What does the next generation golf course look like? To golf course designer Terry LaGree, it requires much less water than today’s average course. In addition, it requires about 20 percent less chemicals, 25 percent less labor and an annual maintenance budget that may be $150,000 less than today’s.
Not to mention, the greens are perfect every day. How? They’re synthetic.
|
|
LaGree is partnering with Jeff Hartson, a sales and marketing executive, on Harmony Links, a company that designs and builds golf holes that combine synthetic turf greens and tees with real grass for fairways and common areas.
Hartson owns Harmony Pointe Greens, a distributor and installer of SofTrak Greens in Florida. Through Harmony Links, Hartson and LaGree, who has 25 years experience in the golf market and has designed a number of courses including the Short Course at Black Diamond Ranch in Lecanto, Fla., hope to bring synthetic greens to the commercial market, offering developers and operators a new option.
“We’re not trying to change the entire industry – it’s just a niche in the market,” LaGree says. “It’s obviously not for the Top 100 courses of the world, but it’s something to think about for executive courses or developers of new communities that want a golf amenity, but don’t want to spend $10 million to $15 million building one.”
In addition to being less expensive to build than a new conventional golf course, renovations are an option. One analysis comparing the renovation of synthetic greens to ultradwarf greens shows synthetic greens have a $30,000 cost advantage compared to USGA-spec greens. Plus, Harmony Links-style courses are about $150,000 cheaper per year to maintain. Savings come in pesticides, fertilizer, seed, irrigation, labor and other areas. Topdressing material is the only line item that costs more on synthetic greens, according to LaGree’s analysis.
Topdressing the greens with a specific type of round quartz sand (RQS) is a key component to allowing the synthetic surface to hold shots and provide a true roll, says Steve White, CEO of SofTrak Greens. The greens, which have a 1.125-inch pile height, allow for 7 pounds per square foot of RQS infill and topdressing. The synthetic greens are expected to have a 10-year lifespan.
There will be some doubters in the golf industry, Harmony Links’ founders say, but they believe their synthetic solution is the answer to at least two of golf’s current challenges: conditions are costly to maintain and golf takes a long time to play.
“We might be met with a certain amount of resistance, but some people are saying this is right on,” says LaGree.
The Harmony Links team advocates three- and six-hole loops, a concept they believe will help grow the game.
“Golf takes too much time to play,” LaGree says. “The market has to change. I’m a big believer that six-hole loops are a big part of our future.”
A high-end RV park in Florida recently bought into the concept. It will cost the community $1.2 million to build and about $150,000 annually to maintain a Harmony Links-style golf amenity. The park expects to charge $10 to $15 a round. It’s opportunities like this – RV parks, campgrounds, master-planned communities, executive courses, and even practice facilities at family-oriented private clubs – where LaGree and Hartson believe their concept belongs.
“The 20 to 25 handicappers are a part of the market we talk a lot about, but we don’t do much about,” LaGree says. Maybe Harmony Links will change that.
