Why Do We Need Putting Green Lights?
1. For Night-Time Golf Practice
Some golfers like to practice golf at night, that’s why we need putting green lighting to illuminate the holes and golf balls.
A good putting green lighting design should have a proper brightness, so that the light won’t strain the golfers’ eyes. The good lighting system on the green can also bring more income, as the golfers are willing to come back.
2. Optimize the Night-Time Usage of Putting Green Court
In order to optimize the revenue from indoor or outdoor putting green booking, we can consider opening the golf course at night, which can bring more customers. Depending on your marketing strategy, we can even open for 24/7 as a gimmick. To this end, we need an energy-saving and reliable lighting solution – LED putting green lighting would be your best choice.
Since the putting green has longer opening time, there are more time slots for your members; therefore, the golf course won’t be too crowded.
3. Attract Golfers
Your golf club will look more professional if it is well-lit. We can imagine, if you were a golfer, would you prefer the dim putting green that can barely see anything, or a bright golf course that helps you make a birdie or eagle?
If your customers enjoy playing golf in your club, they are likely to renew their membership in the future.
4. Create a Relaxing Atmosphere
Many people would like to relieve their pressure of work or study by playing golf; therefore, it is essential to create a cozy feeling by making use of LED lights. Depending on the preference of golfers or club owners, we can select the warm white light with the color temperature of 2700K to 3500K. The yellowish-orange lighting looks more comfortable.
5. Safety and Security
Golf putting green may involve hilly or bumpy yard, the proper lighting system can help reduce some common accidents such as the golf balls hitting others, or the golfers toppled by the obstacles. Bright putting green lights can make golfers notice the surrounding environment.
In addition, with the use of motion-sensing lighting on putting greens, we can prevent trespasser from entering unauthorized areas. The lighting can be connected to the alert system, so the golf club staff can immediately know where the alarm is triggered.
Outdoor & Backyard Putting Green Lighting Ideas
1. Flood Lights for Outdoor Putting Green Areas
If we need to illuminate a large area, then flood light is the best choice. Since floodlight has large beam, like 60° or 90°, the light beam can be easily spread to the putting green area. However, flood light is mainly designed for close-range illumination as the light beams are so diverged.
2. Spot Lights for Small Golf Practice Field
Spotlights, on the other hand, have narrower beam angle, says, 10° to 30°. The spotlight is particularly suitable for lighting up the long range as the light beams are more concentrated. This type of lighting fixture is suitable for golf putting greens with few light poles.
3. Down Lighting for Creating a Relaxing Atmosphere
The major purpose of downlight is to create relaxing atmosphere in putting green. As the installation height of the downlight is just 1 to 2 meters, we can’t expect that it can illuminate the larger area. We may use the downlight on the golf holes or trees to create chilling atmosphere.
4. Solar Lighting for Hassle-Free Installation
If you want the simple and hassle-free installation, solar putting green lights would be your best choice. Unlike the conventional, permanent pole lights, we don’t need to dig the ground and arrange the wires under the fairway or tee boxes; instead, we can just insert the “wireless” light pole on the putting greens. As the solar panel can receive sunlight and charge the battery, the lighting system can work on its own.
This will be more energy-saving as well as you don’t need to pay for electricity. Although the solar lighting system has high initial cost, it is worthwhile to have it when it comes to long term investment, as it saves you the running cost and maintenance cost in long run.
5. Dusk to Dawn Lights for Automatically Switch On/Off
Another must-have feature of putting green light is dusk to dawn function. Imagine we put hundreds of solar flood lights on putting green, and we need to manually switch them on/off every day. It would be a weary and time-consuming task. To solve this issue, we can make use of dusk to dawn function.
This is basically a system that the lights will turn on in the evening and turn off in the morning. The working principle is that the photocell on the dusk to dawn lights detect the light intensity on the putting green. Once the lux intensity increases to or deceases to specific levels, the lights will be switch on/off accordingly.
It is a useful lighting solution for outdoor putting green because the lights can be turned on or off automatically.
6. Color-Changing Flood Lights
Color-changing light can create the astonishing light show for golfers. As they are using DMX 512 protocol, each RGB flood lights can produce up to 16 million color, and most importantly, each RGB light can produce different colors at the same time. Your golf club would be the next top check-in place in Facebook or Ticktock.
Putting Green Hole Lights Vs. Flood Lights
1. What is Putting Green Hole Lights?
As its name suggested, putting green hole light is designed to light up the area surrounding the golf hole. The purpose of putting green hole light is to allow the golfers to spot the targets. It is a more energy-saving option as we don’t need to light up the whole course.
2. What is Putting Green Flood Lights?
On the contrary, flood lights mean we are going to light up the whole putting green. The flood lights are usually installed to a high mast pole (about 10 to 20 meters high). When compared to putting green hole lights, the flood lights have higher power, says over 500 watts. We need such the powerful luminaries to light up the gigantic putting green.
3. Hole Lights or Flood Lights, Which is Better?
As a golf course owner, we may wish to know the difference between hole lights and flood lights. Let’s take a look.
Hole Lights:
- Simple installation as we won’t need wiring under the putting green turf
- Budget-friendly for golfers or householders.
