Here is a photo of the neighborhood. My house is hidden behind the tree on the left. The green and bunker can be seen below the shed on the right.
Below is a photo of what my green looked like in early spring 2008. I sprayed it with spectricide and fertilized with Scots Starter fertilizer and in a couple of weeks it was all green again.
These are the after and before pictures of the backyard golf green project. The before picture on the right was taken in late winter 2006. The after picture on the left was taken late summer 2006. These pictures show the view from the 75 yard tee box which is the longest shot to the green.
These two pictures were taken the at the same time as the previous and are from the 20 yard downhill tee box. I have lost a bunch of balls in the high grass.
This is the view of the gazebo from the back deck. You can just make out the green and sand trap behind the gazebo.
The picture on the left shows the project at the beginning. The area has been mowed and the brush piled up. The picture on the right shows the same area after it has been rototilled, dished out, and regraded. This resulted in about an 9 inch deep hole where the green will be.
The next step was to put down a drain pipe in a trench and cover the bottom of the hole with an inch or two of crushed stone. Here is my golfing buddy Ron hard at work unloading the stone. Ron and his kids helped get the area ready for the 22 tons of sand that we dumped and leveled. Final prep involved tilling several bales of peat moss into the sand and rolling to the final contour.
I installed a sprinkler systems with two rotors covering the green and ten spray heads for the shrubs. Unfortunately I lost all of the shrubs to deer over the first winter. I have resorted to marigolds instead. The picture in the right shows the green in early fall. I was not cutting is very close at this point hoping that it would fill in and establish itself. The pictures in the equipment page show the green in it's second year.