Chapters:
00:00 Intro
04:39 Marco the Artist
07:03 Catching Up and the Importance of Putting
07:51 The Shaper of the Golf Course
08:40 Testing the Break and Placing the Cups
10:30 SET EM and Bring In the Grass
12:00 The Final Product
Mike Malaska has trusted Southwest Greens for backyard putting greens for many years because of their response, durability, and realistic roll.
Practicing golf at home, especially chipping and putting, can significantly improve your game and scores.
Mike is joined by a longtime friend, PGA Professional, and Lead Designer at Southwest Greens, Ken Carpenter, and walks you through each step of the installation process.
Installing synthetic grass or artificial turf is already a lengthy process, but Southwest Greens takes the extra mile when it comes to custom artificial grass putting greens.
Learn more about Southwest Greens: https://www.southwestgreens.com/
“Southwest Greens is the international leader and greatest turnkey construction corporation in creating and integrating state-of-the-art artificial turf systems endorsed by the largest flooring manufacturer across the globe — Shaw Industries. Our synthetic grass systems are methodically made right here in the USA to imitate the actual look, feel, and performance of real grass. Whatever the weather, a professionally installed artificial turf will outperform natural grass for years to come. We’re proud of our people, our heritage, and our ability to serve you.”
Want to Learn More about the M-System? Visit: https://malaskagolf.com/pages/m-system
Don’t just play golf. Understand it.
*MIKE MALASKA TEACHING CREDENTIALS*
Golf Digest Legend of Golf Instruction
2011 National PGA Teacher of the Year
2021-2022 Golf Magazine Top 100 Teachers in America (Lifetime Achievement)
2020-2021 Golf Digest 50 Best Teachers in America
TaylorMade National Advisory Board Member, 2020-Current
PGA Class-A Member since 1996
Honma US Advisory Board, 2019-2020
Worldwide Director of Instruction at Nicklaus Golf Academies
2017 PGA Southwest Section Teacher of The Year
25 years as a Jack Nicklaus Academies Trainer & Instructor
2017 GRAA Growth of the Game Teaching Professionals Elite Member
TaylorMade National Advisory Board Member, 2015-2018
2016 GRAA Top 50 Growth of the Game Teaching Professionals
Southwest Section Senior Player of the Year
TaylorMade/Adidas Instructional Consultant
Former Director of Instruction at Superstition Mountain Golf & CC,
Superstition Mountain, AZ
*I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services recommended on Malaska Golf sites. Your purchase helps support my work in simplifying golf and improving your understanding and your game.
I will not recommend a product unless I’ve used it personally or researched it and received first-hand user feedback from other professionals I trust that have used the product/service.
So Kenny here we are in my backyard it’s been a lot of years of playing golf together and you with Southwest greens uh you know I’ve been a part of them for a long time and people are always looking for you know how can I make my
Game better well I’ve had a couple greens with you guys and uh just wanted to ask you a couple of questions first of all what’s the biggest mistake people make when they other than not come into Southwest greens what’s the biggest mistake they make in so so the biggest
Process is is obviously the Bas and how we design it so the base is the most important to get it right right so once we bring in the quarter minus we put the cups on top and we roll balls make sure you like it yeah you know and go from
There well let’s talk about you and I have been you know players we’ve taught yes sir when it comes to that I mean I’m looking at it I’m saying I want at least one putt that’s 10 12 15 ft that’s pretty much dead straight correct and
Then I want a little left to right and a little right to left and past that you know I think people get into too much stuff I mean you put enough Greens in you know what they want to do and then what ends up not working I do
You know we don’t make greens that are Mickey Mouse Okay per se you know I want you to have a little bit of left to right a little bit of right to left you know and a 4in tier so you can get to your upper tier and and they have a
Little bit of movement and all flatten the bottom obviously if somebody was going to put a green in their backyard if Jack Nicholas was going to do it he wouldn’t go with somebody that didn’t do a very good job and I know I’ve been in his house I’ve been in his backyard I’ve
Seen the green he hasard it’s it’s unbelievable what he’s done there yes sir uh but but back to another question relative to normal how big a how big a green do people need I mean you don’t need to go 2 3,000 square ft and spend thousands and thousands of dollars I
Mean what does somebody need well I mean I think the biggest thing is in terms of the installation process is creating the best roll which we do so we don’t use any nylon products at all okay we’re polypropylene polyurethane backing and polyethylene poly urethane backing on our Fringe okay
We get as fast as you want and so it you can slow it down too so no nylon products whatsoever oh that’s awesome so a lot of placers a lot of companies use nylon products yes sir which then obviously heat or cold or whatever and so the problem with nylon is contracts
