You beat me to it!
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Really impressed with how much you’ve stuck with this. Most people would have given up by now.
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Appreciate that. It ended up being a hell of a lot more of a commitment then initially anticipated. It is easy to look around, point at some trees, and see a golf hole. Making that happen is a different story.
Luckily, our entire group of friends want to see this through. This house is where we all congregate to get away from our ladies and do guy things. All 6 or so of us are deep in golf and care to see this to completion. My buddy that owns the property is probably the least into golf and most interested in restoring the properties scale to what he remembers as a kid - and he’s way down for having a golf course in his yard. Haha.
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This is phenomenal dude. I just signed up to the site and this is the first post I clicked and read through. Entirely envious of the opportunity you guys have in building this amazing short course, especially on a property that you can use as the boys hang out! You have an avid follower here going forward.
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Need some thoughts. A buddy of ours stumbled across this machine and got it up and running. Do we even mess with it? Modern machinery/land moving techniques or stay au naturel?
My biggest concern is the turf. If we rip up all grass on and around the greens, who knows when the grass would grow back in full. On the flip side, we now have the opportunity to build full on green complexes and develop contours around the greens. Keep in mind, none of us have a clue how to work this thing, but some of us have experience with tractor-sized equipment.
Thoughts? Concerns?
Remind us. Is the goal to have puttable surfaces or simply receptive greens? Puttable surfaces are going to require some serious topsoil, seeding, and time anyway so you might as well contour to your liking! Plus, late fall is the time to do the earth moving and shaping anyway since the ground will get hard until the spring rains for the grass. If the goal is really just for the wedge shots and short game practice, then you could use this to simply build humps around the green areas, say to separate from the road, as a means of #Backstopping the long & left shots. Just my uninformed 2 cents.
At this time, puttable surfaces are out of the question. Ideally, we hope to have quality grass cut short as possible while maintaining health of the grass. Thinking the 2nd lowest setting on your classic push mower. If we can do that and maintain to a smooth surface, we will be able to get the ball within a club length to call it good (this is what we usually play when playing one another out there). 80% of the time, this whole place will just be used for wedge practice. We have collected hundreds of balls that we will just pick up and hit to wherever we want that day.
Grass doesn’t have to be perfect by any means and interesting features that are severe enough to impact the outcome of a shot with shaggy fairway height grass would be best case scenario.
If you check out Fried Eggs golf on youtube he has some really amazing videos on building a green in his yard. This guy is completely separate from TFE the website and Andy just to get that confusion out of the way. Not a fan of most of his content, but the green building and maintenance videos could potentially be a big help if you are looking for a puttable surface next year.
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Yeah familiar with what he did - the videos and outcome are really sweet. It’s a pretty cool backyard set up for sure. We have thought about doing something like that, and come to a few conclusions. He has some advantages that we do not have:
- Retired father with interest and ability to maintain the green daily
- Green mower - at least a $2K investment for an old beat up mower
- A high spot with stellar air movement
- They have to have some sort of irrigation
- Land owner passionate about golf
It also seems like they play that green as individual holes - 9 teeing areas, 9 “holes”, 9 shots at the green. We expect to be hitting 200+ shots at each green area when we use it. Could you imagine popping all those marks every day to keep it puttable?
Other disadvantages:
- Moles. Big ones that tear up the turf
- Both greens in a low spot that floods every 5 years or so
- A land owner that enjoys having friends over but is not individually passionate about golf
- More interest in time investment then monetary investment
All that being said, it is not entirely out of the question to get a puttable green area. We could always build a short game area in the center of the field if we happen to stumble across a cheap green mower. Based on how we use the wedge range, it seems like a bad idea to make the greens we hit wedges into puttable surfaces.
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So having access to this Bobcat-like machine has got us thinking. We do want to take on the opportunity to use it but not to dig a bunch of bunkers or crazy contours etc. Sticking to templates and simply sharpening the contours we already have seems to be a logical play. Here are some visuals of what we have been thinking:
Golden Bell Redan style:
Had to use an old picture for the Redan/Golden Bell hole. Just do not have any current ones that are up close. The Redan will be massive - hump would start roughly 5 yards onto the green so the front flag would be on a flat spot. The back flag would be 10 yards further back and 10 yards left of the front flag on a flat spot. We are not going to be able to putt, but hope the sharpened contours will give better visual clues to how close we hit it to the target.
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This is awesome! When are we getting merch? Never been more down to spend $35 on a hat from some guys backyard.
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Once we create a logo. In contrast to whats happening over in The Ringer thread, if you buy merch, you receive a lifetime membership.
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Maybe I can play it more than once at the very least…
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I’ll buy my membership now if you’re hosting a NLU tournament lol
Sure. Here is the buffet of current membership purchasing options:
- 2 hours manual labor
- Donation of two dozen range quality golf balls
- Design of course logo
- Drone photo/video session - raw footage is fine
- 1 large bag of grass seed - part shade seed preferred
- 1 mole trap - willing to accept poison for said moles
- 1 rubber hose
More membership options available in the coming months as Some Guys Backyard develops. Please inquire if you have anything else to offer in exchange for lifetime membership. Regarding an NLU/Refuge tournament - yes. Just yes.
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Dear @scuff - we could not be more happy to have you as a member at BCN. Attached is your New Member Welcome Letter. Please let us know if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing you at the course soon!
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Just a BCN co-founder and board member making a fashionably late arrival to the Refuge. Welcome to the club Scuff – you are a prime example of the ideals we aim for every day. You coming on Saturday to help us cut/burn trees?
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