The size of practice facility tees never seems big enough to accommodate golfer activity, especially during periods of slow turfgrass recovery. To make matters worse, it is not uncommon to see tee size wasted where the practice area was designed with two levels. The slope bisecting the two hitting areas is unusable and may reduce tee space by 30 percent or more in some cases.
One course I visited in the past few months recognized the need to renovate their bi-level practice facility tee and the results from the project have been nothing but positive. The former split-level hitting space was comprised of approximately 15,000 to 20,000 square feet. The new design offers 30,000 square feet of firm, level hybrid bermudagrass hitting area. The project was complete by a local contractor who reshaped the tee, installed new drainage and laid big roll sod for $61,000. The tee was only closed for three weeks.
If you would like to learn more about rebuilding and expanding practice facility tees, click on one of the following links (Building a New Driving Range Tee - Super Size It, Overnight Practice Facility Tees), or search the USGA Green Section Record.
For more tips on course renovation projects or other agronomic advice, please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Pat Gross: pgross@usga.org or Mr. Brian Whitlark: bwhitlark@usga.org, or call the Southwest regional office at (714) 542-5766.