If you turn on the HGTV home improvement channel you’re going to see some pretty awesome backyard designs time to time. Some of these home improvement episodes feature families who love golf and want to build their own backyard putting green for entertaining guests and personal use.
The big question is how expensive are backyard putting greens to build? And your follow up question is how hard is it to build your own DIY backyard putting green?
Did I nail those two questions for you? Good. Here’s the answers.
How Much Does It Cost to Build a Backyard Putting Green
There are lots of options when building your putting green for material choices but the big factor on cost will also be how large you want it to be in square feet. Larger greens will of course cost more to build and the more work you choose to do yourself, the cheaper it will be.
TourGreens recommends $15 to $25 per square foot so a 10 x 10 green (100 square feet) could run $1,500 to $2,500.
How to Build a Backyard Putting Green
As far as how difficult is it to build your own DIY green, it’s not. We built a mini 3 x 9 putting green used indoors during winter at my house for under $100 but the quality was nowhere near as nice as the outdoor professional synthetic turf greens you can build.
It will however involve multiple days so expect it to take 1-2 weeks to fully complete. There is prep work like digging up the yard before hauling in rocks and smoothing them out.
First let’s look at the simple steps it takes to create your putting green:
- Dig up your lawn
- Dump crushed gravel and run a plate compactor (they’re cheap to rent, like $30 a day) over the surface to form a smooth base
- Set down landscape fabric
- Use a post-hole digger to cut and set the cups
- Roll out the turf and affix the border and any seams with turf pegs or staples
- Use a utility knife to carefully reveal the cups by cutting through the putting surface where cups sit underneath