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Artificial turf—once referred to disparagingly as “plastic grass”—has become a lush commodity for golf practice facilities tired of plowing money into maintaining natural grass.
Artificial turf is a “huge cost savings,” says Rick Dellon, general manager at Eaglequest Coyote Creek in Surrey, British Columbia. When parent company Eaglequest Golf bought the 15-year-old facility five years ago, it spent US$300,000 to carpet Coyote Creek’s landing area—what Dellon describes as a “mud bog”—with synthetic turf. The investment, he says, was recouped quickly in saved labor and operational costs.
The city receives an average of 41 inches of rain annually, more than half of which falls from December to February. “The amount of rainfall we get turns ranges into mud for about six months of the year,” Dellon says. While he’ll spend six hours a day on turf-related labor during this rainy time, he estimates “the guy down the street will spend 30 to 40 hours of labor a day picking up balls”—usually unplugging them by hand. Calculated at Coyote Creek’s hourly wage of $9, the facility’s daily labor savings can reach $300.
“When people are hitting 50,000 balls a day, you’ve got to get them back,” Dellon says. At a busy range with natural grass “you have to close mid-day and go out with eight to 10 people and pick [balls]” when it’s wet.
Not Your Father’s Turf
The stigma associated with artificial turf is fading as more businesses, like Eaglequest, realize not only the economic benefits of employing synthetic turf but also its aesthetic appeal. Coyote Creek’s sister facility, Eaglequest Coquitlam, has a 7-acre artificial turf landing area that features target greens, sand traps and a water hazard—all made from synthetic fibers. Standing in the center of the tee line, General Manager Kevin Ikuta says the range looks like a true fairway.
Technological and engineering advancements in the past decade have resulted in artificial turf products that really are more like their natural counterparts. These next-generation products are generally composed of a thermoplastic fiber, such as polyethylene or polypropylene, which is “tufted” and infilled with rubber, sand or a combination of both to create a realistic surface. The fibers on some products, usually putting greens, can even bend to mimic the look and playability of bentgrass.
“A lot of people think that it is either golf mat turf or AstroTurf-type turf,” says Steve Mazner, who serves as director of dealer operations for Southwest Putting Green Technologies Inc. and as vice president of sales and marketing for Integrity Marketing LLC, an artificial turf golf mat company. “They don’t understand that the fibers have evolved through incredible technologies in the last couple of years to look exactly like real grass.” From replicas of Kentucky bluegrass to zoysia, today’s artificial turf features multicolored broad-leaved blades, not twisted strands of nylon, he adds.
The synthetic turf target greens, sand traps and water hazards enhance the effect by allowing range owners to create that “fairway look” as well as challenges for practicing players.
At Olde Masters Golf Center in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., “synthetic target greens and sand traps add dimension to the field,” says Mike Hewes, vice president of sales and marketing. The facility’s undulating landing area adds to the course feel, and Hewes says even after three years, the “well-manicured” fairway continues to wow patrons. The only problems he reports are weeds—which grow in areas where draining rainwater washes away the sand infill—and open seams.
Underlying Issues
Though not uncommon, splitting seams cause unnecessary headaches and potential hazards for ball pickers or staff walking the field, making quality installation as important as product quality. An owner “can spend so much money on the turf and everything that goes into getting this stuff into the ground and a contractor who doesn’t understand the product cannot install it correctly and all that money is wasted,” says Mazner. “Turf can come up, seams can separate and if the proper infill is not used, it can turn into rock-hard concrete.”
By some accounts, adhesive is the most important component in an artificial turf application. “If the adhesive doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter what turf you use, it’s a disaster,” says Norris Legue, president of Synthetic Surfaces Inc., a Scotch Plains, N.J., adhesive manufacturer catering to the artificial turf industry. “A lot of people think the stronger the adhesive, the better it is. That’s not necessarily true. You have to have adhesive you can apply under the variable weather conditions.
“When you put artificial turf down, you want it to stay there regardless of the weather,” he continues. “You don’t want time bombs where the adhesive deteriorates and the seams open.”
