Golf and summer have been best friends for a long time. Summer is deeply associated with pleasant weather, extra daylight, and seasonal opportunities for extra fun. But sometimes those sweet August sun rays turn into sweltering spotlights that shine indiscriminately on your course’s pain points.
Suddenly the time of year we equate with childhood nostalgia and snow-cones becomes a source of headaches as we face planning for the off-season, turf troubles, and heatwaves that dissuade golfers from the greens. Don’t worry – foreUP has some advice about how to keep grinding through the summer sweat.
Take care of your greens.
Operators have lots of options and lots of sources to turn to for advice on how to keep their turf in tip-top shape. According to the United States Golf Association, extremely high temperatures lead to a reduction in turf photosynthesis. Mitigate the stresses of strenuous summer heat by allowing your turf to grow slightly longer than normal. This may slow the green slightly, but it will also help add surface area for photosynthesis. Being too aggressive in grounds maintenance could ultimately tip your greens over the edge… into yellows or deads.
There are other methods of helping your turf survive the sunniest season, such as precision hand-watering, the usage of fans, topdressing, and well-timed aeration. These potentially minor disruptions will lead to increased quality and quantity of play year-round, and can be integral to the health of your course.
Be strategic about planning the rest of your year.
Overly conservative greens maintenance can also hurt your bottom line – finding a happy medium will assist you in maximizing revenue while ensuring your grounds’ health. This will require working strategically with your course superintendent to customize your agronomy plan to any seasonal disruptions.
Not all seasons are the same, so we should treat them with the uniqueness they display. Winterization planning should not be an annual repeat with no considerations made for the fickle nature of the weather. If your course’s winterization plan has not changed in several years, it may be time to re-evaluate the timing of certain aspects.
Holding off on aerating until you are closer to the forecasted end of the season can give you several extra weeks of prime tee times. When other courses drive their golfers away from their prematurely-aerated greens, pull those golfers directly to your course by advertising your delayed aeration. If your region has heat forecasted this year until October, putting off punching until the last week of September could bring you nearly a month of additional prime tee time availability in comparison to your routine winterization plan.
Greens, grounds… What about golfers?
The sunniest times of day during the hottest season of the year don’t exactly have golfers fighting over tee times. So how to convince your human guests to show up if it’s too hot out even for the grass?
Your greens may not care about discounts, but your golfers definitely do. With foreUP’s robust reporting, you can pull statistics on the busiest (and slowest) times of day from your analytics and decide just how much the weather is affecting your tee sheet. From there, you can set automatic discounts that will kick in when our software senses certain times aren’t being booked. A ten, fifteen, or twenty percent discount on times that are going unfilled anyway can lead to a substantial boost in revenue.
And there’s another benefit to hyping up your hottest hours – a significant increase in beverage sales! Golfers have to hydrate regardless of the weather, but extra-high temperatures will drive your beverage cart straight to increased profits. With foreUP’s Food and Beverage product, you’ll never have to worry about guests having to leave their game to grab a drink. Bring the convenience and refreshments straight to your golfers with our comprehensive solutions.
We hope to have provided you a few ways to keep your course, golfers, and greens grinding through the muggy mid-year slump. But we think you deserve excellent support and top-of-the-line solutions all year round.
Explore how to pull custom data, upgrade your tee sheets, take your services out on the course, and more with foreUP!
