This fascinating video reveals how the maintenance crew replaces golf holes

Wait, are those scissors? On a putting green?! How dare they!

PGA Tour

The greens at PGA Tour events — especially at events like the Players Championship — run like pool tables. They’re some of the smoothest surfaces you’ll ever see. But they don’t get that way through some lucky accident. It takes a lot of hard work from a small army of smart people.

Every detail is attended to, and on Friday at the Players Championship, the PGA Tour shared a video that pulled back the curtain on an important part of the process: replacing the previous day’s hole locations.

1. The Plug

First, after they cut a new hole, the maintenance crew uses the hole-cutter to plug the dirt taken from the previous location and plug it into the new hole.

2. The Scissors

In order to keep track of where the exact holes are, the greens crew sprays a small dot on the new location. When that piece of dirt is placed in the previous day’s hole location, the cut that sprayed piece of grass off the green.

3. The Fork

Then, similar to using a repair tool to replace a pitchmark, they use a fork to perform a mini aeration on the bare spot and the surrounding area.

4. The Water

Then, to help it all mesh together, they pour some water on it…

5. The Stamp

…and then stamp it down with their foot.

6. The Roll

To finish it off, the crew uses a mini roller to iron out the area.

Check out the full video right here:

Luke Kerr-Dineen

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.