The picture will give you an important visual as to how important sun is to turfgrass. There are two soil profiles on this plate, the top being from the 14th green (fun sun) and the bottom being from the practice green, under the oak tree where it receives little sun, except in the afternoon. You will notice the 14th green has roots that are as long as 6" while those on the PG are less than 2". This is significant for a number of reasons. For one, deeper rooted turf is healthier and thus able to tolerate more stress. Stress can come from Mother Nature, in the form of fungus or in the form of weather conditions. It can also come from us, in the form of golfer foot traffic, mower traffic/ excessive rolling, low mowing heights etc. Weak turf leads to thin turf and ultimately, a poor putting surface. If we were to get hit with some unknown fungus, the turf above has a much better chance of survival compared to the shallow rooted turf. Shaded, weak turf also requires additional pesticides, particularly fungicides. Many of the greens growing in the environment at HCC require fungicide applications weekly to survive. In fact, it requires us to spend about 2x the amount an average golf course would spend, specifically to battle pythium root rot. Unfortunately Mother Nature isn't always predictable. When weather patterns change or rain events change, a superintendent can only do so much to ensure we are covering our bases. In the end, it's up to us to grow the healthiest, densest turf possible, to ensure we can weather a storm from time to time. This is why it is so critical to evaluate shade on putting surfaces. One might argue that the turf on #2 green (very shaded) is in fine shape. Right now, I would agree. However, we have to expect the unexpected. I can't guarantee that number two green will survive if subjected to some form of extreme environmental conditions like #9,17,18 greens, which get plenty of sun and tend to be much healthier. Finally, to a degree, we can only be as good as our weakest green. Many golfers like the challenge of putting on fast greens. However, green speed is created by reducing friction on the putting surface. This means doing things like increased mowing, rolling, verticutting or lowering the height of cut. While we do our fair share of that, I've learned over the last 17 years when to back off of the maintenance practices to avoid thinning turf. All of these practices are stressful to bentgrass. We also can't treat some greens different than others, otherwise you will have inconsistent greens (for example, only double cut greens in full sun). It's my team's job to ensure the quality of the putting greens are consistent all year long and properly set up for success for the next year. It would be easy to push greens this time of year but the bottom line is, the turf would be weak come fall, thus starting a vicious cycle. To summarize, there simply is no manmade replacement for adequate sunlight to most plants, including turf.