Golf Cart and Pull Cart Etiquette

I remember back to "the streak" when Cal Ripken Jr. played almost his entire career without missing a game.  Here in the world of Highland Meadows Grounds Department, we have a streak of our own.  I call it the "consecutive grounds committee meetings where members bitch about where other members drive their carts/pull carts" streak.  I think we are somewhere in the low 200's with this streak at last check.



At a club as busy as ours, cart traffic and even foot traffic can become a very real barrier to course conditions and playability.  Carts and foot traffic cause turf health issues, aesthetic issues and playability issues. While many members seem to think I police the daily play, I don't see nearly as many offenses as members do. The only real way I can help is by directing traffic with ropes, stakes, and signs and most importantly - educating.  I have written newsletters, blog posts, and even contemplated hiring a skywriter on a busy Saturday to get the word out, but players continue to place carts where they shouldn't.  



And now for something completely different -  I have a video.  In an effort to continue my due diligence towards better understanding in cart rules and etiquette, I have tapped the information available from the USGA's "Fore the Golfer" series of videos.  While a bit cheesy and obvious at times (I'm pretty sure they resurrected the narrator from every 1950's era educational video to do the voice work) , they do a decent job of illustrating some of our core cart traffic principles.  Also,  If everyone thought about just these few core principles, the course would look better and I could save about 20 minutes in every committee meeting.

The Well's and "not-so wells"

What has been such a great summer is starting to make me pull my hair out.  By now, we had hoped to be elbow-deep in our new range/pump house by now with sights set on completing our irrigation upgrade by fall.  As always seems to happen, small changes, permits, and people just being busy has thrown a couple of delays into our process.  Rest assured, we are still on-track and moving forward.

As I spoke of awhile back, the unexpected yield on well #2 demanded we change the type and horsepower of our well pumps.  This change required some minor re-engineering and tweaks to the new electrical infrastructure to accommodate the higher horsepower. Being as our range house is a commercial structure, this electrical information was required to submit for our county building permit, which required our zoning permit, which blah blah blah blah. In other words, there hasn't been any mistakes, it's just taken a little longer to get all the necessary paperwork in place.

As of today, everything is moving forward - more or less.  The building permit is "pending" and we should have it in our hands soon.  The problem we are running into is that our masonry contractor has other work scheduled for late August.  Since our project was scheduled to take place late July/Early August, we are running out of time.  We are working diligently to ensure there are no further delays, but time will tell.  I will keep everyone posted.