Golf Digest Match Play: Rees vs. Fazio

[SPDB]

Pat - Like you, I'm fascinated by dunes. My understanding was that beach grass was planted along the foredune, which is on the ocean side of an oblique dune. The grass takes hold and thrives in the dune, where other vegetation (including trees or forests) succumbs. The grass catches sands blown by the winds which hinders the development and advancement of the dune (or the oblique dune behind it). You're right about no vegetation growth on an oblique dune, the only stop to it is higher land.

[Patrick_Mucci]

SPDB,

What amazed me about the dunes was their majestic height and the severe elevation changes on their eastern slopes.

They are something to behold and I still can't understand why the State permited them to be developed or used for recreational purposes.

The obliques are quite unique.

[SPDB]

Pat -
Clearly the largest problem is the european grasses that were planted in the early 1900s. In less conservation minded times, people were concerned about their farmlands, villages being overrun by the advancing dunes. The same wisdom is probably what permitted development.

A great deal of people think that ATV use on the dunes is actually beneficial in the sense that it is viewed as disruptive of the beach grass advancement. The people who are concerned about Plover population obviously feel differently.