Steven Huffstutler, CGCS said: At the insistence of a green committee Chairman, I agreed to a trial last year. We painted the cups and then measured how far back we could walk from the cup before we could no longer see the painted rim which turned out to be 10 feet. We then watched his foursome on a par 3 consistently hit the ball 15 yards short of the green, chip to within 10 feet, walk over and pull the flag and then miss every putt until they got it within 3 1/2 feet. My question then was that if you can't see the cup which has a large yellow stick with a flag on it well enough to roll it in until you are within 4' of the hole, what purpose does the white paint serve? It added 40 minutes of work to the setup time that had to be picked up by someone since, God forbid we tee off a little later. Nevertheless, he insisted that he wanted it that we because it looked "classier". The rest of the committee finally voted not to do this as it was stupid. Stupidity tends to come around from time to time, though, so I didn't throw the hole in white tools away.
I would agree that painting every day would be stupid. All of this would be unnecessary if you purchased laser guided golf balls, along with a drone that could hover above the target and keep that laser targeting the hole position.
Raytheon has developed an AARP golf package that can get the ball within one meter of the target, for $12 million per package if bought in bulk. Couple that with a large ball bearing within the golf ball, a heavily magnetized flag stick, and you would have some very happy retirees. How do you think Kim Jong-il nailed eighteen holes-in-one on his very first round of golf? Talent?
Please don't confuse this with their Paveway system, which could possibly cause some damage to the putting surface.
A huge savings in paint alone, not to mention the cost of rangefinders. Just my 1.2 billion cents.