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Trees and cart paths can be found on just about every golf course. They can enhance a course when properly located and maintained, but they can also be a bad combination. Before we get into the sometimes rocky relationship between trees and cart paths, we need to understand the roles played by each on a golf course. 

Cart paths provide a designated area where carts and maintenance equipment can be safely operated while minimizing damage to the grass. The role trees play on golf courses can be controversial, but at many courses they are an important part of the natural landscape that adds beauty and strategic interest to golf holes. 

The species of trees found on courses varies greatly, and so do their characteristics. Some trees make better golf course trees than others. For instance, white pines, dawn redwoods and sweet gum are notorious for producing aggressive surface roots. As you might imagine, these trees should not be planted anywhere near a cart path. Doing so will significantly reduce the life expectancy of the cart path and create bumpy and unsightly conditions. 

Locating trees too close to paths can also lead to turf damage because trees are large, immovable obstacles that concentrate cart traffic if they’re in the wrong place. They also create shade, and draw moisture and nutrients out of the soil, which makes it harder for the grass near paths to handle traffic. Even though these issues are well known, we often see trees extremely close to cart paths. Not surprisingly, bad lies, bare soil and some of the worst grass on the course are usually found where paths, trees and traffic come together. 

For courses that receive a lot of cart rounds, it is important to remember that most golfers enter and exit the cart path in similar areas on nearly every hole. If trees are concentrating traffic, contributing to thin turf or damaging paths in these areas, that means most golfers are experiencing some of the worst areas on the course on every hole. If trees are meant to beautify the course, having them too close to paths seems counterproductive.

It is also worth addressing the idea of using trees to hide cart paths for aesthetic purposes. If improved aesthetics are the goal, then one must wonder how a cracked, bumpy path adjacent to thin turf fits into that strategy. These issues might not be visible from the tee, but golfers in carts will see them soon enough. A well-edged, smooth path and healthy turf could be more appealing even if it was visible from farther away, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

Cart paths and trees can both be assets to a golf course, but mixing the two often leads to bad outcomes. If your course has severely damaged cart paths, or thin and bumpy grass adjacent to the paths, it’s probably time to evaluate the impact trees are having. Like the adage goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.