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Regulation football fields measure 120 yards by 53.3 yards. Domestic basketball courts measure 94 feet by 50 feet.
Preferred playing dimensions of golf courses measure whatever owners or stakeholders, who hire architects, consultants and contractors, deem fit. Let’s be blunt: some decision-makers neglect to consider any measurement or dimension besides tee-to-green distances.
Kerfuffles regarding course length permeate the industry. A relentless lobbying point among governing bodies and friends seeking to curtail playing equipment advances involves the cost of maintaining courses approaching five miles from the tips.
But an overlooked supersized trend is increasing maintenance costs and adding strain to overtaxed agronomy teams: expansion of golf’s waistline.
Selling wider fairways requires an approach promoting enhanced strategy. That selling strategy works. We recently visited four private East Coast private clubs, three of which have added significant fairway acreage in the last five years. Wider fairways evoke warm linksy thoughts and heighten the promise of lower scores and faster rounds. They even help return courses to a version of their architectural origins.
Secluded resorts and private clubs with scraggy peripheral aesthetics catering to traveling golfers with abundant time and money comprise the bulk of modern golf development. These jet-setting destinations, with courses designed by the same half-dozen architects, boast battleship-wide fairways.
Width, in moderation, can be wonderful. We’re not suggesting golf should return to Punchbuggy-wide fairways and overgrown corridors. Fairway expansions, though, come with added maintenance costs that must be addressed immediately and candidly in the design and renovation process.
The added costs place superintendents between pot bunkers. Raising too many questions gives the perception of wanting what’s easy for their department instead of striving for the best golf experience. Asking too few questions might lead to not receiving the resources to properly maintain a wider playing field.
In politically perilous situations, where a superintendent feels restricted to voice concerns, a reputable third-party agronomist is one way to ensure wider fairways don’t narrow future maintenance budgets. Valid questions deserving specific answers include:
Labor
- How big is your current full-time agronomy team? Emphasize full-timers here. Seasonal employees don’t help during the high-play, still-growing shoulder seasons.
- How many more labor hours will it take to maintain fairways if they expand by x, y or z?
- Where will you find more full-time employees to maintain wider fairways?
- How do you factor in added labor if fairway expansions occur as part of a multi-year master plan vs. an all-at-once renovation?
The playing experience
- How much longer will it take to mow expanded fairways with current staffing levels?
- Can you stay ahead of play with the current staffing and equipment levels?
- Can fairways be mowed as often with the current staffing and equipment levels?
- How will golfers react if fairways can’t be mowed as often?
- How will golfers react if they encounter mowing equipment while playing?
Equipment
- Can your course afford to add equipment?
- Does your course expect to explore autonomous fairway mowing options? If so, have you conducted exhaustive research on available and looming autonomous options?
- Does your course have a layout or routing that permits autonomous fairway mowing?
- Has your architect mentioned anything about how design decisions will impact mowing patterns and routines in five, 10 or 15 years?
Inputs
- How much does your course currently spend on pesticide, seed, fertilizer and wetting agent applications on fairways? How will those costs escalate with more fairway acreage?
- Do you have the labor to spray and irrigate more fairway acreage?
- How will wider fairways affect your water supply?
- More short-cut turf means more disease, weed and insect damage potential. How understanding are your customers?
- Can your existing irrigation system accommodate wider fairways?
Once the bill-payers invest in wider fairways, conditioning expectations instantly increase. It’s worth learning how those signing checks feel about widening short- and long-term budgets, because more shot angles and strategy come at a beefier cost.
Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s publisher + editor-in-chief. He doesn’t care how many fairways he hits when he plays golf.
