At Colleton River Club in Bluffton, S.C., the annual maintenance budget for the Practice Park is $100,000. The maintenance staff rotates the care of the practice area among crew members, and one person mows the practice area every morning. Other maintenance duties include edging bunkers, pruning azaleas, filling in divots on the range and tees every day, and changing cups three times a week.
At Colleton River Club, the annual maintenance budget for the Practice Park is $100,000. Dugger says three full-time employees spend 6,000 manhours a year to maintain the Nicklaus practice facility.
The maintenance staff rotates the care of the practice area among crew members, and one person mows the practice area every morning. Other maintenance duties include edging bunkers, pruning azaleas, filling in divots on the range and tees every day, and changing cups three times a week.
“It’s rolled into our normal operational flow. We treat it exactly the same as we treat the Nicklaus Course,” says Superintendent Kevin Dugger. “I want the golfers to be able to practice on something that replicates what they’re going to experience on the golf course.”
The Nicklaus, Dye, and Borland courses have TifEagle greens, TifGrand collars, and Celebration Bermudagrass on the tees, fairways, and rough.
The maintenance staff can use a machine in the bunkers on the golf course, notes Dugger, but not in the practice-facility bunkers. “There’s a challenge because, with a practice facility, the bunkers are so much smaller,” he explains. “We have to spend a little extra time there to make sure the bunkers are in good shape.”
The Colleton River maintenance staff topdresses the practice area every two weeks, and give it weekly foliage spray and growth-regulator applications. In addition, wetting agents and soil-fertility applications are used bi-weekly, following the same regimen used on the golf course.
Crew members start on the practice facilities, which are located near the clubhouse, at 6 a.m., and tee times begin at 8 a.m. “The practice facilities are the first thing we do every morning,” Dugger says. “We only have about an hour to get them ready. It takes some logistics and some thinking, but they make Colleton a special place.”
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