Maintaining natural grass on golf courses can be a difficult task, requiring constant upkeep, watering, and weeding. The main priorities for golf clubs and leisure sites looking to refurbish their lawns and grass surfaces are:
- The natural, neat aesthetics of green grass
- Weed growth prevention
- Low maintenance requirements
- Sustainability
- Stable and solid surfaces
- Good drainage capacity
PlaySmart provides the best grass for golf greens and all areas of the course. Our artificial and hybrid natural grass options meet these requirements to create the perfect golf course.
Hybrid Grass and Artificial Golf Greens
We recommend the use of artificial grasses most on the putting green, where the best quality surface is required. Natural grass maintenance on golf greens can be very time consuming with regular upkeep like weeding and mowing.
Artificial grass for golf putting greens reduces these issues with natural grass by providing an even, flat, long-lasting surface that looks professional and consistently green. Many professional golf courses use artificial grass for their greens to promote uniformity and fairness with less maintenance requirements.
For a more eco-friendly surface option that combines the benefits of synthetic and natural grass, hybrid grass is a great alternative to artificial grass. With a combination of fake fibres and real grass, the hybrid surface looks natural and the grass responds in the natural way as golf balls roll and bounce over it. Hybrid grass reinforces the natural grass to avoid patchy and muddy ground, keeping your golf greens green all year round!
Artificial and hybrid grasses are designed with the best drainage capacity in mind. Hybrid grasses have a netted backing that encourages water to filter through the surface into the soil evenly, preventing puddles. The sub bases required for some installations are also designed with specific drainage pathways and infiltration systems to limit boggy ground and mud that can impact play.
Finding the Best Sub Base for Artificial Grass & Hybrid Grass
In order to avoid golfers’ complaints that the green or lawn sinks when walking on it, the right sub base for your artificial grass is essential. To create a standardised, stable and solid surface along the fairway, you need to avoid a sub base with too much give.
Ball bounce is a crucial element that allows for your golfers to meet par and have fair competitions. To create a standard bounce, a sub-surface with some give creates the best bounce for drives and slices when they land on the fairway.
Hybrid grass and artificial grass installation is tailored to the requirements of your course based on our expert pre-installation surveys. Options for sub bases for artificial grass on different types of ground include:
- A shock pad layer installed under artificial grass rolls is ideal for the installation on harder ground.
- Secured sand and granite dust layer over granite sub base of various thicknesses depending on your choice of artificial grass thickness and material type
- Hybrid grass layers with netted back for natural grass to provide a stability layer to already high-quality golf surfaces for greater longevity and quality.
We also recommend our special weed resistant membranes under all of our artificial grass and hybrid grass options. Weeds in artificial grass can cause huge issues on golf courses and the weedkiller some courses use can damage the grass. Therefore PlaySmart’s artificial grass weed membrane is installed under the surface, avoiding damage to the natural grass of the hybrid surface and not accidently impacting the longer real grass of the rough.
Pathways for Golf Carts
Getting from hole to hole is an often overlooked aspect of golf course design, but with PlaySmart’s rubber mulch, sustainable cork, or SUDS-compliant rubber aggregates, golf pathways can be accessible, natural-looking, and stable. For more on PlaySmart’s popular JungleMulch golf pathways visit our explanatory blog.
Reliable and High-Quality Surfacing for a Range of Leisure Sites
With years of experience working with a wide variety of leisure sites including pitch-and-put, driving ranges, and golf courses of all sizes PlaySmart can find the right option for you.
Discuss your options today with our experts by booking a call or get your Free Quick Quote with our handy contact form at the top of the page.