Divot Police on Patrol

The Glendale divot police are on patrol looking for players who don't replace their divots. Take a look at the photo below and notice that there are three large divots that were filled with sand/seed mix. Also notice that fifteen feet ahead are the three large chunks of sod laying on the fairway. Why didn't the golfers replace their divots? Yes, they filled the holes with seed mix, but that will take at least two weeks to grow back and fill in the hole.

The divots were also overfilled with sand, which kills fairway mower blades and bed knives which are expensive to replace.

The photos below show some of the 136 divots I picked up from the 14th fairway today ( Monday, after a busy weekend). We sent out five guys this morning to pick up divots, and it took them 40 minutes each. That's 3.33 man hours to do the golfers job. These divots have to be picked up by the maintenance crew before we mow the fairways, or the mowers take a beating. It also looks very messy after the fairway mower chops up the divots and spits small pieces all over the fairway.

   I realize that some divots explode into a bunch of small pieces that are not practical to replace. That's the time to fill the hole with sand/seed mix. The photo belows shows a divot I took on 14 fairway. I used a sand wedge and swung as hard as I could. I tore up a sustantial piece of sod.

The next two photos show the divot before and after it was replaced. Look how nice it looks after replacement. You can hardly see a divot was taken.

If you've followed along this far, you can see that replacing the piece of sod is the correct method when filling a divot. I'll make sure that the Pro Shop informs all outside tournament golfers to replace their divots. If we can get the message out to our members to replace divots, we'll be on the way to really improving the condition of our course. If not, watch out for the Divot Police. They'll be on patrol writing citations for failure to replace divots, and all other infractions of golf course etiquitte!