- Lower lighting uniformity – dim spot may strain the golfers’ eyes
- Less light pollution as the lights are pointed downward
Flood Lights:
- Takes time and money to install as we need to mount the flood lights to the high mast poles
- Brighter and more uniform illumination on putting green
- The high-power putting green flood lights are more expensive
Putting Green Lighting Design and Standard
1. Lux (Brightness) Requirement
The horizontal lux requirement for putting green is around 50 to 100 lux. In lighting industry, we utilize “lux” to represent the brightness on grounds. We can easily measure the lux level by smartphone by just downloading the “lux meter” applications. The front or rear camera can be used as the meter.
In addition, the recommended vertical lux level is around 100 to 300 lux, which provides sufficient illumination in vertical plane. By fulfilling both horizontal and vertical lux level requirement in putting green, the golfers can see the trajectory of golf ball and the holes clearly.
2. Lighting Uniformity
Another important aspect of putting green lighting design is the lighting uniformity. It is basically the ratio between the average lux and maximum lux, or minimum lux and maximum lux in the putting green. If the average lux in different sampling points is 40 lux, while the maximum point is 100 lux, then the lighting uniformity if 40/100 = 0.4.
For recreational putting green, it is suggested to have 0.4 to 0.6 light uniformity, so the golfer’s eyes will not get strained easily.
3. Color Temperature
Getting the right light color is essential to create relaxing atmosphere. If you prefer warm white lighting in putting green, we can select the 2700 to 3500K LED lights. It should give out the yellowish-orange lights. This golf course will look less stressful.
However, if the golf course is designed for competition, we should use natural daylight or cool white lights, says over 5000K.
4. CRI
CRI lighting requirement for putting green is around 70 to 80. Under the high CRI lighting, the golfers can see the true and vivid color of the turf and flag pole.
5. Flicker-Free Lighting
Flickering lights would affect golfers’ experience because the stroboscopic effect may be harmful to the eyes. Besides, it is difficult for the golfers to locate the golf flags and other obstacles under the strobing lights. If you happen to shoot a video under flashing lights, you will find that it does affect the picture quality.
In order to avoid this situation, we can choose the putting green lights with a flickering rate lower than 0.03%. The fluctuation of lumens output would be negligible.
6. Glare-Free
Glare is one of the common issues of artificial lighting. When we directly look at the intense lights, we may feel uncomfortable. Glare-free lighting has become one of the standards of putting green lighting fixtures.
We can reduce glare by the following ways.
- Using the putting green flood lights with large beam angle, so the lights are less concentrated
- When installing the putting green lighting, we should have an overall plan to minimize the chance of golfers looking directly at the floodlights
Putting Green Lighting Layout
1. Putting Green Light Pole Height
The common putting green light pole height is around 8 to 20 meters. It is better to use a taller high mast pole because it improves the lighting uniformity and reduces glare.
The tall light pole gives sufficient distance for the flood lights to spread across the putting green area, so the light beam can be evenly distributed.
However, the light pole cost and installation cost would be higher because of taller installation height.
2. Number of Poles
Depending on the size of your putting green, we can have 4 to 8 light poles. The general idea is that each light pole can maximally illuminate 50 to 100 meters diameter. Yet, we need to customize the lighting design because the putting greens have different shape and dimension. If the shape is very complex, we will need more light poles.
3. Position of the Light Pole
The optimal light pole position for putting green is at the corners, as it minimizes the glare and maximize the lighting uniformity. To achieve the best lighting outcome, the light poles should be evenly distributed. It means, the distance between adjacent light pole should be consistent in the putting green, so it is easier to achieve a more uniform illumination.
Why Use LED Putting Green Lights to Replace Metal Halide, HPS, or Mercury Vapor Lights?
1. More Energy Efficiency
LED is more energy-efficient than MH, HPS and mercury vapor because LED has highest luminous efficacy of 150 lumens per watt, while MH has only 75 lm/W, and mercury vapor has only 50 lm/W. Thus, it is common to replace MH, HPS, mercury vapor or other HID lights with LED for putting green areas.
By converting the HIDs with LED putting green lights, we can save much electricity cost and maintenance cost in long run, although the initial cost of LED is higher.
2. Solar Panel Compatible
Solar lights for putting green have become a trend nowadays. If you are going to replace the HID or mercury vapor lights in golf club, why not choosing the LED solar lights? This allows you to save the electricity cost as the solar lighting system can work on its own.
3. Longer Life Span
LED lights can last up to 150,000 hours, which is significantly better the halogen flood lights (~3,000 hours) or metal halide lights (~10,000 hours). After LED replacement, you can save the subsequent maintenance cost as they can lasts for decades.
4. Smart Lighting Control
After LED replacement, we can enjoy smart lighting control for putting green. The LED lights support WiFi control, so we can adjust the brightness and switch on/off the lights via smartphone apps or computer software. It is more convenient to control a group of lighting in the putting green.
Conclusion
In fact, it is not so difficult to light up the putting green area if we follow the above lighting design and layout. By upgrading the lighting system in putting green, the golfer’s experience can be enhanced.
