Almost from the day they broke ground on their home in Belle Vernon 9 years ago, Dave Wingrove and his wife, Janet, toyed with the idea of putting in a practice putting green. They might have been relatively new to the game of golf -- they only played every now and again at nearby Cedarbrook Golf Course -- but the couple enjoyed the fact it was a competitive sport they could learn together.

And with 15 acres of rolling Westmoreland County countryside as their palette, they certainly had enough room to build something on which to practice that all-important short game.

It wasn't until Mr. Wingrove fell off the roof of his garage in 2002, though, breaking his back, that they did it. (A few years after he fully recovered, that is.)

"I realized you gotta live life a little bit," says Mr. Wingrove, owner of DW Custom Painting, a company that finishes precast concrete prison cells.

For help in making that realization a reality, the couple turned to Southwest Greens of Pennsylvania in South Park (www.paputtinggreens.com; 412-788-8794). With dealers in 90 cities worldwide, Southwest Greens has long been a leader in the home and backyard golf green industry, and not just with aspiring Tigers or Annikas or families looking for the ultimate Father's Day gift. Its clients also include professional golfers like Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia and celebrities such as singers Vince Gill and Justin Timberlake.

Locally, owner Harry Marshall and his crew has designed putting greens for the likes of Oakmont pro Bob Ford and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who had a 900-square-foot, tour-level putting green installed at his North Hills home so he could practice his putting and chipping during the off season.

But the number of regular folks interested in artificial greens is increasing; business has doubled from 2 years ago, says Mr. Marshall.

One reason is aesthetics. Crafted of high-quality polyethylene materials, Southwest Greens' synthetic greens look and feel like natural grass, without all the maintenance issues. Average cost, depending on size and slope of the land, is about $14 a square foot, with yards that require extensive grading a bit higher.

The greens are also easy to put in. Installation involves first removing grass with a sod cutter, then adding several inches of crushed aggregate limestone as a base. After the limestone has been compacted, the turf -- 1 1/4-inch-tall for a putting green and 1 1/2-inch-tall for a fringe (the short grass that separates the putting green from the rough or fairway) -- is placed on a quarter-inch cushion underlayment, and then filled, with hundreds of pounds of sand.

Once only the very top of the turf is exposed, the surface is rolled so the tips are bent back to resemble that very smooth, fine-tipped grass known as bentgrass.

Initially, the Wingroves thought a 20-by-30-foot green would suffice. They ended up with a 40-by-60-foot green -- large enough to accommodate six holes. They also had a 25-by-4-foot tee line installed to practice chipping on to the green, plus three sandtraps (Mr. Wingrove built the two largest ones himself).

Two more flagged holes can be found 50 and 100 feet away from the green, in the direction of the garage that caused Mr. Wingrove's "aha" moment.

A second set of holes -- 150 and 200 feet away -- allow the Wingroves to practice driving off a small knob in front of the house; the balls are typically retrieved by Buster, their neighbor's chocolate Lab, or Mr. Wingrove's golf-ball picker.

The crowning touch of the $30,000 project, completed in October, is a pair of 18-foot-tall, 800-watt lights that allow play after dark. Which Mrs. Wingrove says is something the couple does frequently; just the other night friends came over for a cookout, and everyone ended up chipping and putting, some for hours.

"Everyone loves it," she says.

Most people don't opt for a green on the scale of the Wingrove's; of the 40 or so jobs they do each year, the average size is about 600 square feet, or 20-by-30-feet, says Southwest Greens sales manager Austin McCarren.

Some customers don't even play golf, but choose to install artificial grass because it never needs to be cut, watered or fertilized to look great. (Natural bentgrass requires daily watering and mowing.) All that's required is spraying it once a year for moss and algae and sweeping the leaves off with a broom or blower come fall.

That is why Mark and Carolyn Colenbrander decided last month to replace a small side yard at their Ben Avon home with a putting green.

The yard is shaded by a giant maple and used daily as a playground for their two children and two dogs. Despite Mr. Colenbrander sodding it four times in the past five years it frequently was a big, muddy mess.

"Between the kids, the dogs and the tree, there wasn't much we could do," says Mrs. Colenbrander.

The couple initially planned on replacing the grass with fringe. After seeing a putting green at a home in nearby Avonworth Heights, t they spent an extra $1,500 to add a small putting green. Total cost of the 500-square-foot project, which took less than 2 days to install: about $5,500.

Just 15-by-9-feet at the widest, the putting green is a far cry from the Wingrove's resort-sized toy. It was, however, an instant hit with 8-year-old Will Colenbrander and little sister, Maggie, 4, not to mention their grown-up next-door neighbor Tim Gannon, who uses it to practice his short game.

"They love it," says Mrs. Colenbrander.

What the Colenbranders love is it's easy to keep clean and even after a heavy rain, dry within a couple of hours.

"It's indestructible," says Mr. Colenbrander.