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Chattanooga: Short game help in short time

By: David Uchiyama
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Wes Brown

Wes Brown’s golf game has been good enough to win the State Amateur, reach match play of the U.S. Amateur and even play with Tiger Woods at Moccasin Bend Golf Club.

But his short game deteriorated as he aged, and his confidence with chipping and putting reached an all-time low a few years ago.

So when he bought a house below Signal Mountain, he decided to cut back on his yard work and became another Chattanooga area resident to have a short-game facility built into the backyard landscape.

“From 40 yards and in has been the weakest part of my game all my life,” said Brown, who won the State Am in 1948. “It’s definitely helped my game, and short game is a matter of confidence. If you’re hesitant, as I have been, you can be in trouble.”

The popularity of backyard facilities has increased in the last few years as synthetic turfs have improved in quality, according to Chris Gentry, vice president of the Putting Green Company in Rocky Face, Ga.

Carpet companies — including several in the Dalton region — have developed fibers that imitate natural golf course conditions down to the point where different surfaces can imitate different grasses. Gentry said costs can run from $10 to $20 per square foot.

“We’ve been busier the last few years, because people are catching on to the upside of a synthetic green,” Gentry said. “Business is picking up in the Chattanooga area, even though we haven’t hit it much with advertising.

“People know much of it is made in Dalton, and that’s where they start looking.”

Brown has four teeing areas of different distances with a 1,300-square-foot green with five cups. One of his teeing spots simulates zyosia, and he can speed up or slow down the greens in less than an hour.

“It simulates the natural thing,” said Brown, who was associated with Moccasin Bend Golf Course for more than 40 years in various capacities and played there with a 15-year-old Woods before the 1991 U.S. Amateur.

Terry Roseman of Signal Mountain had a synthetic green and bunker installed in 2001 by All Pro Putting Greens, which is based in Fort Oglethorpe.

“At the time, I had a 5-year-old, and we didn’t have time to go to the golf course,” Roseman said. “So we brought the course to us.

“It helped my short game tremendously.”

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