The best way to practice your putting skills is to build yourself a green in your backyard. Even if improving your golf score isn’t a priority, having a mini golf course right within your reach is so much fun and worth the effort of building it. Your own putting green will be a perfect training ground for practicing shorter shots, which are crucial to nail down if you do want to improve your overall golf score. In this post, we want to share a few useful tips about the process of building it.
Practical Benefits
Building the golf course is especially beneficial if your children are fond of golf as well. A lot of pro golfers had putting greens as children, which allowed them to practice their skills almost all the time. Most pro golfers have this kind of set up in their backyard to this day. It helps them to stay sharp and fit for the tournaments.
How hard is it to build?
For someone who’s never done it before, organizing a putting green in your backyard might not seem hard. In reality, it can be as hard or as easy as you wish. For example, If you go with natural grass for your green, maintaining it will be an everyday chore, or major expense if you hire someone to do it for you. Rest assured though, if you love golf, you won’t regret putting so much effort into building a backyard practice green. I should also mention that not all putting greens are so high maintenance.
Difficulty of completing a putting green project will depend on how big it is. Small green that allows you to practice your putting won’t be hard to build, even if you go at it alone. On the other hand, if you want your green to cover more area, then I’d recommend getting some help. If you live in the US, you should have access to contractors who specialize in building putting greens. With the right budget, you should be able to ask for advanced features like lightning for playing in the dark. As a ballpark number, 6000 square feet green will cost you around 30 000$. Thousand square feet will cost you around 5000$. If you don’t want anything too spectacular, you can do everything on your own, without hiring anyone. That will dramatically reduce the costs.
Natural Vs Artificial Grass
As appealing as natural grass may seem, from a practical standpoint, it’s not such a good idea. Taking care of artificial grass cover is much simpler and cost effective. Not only that, but when using artificial grass, you don’t have to worry about making sure that it gets enough water, sunlight and other nourishments. There are other tasks associated with natural grass cover as well. Just to name a few: fertilizing and protecting it from insects. I think that is way too much work and will get in the way of you just enjoying your hobby.
The real concern when using artificial grass is the quality. In recent years, technology for producing plastic grass has improved and it almost looks like the real thing. The only difference and upside to using artificial cover is the lack of maintenance. For the average guy who doesn’t want headaches of maintaining natural grass, the choice should be clear. High quality artificial grass covers aren’t cheap, especially if you plan to cover a large surface with it. If you want to build simple green with artificial grass yourself, it shouldn’t cost you more than couple thousand dollars, depending on surface area.
Benefits for beginners
Building a putting green is generally a good idea, especially if you are a beginner golfer. It allows you to practice frequently and by doing so, improve your skills much faster than you otherwise would. Obviously, you’ll need golf clubs that meet your specific needs as well. For older people like myself, I can recommend this guide about the best golf clubs for seniors. It reviews your options thoroughly and might help you with the final decision.