Expands in the heat so encroachment over the cups after about 4 years is there y but we can slow this down if it gets too fast for you as well in nylon you can never slow down well see that’s the thing I liked is the
The green I had in my other house I mean we could roll we could get it really fast we could slow it down yep and it was and the other thing about chipping to it uh because of what you guys do with on top of the base the pad you put
Down it’s realistic so you hit chip shots to it and the ball reacts like a real grein correct rather than it bouncing on concrete exactly so we use 5 mm cushion uhhuh and that’s what we put on top of our base and then we install the turf so so that cushion keeps the
Sand from compacting it does and it it helps with a better roll as well okay yeah so so then so really the size of the grain I mean it’s what people’s budget affords exactly I mean you can go as big as you want do as
Much as you want or you can come down to maybe a eight you know a 100t green and get plenty out of it yeah and and knowing you as long as I’ve known you we we like a little flat yeah so we can work around the cup a little bit right
You know and then but we still want a little bit of left to right right to left yeah see that’s all I want I mean like I said before I want want a whatever length straight putt I can get 10 15 ft great and then a 3 to 68 footer
That’s got some right to left and left to right P that that’s all you need to work on and I’m kind of picky when it comes to these greens cuz I want you to have a little touch putt coming off the upper tier yeah where you got to play it
Outside the hole yeah oh yeah turns in so I do it on both sides seems to happen on the golf course quite often doesn’t it well KY listen thank you so much for putting it in we’re going to keep we’re going to keep looking at at it and we’re
Going to keep filming different parts of the process and give them some more information on it and uh this is awesome so this is Marco Marco’s our head Foreman he’s done thousands of putting greens and he’s really good at what he does I call him the artist so this this
Base is like you were saying this is really what he’s doing this the most that’s Bas the most important thing of the whole green yes sir because if it doesn’t come out right when you put the gra grass on it whatever you put on it the Green’s not going to react correctly
Correct so when we get the base compacted and everything we’ll put the cups on top and then we’ll roll a ball and then you like it so before you ever put the grass on this you get this smooth enough and you get it down there
Where we can check out and make sure we got the right amount of brake we got everything we want and then if we need to tweak it from there we’ll tweak it but he’s pretty good well that’s that’s awesome because like I say you know
We’ve got not a really big area here but I can get everything I need done relative to playing or teaching in this this little area right here absolutely you know you don’t need like I say I think some people are afraid of doing greens cuz they think they need
Something really big we check with the customer all the time y he approve all the brakes and the and the cuple locations do you ever get customers that that want when you’re you’re going uh I don’t think you want that there’s there’s been time there’s like give me a two foot tier in
This green and Marco he’ll speak up he like we don’t want to do that you don’t want to do yeah so um but Marco’s awesome at what he does well and the value too you guys put into the backyards I mean when something somebody has this I mean relative to not having
It and especially here in Arizona where people are all playing golf it’s a pretty nice way to use this part of the backyard I think we’re kind of known for the best role that’s why all the tour players come with us right CU it rolls perfect there’s no wiggle you know what
I mean well when I first started you know when and when I first came to you guys this is like 20 some odat years ago yeah all of the putting greens I would roll the ball and I wasn’t so much the first initial part but when the ball
Started to die out MH most every single one of them when the ball start to die out it it’ start doing this it’d start wandering yeah and you guys were the only one where I rolled it and when it died out it just kept its line and you
Know and I every single lesson I give because the golf swing starts from the putting stroke yes sir and if you can’t putt we talked about this a minute ago you can’t play I I just spent I just played in a tournament this last week
And I’ve played in it 20 some odd times and I i’ I really hit it good all the time down there I’ve always but all of a sudden for this this time I played well you played good so I played well not because I hit it that much better but
Putting this just makes up for so much and that’s why you need a Southwest Green in the back of your yard that’s right I mean chipping no no seriously chipping and potting if people if people impove improve their short games by 20 or 30% their scores come down
Dramatically so when it comes to golf courses the shaper of the golf course is probably one of the most important Marco here I mean this is serious art because he’s going around here and what most people would say oh it’s flat or there’s not he can feel in his feet he’s moving
