Why hiring professionals matters, and why Southwest Greens of Austin is the best in the industry for installation practices.

You might be asking yourself, “Can I install artificial grass myself?” Sure, you can install artificial grass yourself, but it isn’t a simple task. The equipment and tools you need cost a lot, it takes a long time to DIY, and you may void the warranty. So, let’s look at why you really should have your synthetic golf turf installed by a professional who follows the best practices for artificial turf installation.

WHY PROFESSIONAL ARTIFICIAL GRASS INSTALLATION

Regardless if you’re adding a golf green to your home, or you’re managing a commercial golf course, having artificial turf installed professionally will save you time, money, and headaches — and, long-term, give you a better-looking green.

Saved Time

Even ”easy” DIY projects can easily evolve into a big deal. Haven’t we all been there? Repeat trips to the home improvement store for supplies or tools we didn’t realize we need, plans not going to plan, multiple days of laborious work? When you have your turf installed by a professional, you’ll save so much time, and you will be able to enjoy the greens sooner.

To install artificial golf greens properly, you’ll need to level the ground, add a crushed aggregate base, add padding, lay the turf, add infill, and roll the turf to get the best playability and to make it look realistic. Cutting edges so you have clean borders is also difficult and needs a good deal of experience to get just right. All of this requires some very specific tools and knowledge to do correctly and avoid goofy sections or edges that end up peeling up creating a terrible look.

Difficult Soil/Landscape

Perfect soil is hard to find. Most property owners will agree to this. It is quite rare to be able to get your shovel into the ground without issues. Instead, we must struggle with rocks, thick clay, or soil that is filled with root systems from plants and trees nearby in many places. Digging alone can become grueling work. And, if you are cutting into roots, you could be hurting surrounding plants and trees you want.

We have encountered obstacles such as huge boulders, old (or new) irrigation lines, and tree stumps on many of our installation projects. Every one of these items need to be removed or repurposed. Excavation results in tons of soil you may not have a use for — where would you go with it? Frequently we have to transport this leftover soil offsite.

A professional turf installer can arrange all of this . So if you’re not looking to do very back-breaking manual labor or don’t know how to dispose of your excavated soil, hiring a pro installer for your project is your best option.

Large Areas

When golf green is installed in a large area, seaming is one of the trickiest aspects of the turf to get right. Seeming is the method of combining two or more pieces together. Very much like carpet installation, when the seams of artificial turf are blended the right way, they’re not noticeable. Seams that are not blended correctly will be noticeable and give a terrible looking finished product.

Picture this: rolling a poster or sheet of paper. Have you always gotten perfect alignment when attempting to pull-off a good roll? Rather than a clean edge, you sometimes end up with paper sticking out on one end. This same effect can happen with seaming artificial turf. One small error at the start of the process will mess up the whole project and look awful when finished. A professional installer will have plenty of experience joining seams and they’ll make certain everything looks amazing before they are finished.

THE SOUTHWEST GREENS WAY

There are three specific things that separate Southwest Greens of Austin from others in the turf industry — craftsmanship, guarantees, and customer service. We don’t believe in generic artificial turf installations, and because of that, we’ve perfected the art and science of Austin artificial turf installation. We’ve honed our process with more than 6,000 golf greens around the world under our belts.

Have a quick glance at how our artificial putting green installation process works.

• A base made of crushed aggregate, which, unlike concrete, can be moistened and molded to make challenging breaks and undulations.
• Next, we install at least a cushion pad that helps the ball roll and shot absorption, then comes our state-of-the-art polypropylene turf material that’s used to recreate the bright green color, softness, and playability of natural grass.
• The turf is then in-filled with a formulation of fine-coated silica sand to give it the touch and feel of real grass.
• Finally, roll the tops to make the effect of true bent grass green. We offer options including installing first and second cuts fringe, sand traps, bunkers, fairways, and roughs.

You can watch our installation process video here.

READY FOR YOUR GREENS?

Make sure you view our grass collections. We’re here to help when you are ready. Contact us for a quote on your project — whether or not it is a backyard putting green or a full-size golf course, we’ve got you covered.