When working with turf suppliers and installers, Legue recommends that range owners ask about the adhesive being used to ensure it has the right handling properties for installation under any conditions and long-term proven exterior durability—after all, artificial turf can last a decade.
Most artificial turf manufacturers quote an average life expectancy of seven to 10 years, but properly maintaining the turf can in some cases extend that lifespan. Dellon at Coyote Creek top-dresses his turf with sand every season to keep the fibers anchored and standing up.
Brushing or “brooming” the turf regularly also keeps the fibers from flattening out and levels the infill material. At Desert Pines Golf Center in Las Vegas, engineer Larry Coy doesn’t leave maintenance to chance. The fully automated range features a synthetic turf landing area with five target greens resembling some of the country’s most famous par-3 17th holes. To make regular maintenance routine, Coy designed a rig that attaches to the rear of the ball picker so that a sweep to pick balls also sweeps the turf. Maintaining artificial turf is much easier than the alternative, Coy says, and he should know. Desert Pines opened in 1997 with real grass, but after three laborious months, the exhausted owners ripped it up and opted for a synthetic version. “The landing area is so undulating that if we got the down [areas] looking green, the upper [areas] were brown,” Coy says. He’d have an even harder time maintaining that grass now, with water in short supply in Nevada.
Drought Conditions
Clark County and its municipalities, including Las Vegas, have been under a “drought alert” from the Southern Nevada Water Authority since Jan. 1, prompting a 25 percent increase in water rates and widespread water restrictions, which for golf courses and driving ranges includes a limit on the amount of water they can use to quench their turf. Spilling over their water budget results in increasingly prohibitive surcharges. The situation is likely to worsen as a “drought emergency”—the highest drought stage—could be declared as early as January 2005.
Though there’s no report of courses turning to artificial turf as an alternative, many driving ranges in the arid region, such as Desert Pines, have been proactive in their adoption of synthetic grass. Jupiter Golf Center is another example. That facility opened three years ago with a 135-yard-wide by 240-yard-deep artificial turf landing area as well as a synthetic putting and chipping green for short game practice. Owners Bob Cuillo, Roger Baron and Dick Bellinger calculated the climate’s lack of rainfall—just 4 inches per year—into their decision to use a synthetic grass surface.
“We were pretty sure the benefits would outweigh the costs,” Baron says. After pitting the cost to install the artificial turf against the cost to grow grass, install an irrigation system, buy maintenance equipment and hire extra staff, Jupiter’s owners were confident the most profitable option was the synthetic surface. And now, with Nevada’s water supply evaporating, Baron is confident it was the right decision.
“If we had regular turf, we’d probably be under [water] restrictions now,” he says. “A lot of courses have pulled out 10, 20, 30 acres of turf just to meet the water restrictions.”
Winning Attributes
As environmental pressures mount, especially in the Western U.S., where several other states are facing water woes, industry experts predict artificial turf use will continue to grow as an acceptable ground-covering option—for all ranges.
“It’s an option for everyone,” says Mazner, pointing out that in northern climates, for example, the turf will absorb the sun faster than dormant grass, to help melt snow.
If the initial cost is a concern, ranges can always use a combination of synthetic and natural grass, like Olde Masters Golf Center did in New Jersey. The center has 520,000 square feet of artificial turf carpeting its landing area and also a grass short game practice area and grass tees. “Artificial turf is more expensive initially,” Hewes says, “but the golf balls last longer, you don’t lose them to getting plugged in the ground and the condition of the ball stays much better than if it were real grass.
“We started out with 84,000 range balls and I would say about 30 percent of them look as good as they did the first day and another 30 percent are showing signs of wear and likely will be replaced this winter,” he adds.
The Eaglequest facilities and Jupiter Golf haven’t had such luck. The Canadian practice centers report that in warmer weather, the dyes in the turf rub off on the balls, making them look dirty, something Baron in Las Vegas also is grappling with. In addition, Dellon has found the artificial turf to be hard on the ball picker. “The disks tend to break,” he says. But those are about the only complaints he has. “There are some drawbacks,” Dellon admits, noting that nothing’s perfect. But he quickly adds that having nearly maintenance-free green “grass” year-round is better than draining his resources on natural grass six months of the year.
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