re: Science of green keeping

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People have backyard artificial greens that are nice, but have very limited traffic and are easy to maintain.
On a much larger scale, their still needs to be maintenance performed daily to keep the surface smooth.
Even putt-putt courses have a hard time maintaining their surfaces.

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pretty sure it's basically impossible to check a ball up on an artificial green. They're fine for putting, but hitting shots into them not so much. You'd have to have taller artificial turf to hold balls on the green, and that would obviously not be conducive to putting on the same green. They also wouldn't be cost effective.

And like you said, those turf greens would get beat to hell very quickly, and you can't just regrow turf like you can grass.

quote:

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Only two architects predict that a full 18-hole course made of artificial turf will be built sometime in the next 10 years. Most feel the tremendous cost of synthetic materials would not be recouped by savings in water and chemicals because of the short shelf life of synthetics. Others, like Kansas City architect Todd Clark and his associate Brent Hugo, are unsatisfied with the performance of artificial turf on several par-3 courses they’ve built. “The greens that putt well won’t hold a shot,” Hugo says, “while if we add enough resilience to hold shots, they putt erratically.”

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golfdigest.com/story/a-full-18-hole-course-of-synthetic-turf-we-surveyed-20-course-architects-about-the-future-of-design-here-are-their-predictions