It's all about pin placement
The move keeps courses challenging and greens healthy.
By KELLIE DIXON, Times Staff Writer
Published January 16, 2008
BROOKSVILLE
Believe it or not, course superintendents are not thinking malicious thoughts toward golfers when they're moving around the pins each day.
Okay, so some golfers dig up the tee boxes with their poor shots.
Some spray greens with a heavy dose of sand - and then fail to rake the trap.
Really, pin placement has little to do with payback. Sometimes it just seems that way.
But if the holes aren't moved regularly, the greens won't stay healthy.
There is a science to this process, and it starts each morning - before the sun hits the horizon.
At Silverthorn Country Club near Brooksville, Bob Marrino and his crew start at 6 a.m. At first, they rotate the pins by the glow of their cart headlights.
Courses with smaller greens tend to stick to a basic front, middle and back rotation. But at Silverthorn and similar courses, the process follows a grid system. Six spots are drawn on each green. The zones were created when the course was built.
Last Wednesday, all the pins were moved to the fourth zone. On the fifth hole, that's practically the center of the green. But on the seventh hole, the zone was on the far left where there is a slight slope.
"I have to be nice here," Marrino said as he sank the cup cutter into the green to make the new hole.
Marrino might be a nice guy, but he's more concerned with the pace of play than being a people pleaser. A shot can be tough, but fair, when it comes to tournament play. Making the course more challenging really isn't the ultimate goal when it comes to serving everyday golfers.
"For your average Joe you try to make it relatively easier than tournament play," said Shawn Wenkman of Silverado Golf and Country Club. "If you make it tough, your pace of play can be slow."
So golf courses keep it relatively simple. By the way, relatively simple doesn't mean easy. Superintendents like Marrino still have slopes and corners to navigate.
Plus, while the pin is the only thing that moves around from day to day, it is not always the most challenging part of a course anyway.
Just think, at Silverthorn, there are 96 sand traps.
Got a story idea? Send it to kdixon@sptimes.com or call (352) 544-9480.
FAST FACTS
Placing pins:
how it works
- Silverthorn superintendent Bob Marrino uses a cup cutter, which resembles a fence post digger, each morning. The cutter slices easily through the green and removes a cup-shaped clump of soil. He keeps that for plugging the existing hole.
- Next, he removes the white cup from the existing hole and puts it in the new hole location.
- Finally, he plugs the former hole. He doesn't pack it tight, though, because when the patched hole is watered it will swell. The excess dirt goes in a bucket.
- Marrino, who has worked for golf courses for 25 years, has been at Silverthorn for the last five.