Here is a sneak peak at an upcoming Piper article...
Grass Clippings
Brian J. Stiehler, CGCS, MG
There's nothing like a historic golf course like Highlands CC. New golf courses are great too, don’t get me wrong. But being the Superintendent of a historic property designed by Donald Ross, is like having the keys to your grandfather’s early model Mercedes Benz and told to take good care of it. In that regard, a new golf course just doesn’t have the same appeal for someone like me. I think it’s fair to assume most of us would agree with the statements above. However, old golf courses come with challenges that newer properties don’t have to deal with. The main thing I am getting at, is infrastructure. If you compare what capital improvements are made on a course designed in 1928 to that of one built in the 1980’s (or newer), for example, the priorities would be a lot different. Old golf courses are always going back replacing and or repairing aging infrastructure. They are projects that aren’t glamorous. They are projects that I once compared to that of putting a new roof or your house. There is no arguing they need to be done, but these types of projects can be a hard sell because from a member’s point of view, there seems to be no immediate return on the investment in terms of their enjoyment of the golf course. Simply put, these projects are far from “sexy!” Replacing internal drainage, irrigation system replacement and replacing rusted out culverts are just a few of these types of projects.
In addition to
that, are the actual playing surfaces. Highlands
CC never has gone through a full-scale renovation. Sure, we chip a way at projects here and
there over the winter, and in 1998, the green complexes were redone. But in the case fairways and roughs, there
has never been any improvements made to these surfaces. The grass you see on the golf course today, is the same grass that existed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. It’s a mountain mix created by unique
mutations, segregations, and evolution.
All this grass was mowed at one height-of-cut until the early 1980’s,
when the Superintendent received direction from the Club’s leadership to start
mowing a fairway on every hole, with a lower height of cut compared to the
rough. This was never overseen by a golf
course architect. It was simply a
Superintendent doing what he thought was best when it came to establishing
fairway lines.
Furthermore, there
was never special turf selected for the roughs and fairways back then. The science of turfgrass is a relatively new
area of study that ironically started at Penn State University in 1928, when
Joseph Valentine, Super at Merion GC, approached the university about
formalized training for Greenkeepers. It
wasn’t until the mid-1950’s when Penncross Bentgrass was released. In the 80’s and 90’s is when some excellent
fine textured bentgrasses came on the market.
Therefore, newer golf courses were able to take advantage of these newer
varieties on their greens and in their fairways while historic properties were
left with whatever naturally was growing on the property. The only way a historic golf course could
reap the benefit of these newer grasses was to renovate the existing fairways
and approaches or, get on some form of an inner-seeding program to slowly
introduce new grass species to fairways over time. The latter method is not an overnight
solution. However, resodding approaches
and fairways is an overnight solution.
That, however, comes at a great expense.
The cost today to resod a fairway would be around $3-$4 per square
foot. That means a 2-acre fairway like
#7 would cost $350,000 to remove the existing sod and put down a newer variety
of turf. To do this over the entire golf
course would be a minimum of a $3.5M project.
Like most things in life, there are solutions to everything, but the
question is, how important are they and at what cost are you willing to spend
to fix them.
This past
April, we started using our new inner-seeder that was purchased last
winter. This is a great piece of
equipment that will serve us well into the future. The goal is to slowly, over time, replace the
leggy and sideways growing bentgrasses on both fairways and approaches. This spring, we selected the fairways that I
felt would most benefit from this approach.
#1, #3, #5, #12 and #15 where all inner-seeded, at two directions, to
introduce new Bentgrass to the turf system.
It would be nice to tackle all 18 fairways, but it comes at an expense
too, just not as much as the cost to sod.
Bentgrass seed is expensive. To
seed an average size fairway at Highlands CC at a rate of 0.5 lbs. of seed per
1000ft2, costs between $1,500 and $2,000.
This year, our operating budget could only support those holes mentioned
above. However, in the future, we will
work hard to get more funds allocated annually to this important program.
While we
occasionally receive a comment about “tight lies” on the golf course, this is
not a height-of-cut issue. The thought
is, if we raise the height of cut from ½” to ¾”, for example, the tightness of
the lie is immediately resolved. I
really wish it was this simple because it would be an incredibly easy “fix.” The problem is predominantly caused by old,
less than desirable Bentgrass species, growing in shady, damp conditions in
many areas. The approaches growing in
shady environments are far more prone to leggy, weak growth. In this scenario, raising the height of cut
makes the situation worse because we then have that much more leaf tissue
laying on its side.
Over the next
few years, your fairways and approaches will be my main goal and objective. Introducing new Bentgrass species, continuing our frequent sand topdressing program along with our continued, sound tree management program will go
a long way in improving the playability of the turf around the greens. I look forward to the challenge ahead!
