their own ball marks. Most players will have no problem fixing their own ball marks and probably already have a ball mark repair tool in their bag.

2. Take care of the big three

The big three are the main three things you should maintain when it comes to your putting greens.

The big three are the factors that make a good putting green great, and they are:

For a putting green to meet the standards of seasoned players, you must maintain the firmness, speed, and slope of your putting green. By doing this, your club members will never have a bad thing to say about your greens.

3. Rake Bunkers

A raked bunker is essential for a good golf game; without them, your players will only get frustrated with your course.

Make sure you rake your bunkers regularly and have plenty of drainage so water doesn’t build up.

You should also remove any footprints and golf ball marks with the rake and mow the turf along the edge of the bunker so balls don’t get caught in the overgrown grass.

4. Repair Divots

Sometimes players will cut turf when hitting a ball or shuffling their feet. This is known as a divot. If you don’t repair them when you see them, they could impact somebody else’s game.

Most divots are located on the tee box, the fairway, and the greens, so they’re easy to spot and fix. Repairing divots is a simple but necessary task for any golf course owner or manager.

5. Maintain Golf Carts

Golf cart maintenance is essential to keeping your club members satisfied. Nobody wants to use a dirty or unkempt golf cart on their next trip to your course. They want a clean, working cart they can rely on during their game.

Some of your players might be older or have mobility issues. Having working golf carts is essential for any golf course, which is why maintaining them is crucial.

Try to inspect your golf carts weekly to ensure they’re always in working order.

When maintaining your carts, be sure to:

How to make golf course maintenance easier

Managing your golf course maintenance can take a lot of time and effort. Here are five tips to help make golf course maintenance easier for you and your team.

1. Use a management tool

It’s hard to stay on top of everything you have to maintain, so why not make things easier for yourself by using a golf course maintenance management tool.

You can use a CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) to take control of your maintenance and make things as easy as possible.

Some benefits of using a management tool:

2. Don't disrupt tee time

People do not like to be disturbed during their first tee-off of the day, so if you want to do some detailed course maintenance, make sure you’re doing it during quiet periods.

Develop a maintenance plan that works alongside your players. Give them the time they need to play a great golf round without disruptions.

A detailed maintenance plan will also help you stay on top of all your golf course maintenance tasks.

3. Be sustainable where you can

People enjoy golf because it’s a sport they love but also because they get to play outside in wonderful scenery. Make sure your golf course takes the beauty of the nature around it into account when doing regular maintenance.

Don’t use harsh pesticides and chemicals in your maintenance and minimise environmental waste so your golf course will always stay appealing to your players.

4. Invest in high-quality tools and machinery that works

By investing in the right tools and machinery for your golf course maintenance, you’ll be able to maintain your golf course quickly and efficiently.

At Middlewich Machinery, we recommend using compact tractors with attachments like:

With a compact tractor at your disposal, you’ll be able to maintain your fairways, transport materials, keep your greens in check, and ensure your bunkers remain in top condition.

If you already use a compact tractor, don’t forget to send your machinery in for service & repair to make sure it’s working the way it should!

5. Learn from other golf courses

Learning from your competitors is always a great way to determine the best way to maintain your golf course. If it’s already working for them – why change it?

If their golf course always looks like it’s in perfect condition, then look at their processes, ask what machinery they use, and ask them if they have any advice.

Any decent golf course owner would be happy to share a few tips with you so you can keep your golf course in good condition.

We hope our guide to maintaining golf courses has helped you figure out what you need to do to create the best experience for your players.

If you’re looking for the best machinery for your golf course maintenance, check out our extensive catalogue of maintenance machinery.

At Middlewich Machinery, we provide golf courses with the highest quality machinery on the market.

Take a look at our full catalogue of maintenance machinery today.