The Truth About Sand-filled Putting Greens.

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The synthetic turf industry has many theories and myths about sand filled putting greens. To better explain the complete picture, allow me to start by explaining what a sand filled green is.

Sand filled greens are made out of polypropylene (just a fancy word for a form of plastic) and polypropylene does not have any memory in it when made into the yarn format from which the end product is made.

With this material having no memory the finished product looks like a “wet cat” with all the fibers laying in one direction.

This, in turn, leads to problematic putting conditions and lot of grain.

To overcome this you have to “fill in” the fibers with specialized sand. We, at STI, recommend a rounded 20 – 30 (grid size) manufactured sand. The sand pushes up and keeps in place the fibers, which, in turn, gives the golfer a good putting surface with no grain and a realistic look.

With this type of sand, you will need anywhere from 5 to 9 pounds of sand per square foot. This means a green of 1,000 square feet will need anywhere from 5,000 to 9,000 pounds of infill sand for the total green.

Don’t let this deter you, this sounds worse than it actually is.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using this infill.

Pros:

Having this amount of sand will give the golfer good ‘hold ability’ when hitting shots into the green from any distance. The further out you go the taller (longer) you would want the fibers to be which will allow you to put in more (deeper) sand.

In turn, this will add to the hold ability of your green. These greens, if installed correctly, with the correct size and color sand, look authentic.

Cons:

The sand on these greens has a tendency to wash and blow. The sand will want to pack (simple weight and gravity) which will harden as time goes by. If left alone these greens can turn rock hard and become unplayable.

To avoid this from happening you have to do some maintenance on your green.

If you live in mild winter areas you will need to work your green every quarter. If you live in the severe winter areas you will need to work on your green 3 times per year, early in the Spring, around Independence day and then one more time around Thanksgiving.

Some may tend to think that the Thanksgiving session is a waste of time, but if you do not do this one your early spring session will be that much harder.

This maintenance consists of brooming your green vigorously from left to right, right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top.

The brooming causes the fibers to stand upright which will slow the green down.

Furthermore, it could cause the golf ball to osculate (wiggle from side to side). To correct this after you have broomed the green you will need to roll the green with a water rolled or a ride on roller (if your green is big enough to take a rider).

This maintenance might scare many golfers away from this type of green. I encourage you to not make this a deterrent, just make sure you understand this maintenance process. It is only a chore the first few times, after that you will enjoy doing it because it will get easier the more you do it.

You will be proud to have a show piece which you know you personally are accountable and responsible for.

It is worth it.

Often homeowners are concerned when they hear about the amount of sand needed to infill the green.

This sand gets delivered on pallets (56 x 50 pound bags per pallet) and normally arrives on a truck with a delivery vehicle attached to the truck.

If your project is a DIY project, have the delivery person drive the pallets as close as possible to the site.

If you have limited access (like a zero lot line) place the pallets on your drive way and move the bags to your site by wheel barrow.

The most cumbersome and labor intensive part of a sand filled green is getting this sand into the putting green surface.

Spread the sand with a drop spreader and every time you cover the turf with a layer of sand, broom the sand into the turf.

Make sure to always broom against the existing grain. This will make sure the sand gets driven in and packed from the bottom up to deliver a complete fill.

Furthermore, this is how you correctly and effectively get rid of all the grain in your sand filled green.

When deciding to buy a sand filled polypropylene green, I would strongly recommend you take extra time out to study the installation process as well as the needed after care.

If you have all the correct info needed to install this correctly, you will be better prepared for the project.

Enjoy your sand filled green, you have good reason to be proud of it!


Henry van Antwerp is a contributing writer to Residential Putting Green Magazine and an expert in the synthetic turf industry. Henry has personally built or overseen the construction of over 400 putting green facilities, about 175,000 square feet of synthetic lawn and has trained many newcomers in the industry.
Henry works with Synthetic Turf International and can be reached at 800-405-7455.



Editor's Note:Take a look at the brand new Blog from RPGM for those who want to build their own putting greens: Build a Putting Green Blog

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