Golf rounds continue to be way up around the country. With golf courses completely full during the day, the maintenance team is typically in everyone’s way when trying to do work after play has caught up to them. When this happens, golfers can get irritated and superintendents see an unwelcomed drop in productivity. A common way to limit the golfer irritation issue is to work backwards after morning jobs are completed. This way you only bother each group of golfers once during their round. However, this does not fix the problem of having to constantly wait for play.
A few courses in the West have found a creative solution to this age-old problem of finding a spot for your crew to work once the golf course is full – the maintenance gap. The maintenance gap is a block of tee times during the day when no golfers are scheduled. These gaps are generally only two or three consecutive tee times in the middle of the day, a few days a week. This window gives the maintenance crew a roughly 20-minute gap to work through for the remainder of their workday.
Communication is key with this program. The important thing to communicate to golfers on both sides of the gap is that they should consider the maintenance team another group of golfers. This helps the group in front of the gap know to keep moving and the group behind the gap to not hit into the maintenance crew. The message to the maintenance team is to stay in the gap. This also acts as a good incentive for the crew to keep pace with their work. Some courses are even mowing their greens in this gap. They get a dry cut, which is almost always a better quality of cut, and they may not have to mow in the morning, which can give them some more time to complete other key maintenance tasks.
The maintenance gap does not need to be a hard-and-fast rule every day. Cooperation between the superintendent and the golf shop staff can make these gaps mutually beneficial to all involved. If you’re struggling to find an efficient way to get your staff working on a full golf course, try the maintenance gap.
West Region Agronomists:
Brian Whitlark, senior consulting agronomist – bwhitlark@usga.org
Cory Isom, agronomist – cisom@usga.org