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Should golf courses regrass ?

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Patrick_Mucci:
In light of the difficult summer in the Northeast and the dire condition of golf courses, is this a signal that golf courses need to consider regrassing ?

Poa seems to have overrun almost all golf courses and seems to be the major problem.  Should courses overrun with Poa regrass ?

Years ago I heard it said that spiked shoes contributed to the contamination of golf courses.  With spiked shoes a thing of the past, is this the right time to regrass ?

And, should regrassing be done every 25 years or so ?

Tom_Doak:
Patrick:

I don't think regrassing is a "solution" to anything.

Most clubs which have regrassed their greens to eliminate the Poa annua [Inverness for one] have promptly gone back and done it again ten years later.  I think having the greens out of play one year out of ten is a little taxing on the members, don't you?

Royal Melbourne regrassed all their greens to Penncross in the mid-80's to "get with the times" and they've regretted it ever since.  It took them several years to gather seed from the untouched greens on the east course and redo the greens on the Composite with the mix they'd had to start with.

TEPaul:
I think golf courses should definitely THINK about regrassing, particularly if they're susceptible to poa as most are. Here's one of the reasons I say that:

This is a quote from the USGA Green Section Turf Advisory Service Report from August 12, 2005 for my own course in Eastern PA.

"A. MANAGEMENT. Bentgrass greens are dry greens. Poa annua greens are wet greens. Thus developing an overall philosophy of firmer and drier can, by itself, suppress poa annua. It's our understanding that this is how a golf course is supposed to be managed. We agree with it. The greens should be kept as dry as possible with longer wet/dry cycles between irrigations, with hand watering supplementing areas that need more water between general irrigations."

This is a Green Section Report obviously mostly directed at agronomic health. But one can certainly see what the effects on playability are with these agronomic suggestions.

The flip side of the coin is that in this day and age where most courses are going for more aggressive green maintenance practices of faster greens ANYWAY, it doesn't take a genius to see that the wet type greens (poa) are going to always be inherently more susceptible to the "danger zone" than their counterpart bentgrass, a dry type green!

The point of all this is to keep bentgrass greens as dry as possible because they're healthier that way. The same cannot be said for poa greens.

mike_malone:
 It is more than regrassing. It seems that bent needs a different micro environment than poa. It seems to need much more sun and air to prosper. So, you need to plan for that as well---tree management and airflow analysis are needed.

Jeff_Brauer:
Should they regress? Or should they move forward?  Is this another "restoration purity thread?"  

Oh wait, you said regrass......

Never Mind.....

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