Pitch Marks

AAAArrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh.

Just a rant, how hard is it to repair pitch marks.

Played at a local course recently, really nice course, in fact its probably my fav and the one i play the most. Its just so spoilt by the ammount of Pitchmarks on greens. I must have spent a good few minutes on each hole repairing other that had gone before me.

Its not hard is it??

Its just as bad as unraked bunkers. 20 seconds, thats all.

Sign of the times, Matt, I was doing the same thing at my club yesterday, repairing others pitch marks, raking bunkers correctly, seeding divots on our short holes.

Really annoys me and I always repair them whenever I come across them whether or they are mine or not.  Strangely enough there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the quality of the course and the amount of pitch marks.  There were certainly quite a few last Sunday at Minchinhampton after the medal competition and you would have thought that menmbers would know better, but apparently some don't.

The worst case I came across was at Gosfield Lake, where my brother and I played with a couple of members.  Because neither of us had official handicaps the pro actually checked that we had repairers with us, but it turned out that neither of the members had one between them.  And, almost inevitably, when we got to the first green (again after the morning medal) it was peppered with pitch marks....

Anyone ever met anyone who admits to not repairing ?

I'm starting to wonder if these are just the crop circles of golf ?

or maybe just when you can't find the pitch mark you thought you had left ?  how many marks do you see on average and I guess the next question is how many balls are hit to that particular green each week ?

Interetsing question Darren.  I usually repair a couple on each green if I see them, and as can be seen from my GIR stats most of them aren't mine!

When my home course was in it's top condition, everyone repaired pitch marks, divots etc. Then when the greenkeeper got lazy & the course started to go downhill I noticed loads of unrepaired pitchmarks.

The general attitude was "if the green keeper can't be arsed why should we", but my opinion was "were paying a grand to play here the greenkeeper isn't!"

Grrenkeepers been sacked now & they've got a consultant in & you can see see the members starting to take a lot more pride again.

Everyone, and I mean everyone should repair at least one pitch mark per green, even when playing at a course that is not their normal one.

If every golfer in the country did this pitch marks would be a thing of the past within a week.

I normally repair one a green, two if I actually make a pitch mark.

It takes seconds to repair a pitch mark so could be done as your playing partners are looking at their line.

It's the same with raking bunkers, if you were stood waiting to play your shot into a green, would you rather the person in front of you get a move on, leaving the bunker unraked, or wait those extra few seconds while he rakes it?  I know which one I would prefer!

I've heard those "It's the greenkeepers job" comments and it makes me laugh, it's not their job, I'd rather they be working on getting the greens into top notch condition than spending time repairing pitch marks.

Every time you have this conversation at my golf club it's blamed on golf societies and visitors.  This happens even when you play at a weekend and societies and visitors are not allowed before noon, yet they teed off before this, so it could only be members who are not repairing pitch marks/raking bunkers/replacing divots.

John is correct (once again, how does he do it?), it's a sign of the way things are going in this country.  Nobody respects anything and they want everything to be done for them!

Russ

For my sins I'm on the greens committee, and as such spend a fair bit of time out on the course. My biggest bugbear is is the state of bunkers. We had a big amatuer comp a few weeks back so I got up a 4:00am and went out with the greens staff at 5:00am to rake the bunkers and change the pin placements. The quality of the course by 7:00am was spot on. At 7:00pm I did my usual walk the course with our dog. In the main it was in good nick apart from a few poorly raked bunkers but some of the greens looked like maps of the moon.

And the comp that day had been one of the top amatuer comps in Yorkshire...140 of the very best in Yorkshire played that day and a fair number obviously don't carry pitchmark repairers.

I had a word with one of the players after he walked away from a divot the size of Wembley and his response was "it's a links course. It won't take." He obviously didn't care that a fellow competitor might end up in it. And guess what he did for a living? Yep, he's a greenkeeper.

The pitch marks that really bug me are the ones that are within 6 feet of the hole. How on earth does the group in front all miss it?

Russ. I've heard that 'it's Societies and visitors' excuse a lot and it really annoys me. In my experience (as a visitor to every club I play) both as an individual and CGL member we all repair pitch marks whenever we come across them - I've even shown newer members the way to do it so that the etiquette is drummed into them.  It's to do with maintaining the good name of the society and pride if nothing else.  So it annoys the hell out of me when you rock up to the first par 3 and it looks like a scene from the Somme and it is, I'm afraid, mostly the members of clubs who are responsible.

I hear the 'Societies and visitors' excuse at every golf club I go to.

There are two types of people, those who appreciate that repairing a pitch mark means better greens and those who just don't care.  These are the same people who complain about the state of the greens when they do return!

I suggested having course marshalls watching groups as they reach a green and making people go back and repair a pitch mark (if their ball hits the green), or leave the course.  Crown Golf won't do this as it will mean them losing money if these same people don't return, or renew their membership.  But this can work both ways as I'm thinking of 'NOT' renewing my membership because of this, and other things about the golf club.

As I said in my original post, if everybody repaired one pitch mark on each green we wouldn't have pitch marks within a week.

Another idea I suggested at my golf club was as above, every member should repair one pitch mark on each green.  The problem with this is nobody will supervise it so the members who don't repair pitch marks will continue with not repairing them!

Russ

Had another one today, pitch marks everywhere. Had a newbie to the game out with me and I gave him a repairer and showed him how to use it and explained the importance of doing it and he couldnt believe that people didnt. Needless to say he got plenty of practice doing it today. Just shocking. At least 3 or 4 on each green.

Russ,

We have a different approach at our club. Yes, there is the usual "repair your pitch marks," but we also do "adopt a green" where a green is adopted by members. Typically you'll get the players who play together regularly adopting a particular green. They'll spend just a couple of extra mins on a green every time they play. It does seems to work for us, and maybe it could for your club.

Bri

Brian, I have heard of that option before, but again it fell on deaf ears at my golf club.

What I heard/read about was assigning people to a certain hole, according to their surname.

This way each hole on the golf course had roughly the same amount of people. 

As you say Brian, as they play the golf course they get to their 'Hole' and can spend a little bit extra time looking after it.  Simple things like filling in divots on the tee box, picking up litter, raking bunkers and looking after the green.

It was also mentioned about having a competition for the best hole.

Russ