Artificial turf in Cherry Hills Village, CO, for putting practice at home.

More land gives you choices, not a required size.

A long putting line, several approaches to one cup or a separate chipping position may be more useful than a large surface with many holes. Bring the shots you want to practice to the visit. We’ll discuss contours, fringe and the route from the house.

Leave room around the green for standing, walking and landscape care. If you want to retain the view from the home or patio, include that in the conversation before deciding on raised contours or surrounding features.

Describe the preparation as well as the playing surface.

Cherry Hills Village reviews recreational structures and drainage work. Ask Community Development how it classifies your proposed green and which details it needs, particularly for a larger footprint or work near a waterway. Do not assume a putting green is treated exactly like a sport court.

Bring any applicable property or association requirements to the estimate. Keep excavation, grading and unresolved drainage questions visible in the written scope.

Three U.S. Opens were played here. Practice at home.

Cherry Hills Country Club, founded in 1922 to a William Flynn design and renovated by Tom Doak in 2008, has hosted three U.S. Opens (1938, 1960 and 1978), two PGA Championships (1941 and 1985), the 2005 U.S. Women's Open, the 1993 U.S. Senior Open and the 2014 BMW Championship (Wikipedia). It has a championship 18 and a 9-hole par-3, and Glenmoor Country Club sits inside the Village as well.

With lots this size, a backyard green can be far more than a practice strip: slopes that break, a collar of longer turf, several cups and room to chip in from the side. Village zoning sets the minimum lot at 16,000 square feet in R-5 and 2.5 acres in R-1 (Cherry Hills Village).

Here the Village signs off, not an HOA.

Most of the Village is governed by city zoning rather than a master association; Buell Mansion and Glenmoor are the gated exceptions. The Village requires an Accessory and Recreational Structure permit for sport courts, pools and similar structures, and Planning must approve a project before any Building or Civil Engineering sign-off, with up to 10 business days for each cycle (Cherry Hills Village, revised 23 May 2024).

An unenclosed recreational structure such as a sport court has to sit 75 feet back from the front lot line in R-1, with 25 feet at the rear and sides. The smaller zones step down, to 25 feet in front and 7.5 at the rear and sides in R-5. Enclose one with walls or a fence on more than two sides and the Village treats it as an accessory structure, pool safety fences aside.

The requirements don't say whether a putting green counts as a sport court, so put that question to Community Development early.

That same document lists fences, walls/retaining walls, and earthen berms among the work needing its own separate permit and plans, apart from whatever covers the green itself. A contoured green built up with earthen mounding, or held by a retaining edge, is its own permit to schedule before shaping — raise it with Community Development alongside the recreational-structure review.

Big lots, creek edges and the 2,500-square-foot line.

Village lots sit on swelling clay, the smectitic kind that heaves slabs, cracks foundations and buckles flatwork when it gets wet (Colorado Geological Survey). Slopes are gentle to rolling, with hilltop view lots in R-1.

The Village's permit rules make drainage part of the paperwork. Adding more than 2,500 square feet of impervious surface calls for a Phase III Drainage Report, and disturbing an acre or more, or working next to a waterway or floodplain, calls for a stormwater plan and a Stormwater Construction Permit (Cherry Hills Village). Little Dry Creek and the High Line Canal both run through the Village.

Whether the Village counts artificial turf toward that 2,500 square feet isn't stated, and on a large green it's the question that decides the paperwork. Settle it before sizing the green; our guide to whether artificial turf counts as impervious sets out the arguments.