Sports Grass

Astro turf has a reputation of being unsuitable for some sports. Technology advances have now made it possible to supply artificial grass pitches that surpass real grass for practical usage. The old disadvantages of hard landings and friction burns are gone due to rubber in-fills and polyethylene combined with silicon. This page describes the advantages and disadvantages of astro turf in sport. To determine what type of sports grass you should choose, please see the quality evaluation section.

Some sports which benefit from artificial grass are:

• Football and soccer pitches
• Cricket fields
• Tennis courts
• Swimming pool surrounding areas

A long pile for football and soccer.

Medium pile for tennis or cricket.

A short pile for golf putting greens.

Benefits

Markings on any sports grass have superb clarity and the colour can be selected to compliment the surrounding environment. A small pile height used in conjunction with a compacted base provides a synthetic surface which reacts well to bouncing cricket or tennis balls. The converse is also true for artificial grass in football and soccer. See the above images and our photo gallery pages for an example of sports grass used in this way.
Reduced maintenance and an all year round green surface lasting for up to ten years make for an impressive sports offering.

Disadvantages

The initial investment in artificial grass can be a substantial one and experienced labourers should only perform the installation. Due to the non-organic materials used, the sports grass needs to be disinfected after each use. Rubber infill grasses must be periodically supplemented to compensate for lost rubber during match play. It is also possible for parts of the synthetic surface to become dislodged over time if not glued down properly during installation.

Summary

Depending on your requirements, it is wise to evaluate if this really is a good alternative to real grass. An increasing number of institutions are indeed saying yes to sports grass!