Those rocks and rake in that so it has just exactly the amount of break so when they put the green on top and they fill it with f then you’ve got exactly what you want this is not something you can just come out and do on your own and 90%
Of companies don’t have somebody like Marco that’s been doing this for so long that can feel exactly relative to what he’s doing cuz you have to feel it in your feet or you’d have to get a you’d have to get a level out here and go all
Around he’s doing it with we told him where we wanted the brake how much brake we want in degrees and now he’s raking it out to make sure it’s exactly perfect like I say this is thousands and thousands of greens and it’s an art form so now they’ve got all the crushed
Granite down and they’ve shaped it exactly kind of where they think they want it now they’ve got to come in with these big heavy rollers and really compact it and smooth it down so then we can put the cups in and we can see if we’ve got exactly the brake so this is
An unbelievable process to make this really what you want so this is the final process when we set cups so we always roll balls with the cups on top before the turf is set um obviously we’re going to have cushion here underneath the green but um make sure
Mike loves the brakes and everything you know this is about 15 ft it’s going to break quite a bit to the right I like that this one’s going to be uphill break a little bit to the right so I’ve got that putt that I need roll that ball
You’re the artist yeah the design I’ve got this putt right here little downhill turn yeah right to left or into the hole come on in go ahead just roll roll it down down towards that one so now we got we’ve got a little longer one with a
Little little more break to the so now basically what we’ve got here what these guys do is you’ve got the the base you’ve got the green now we’re seeing exactly how the ball’s going to roll on the green and how much break we have to
Deal with cuz what I’ve seen in a lot of greens and I you can probably tell me you you go back and they either don’t have enough break or they’ve got way too much where they’re really not usable correct and that takes away from the square footage yeah so then it gets this
Green gets smaller yeah exactly so too much break green gets smaller so this is awesome I love where they’re at and we’ve these guys have moved the cups and we’ve moved them around so we’ve got exactly what we want I think we’re ready to go so we got long straight all you
Got to do is say set them set them there we go now we’re putting the final touches now here comes the grass so now if you watch these guys it’s really important again you look at the time they take cutting the grass and making the seams work just right and putting it
Fitting it all in together you know and this this is when it really starts to look like a putting green but there used to be an old comment if you put lipstick on a pig it’s still a pig so they’ve done the really really hard work underneath that you can’t even see now
They add the top dressing or the grass so it plays and looks like a real green and they take just as much time with this to make sure like I say again the seams fit that the grass is pulled back just right they’re the fibers and then
They fill those fibers so they don’t lay down and get compacted so this whole process is incredible and without that Precision you end up with something that doesn’t play as well it doesn’t look as good this is going to look so good when you see the final product it’s
Incredible so I’m I’m getting more and more excited to get on it and actually hit some putts so here we are at the end of day one it’s amazing how maticulous these guys are and where they’ve got this green today now tomorrow we’re going to come back and we’re going to
See the final product when they get the green speed up and they get everything right where we want it Southwest greens does such a great job I’m excited to have this and be able to use it every day so now we’ve got the finished product Southwest greens you saw how
Good that ball rolled here’s the deal with what this is if you watch that ball the whole time that it was coming down it was rolling even as it lost its speed at the last little bit when it fell into the hole the ball wasn’t wobbling so now
I’ve got as good a putting green here as you’re going to find on any golf course plus I can change the speed now right now this is rolling at about 9 and 1 half or 10 I can get a roll rout roll it get it up to 12 13 I can take it
Wherever I want I can pull it back to eight or seven I can do whatever I want to do with the speed I’ve got a chipping area which the what they do with the chipping area is a little bit different type of artificial turf and so it reacts
Like real grass chipping and then I’ve Got The Fringe that’s another type of grass which allows another type of shot that you’re going to see on the golf course so basically what I’ve got here is access to everything I need in my short game now if you’re really serious about
Playing golf you want to have access that’s the key 24-hour access when you want to practice and you have time without having to drive a long ways so if you’re serious and you want to really get the most out of your game look at Southwest greens put a green in your
Backyard you can work on your short game which by the way is where you’re going to make the biggest Improvement in your scores
1 Comment
Wow, masters of their craft for sure 😮