If you think it’s gotten hard to maintain your golf game, consider what it’s like to maintain a golf course. Strapped by reduced budgets and skeleton staffing, many superintendents have been facing painful choices, forced to cut back on their upkeep or forestall it altogether. Some of the consequences are cosmetic. Others carry deeper repercussions, posing potential risks to a course’s long-term health and the conditions many golfers take for granted. So what, exactly, happens when standard maintenance practices fall through the cracks? Adam Moeller, Director of Green Section Education for the USGA, walks us through a 7-point overview.

1. Mowing: The Long and Short of It

When grass is left un-mown, it doesn’t just grow longer. It gets harder to whip back into playing shape. You’d think it might be simple; just whack the grass down to whatever height you want it. But it doesn’t work like that. Good maintenance, Moeller says, is governed by what’s known as the “one-third rule,” which boils down to this: never lop off more than one-third of the leaf blade with a single mow. Mow any lower and you risk ‘scalping’ the grass, which can cause both short and long-term damage. Scalping shows itself in brown and thinned out patches, which are bad enough to start but get even worse if left untended, as they allow for algae, moss and other unwanted invaders to creep in.

All grass on a golf course is susceptible to scalping, but greens, because of their low mowing heights, are especially vulnerable. Greens typically need to be mown at least once every three days. Without that regular tending, they become overgrown. Getting them back up to speed is tough. Sometimes it’s impossible, and the entire putting surface has to be reseeded, and you’re looking at least two months before they’re ready for play again.