Local greens superintendents playing defence this past week
Brown, firm, fast is becoming the true measure of excellence in summer golf course conditions
This can be a challenging time of year for golf course superintendents, the professionals we rely on to keep our favourite courses in tip top condition.
While long sunny days and extreme heat and humidity can make for great afternoons in the backyard pool, those conditions can put a lot of stress on the turf at local clubs.
And when we get a long-lasting run of super-hot-humid days like the past week, the grass under our feet that makes our courses such special “playgrounds” can feel as sick and vulnerable as we do after a round in such conditions.
By the time early July rolls around we have watched a hundred hours of the U.S. Open on the Golf Channel where each and every year the issue of turf health goes face to face with the USGA’s neverending quest to strike fear into the putting strokes of the world’s best golfers.
Locally, with invitationals, member-guests and club championships fast approaching, it sometimes feels like everyone is getting caught up in the frantic chase for slicker greens and stimp meter bragging rights. Time to step back for a moment.
I called on Wildfire superintendent Bill Julie for a refresher course on the impact of extremes in temperature and humidity on golf course turf.
Like the USGA at U.S. Open time, Bill and those with jobs like his at other local coarses, are walking this neverending tightrope between keeping turf strong and healthy, and giving golfers the speed they want on the greens.
His thoughts challenged my long-held beliefs on what the underlying agronomy issues are around the kind of heat and humidity we are experiencing right now, and it’s worth sharing.
What struck me was how Bill talked about more than just hot daytime temperatures.
He was scared of nigh times that didn’t cool down below 20 C. Rain and excess moisture can be big trouble too. Thunderstorms that hit on a hot, humid day are difficult; wet soil heats up and retains the heat, causing roots to die. And diseases like Pythium thrive under these conditions, most specifically daytime temperatures over 30 C and nights that stay above 20 C.
Sound familiar? Bill said that most golfers think that when it’s hot and sunny it requires grounds crews to water heavily and often. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Keeping moisture levels as low as possible to prevent high soil temperatures is key.
This is why you will sometimes seeing them hand water greens if absolutely necessary. This is also why us golfers need to be fine with our courses becoming brown this time of year.
In the spirit of being better informed and more supportive of what these men and women are doing day in and day out to give us the best playing conditions possible, there are ways we can help.
The first would be to do away with the North American perception that green means good and brown means bad. From my golfing travels on this continent and abroad it’s fair to say that most of the hard core global golfing community is starting to acknowledge that brown and firm and fast is the true measure of excellence in course conditioning. And is most in sync with the way the game was originally intended to be played.
So try and fight that urge to compare your own course to Augusta National in April. It’s up to all golfers, but especially the leaders at your club, to speak up loud and often that they are completely OK with temporarily slower green speeds and browner turf this time of year.
This shows support for your superintendent’s decision to raise the mowing height, or delay rolling the greens, and signals to him or her that what the membership wants in the long run is strong, healthy turf, and what they don’t want is fast greens at any cost.
Because that cost can be dead grass. Completely dead greens. No one likes playing temporary greens.
The USGA might be fine with the dollar cost of letting greens come eerily close to the edge, but something tells me your wallet would vote differently.