Champion Bermuda Greens

[John_Cullum]

The developers of tifeagle were very good marketers and the tif (Tifton, GA, tifgreen, tifway, tifsport) name carried recognition.

Which probably explains why I see it more.

[ChipRoyce]

I didn't know it until I went to the champions website that we use the grass here at Great Hills in Austin TX.

Our club has a reputation of having the best greens in the area - both summer heat and occaisional winter frost make it hard to have good greens year round. I guess this grass might have a lot to do with it, along with a great superintendent (Kevin Bagley).

[Anthony_Nysse]

In my two years dealing with warm season grasses, I've seen/heard both sides as to which is the better grass and also painting vs overseeding.
  Here at Long Cove, we have TifEagle. It was installed in he summer of 2001. Though great in the beginning, as some people have echoed, it is a very maintenance intensive grass. We have to do A LOT of topdressing, A LOT of verticutting, A LOT of aerifying, A LOT of brushing all to get the greens to be somewhat smooth and somewhat quick. TifEagle seems to be a thatch maker. We aerified 2x this year with 5/8 hollow tines on 1.5 x2 spacing and quad tined with 1/2 inch tines and we don't think that we really gained any ground on the thatch. The USGA recommends removing up to 30% per year. During our AJGA Tournament of Champions this summer, we did a combination of grooming and brushing, along with mowing greens 33 times in 10 days and they were VERY good,(11.5 on the stimp) but 2 days after the tournament, they were back to there 9+ on the stimp.
  Overseeding Vs. Painting
  IF the greensites are open enough-morning sunlight, not completely surrounded by mounds and have very strong turf from the summer, painting can be achieved. The biggest reson for not painting is traffic. Long Cove does well over 60% of our rounds (33,000 average) from October to April, which is currently on our overseed. That's just under 20,000 rounds. The courses in my area that paint do less than 20,000 rounds for the year. The problem with painting that if the greens were to thin out because of traffic, they will not be able to fill in til late April at the earliest.  I know alot of clubs wouldn't tolerate this. We are letting one of our putting greens go dormant this year as a test green. We're going to paint it, but it's gets a lot of use and has shade issues. Time will tell. I will say that it seems like Champion is more shade tolerant that TifEagle. I think that courses need to be careful with the "No Till" because if the subsurface hasn't been taken care of over the years, trouble could persist down the road. I would make sure that a very good topdressing program was in place prior to using the "No Till."

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[Lou_Duran]

From a player's standpoint, Champion and TifEagle are a toss up.  While considerably better than the earlier dwarfs, they still can't compare with bent under a similar level of maintenance.  Both bermudas and several types of bent are common in the Dallas area, and I've played them all under most conditions.

Tiger is correct about the importance of the superintendent and extensive maintenance.  The former director of maintenance at the Island Club in Kiawah Island once told me that to attain the high standards required by the membership, he would rather fight with the heat and humidity affecting bent for four months than the year-round battles he had with hybrid bermuda (TifEagle, I think).

I was under the impression that Champion is still questionable because it has not yet been proven to do well in colder conditions.  One of Jeff Brauer's local courses, Ridgeview Ranch, recently converted from Champion to TifEagle.  He may know the reasons why.

Champions GC- Cypress Creek has new Champion greens and they've had quite a bit of trouble.  I am not sure about their Jackrabbit course whose greens were reportedly in good condition.  

Based on current experience, I have reversed my mind about which strain of bermuda I prefer (TifEagle).  Within a day of playing Champions, I also played Houston CC which has TifEagle and they were probably the best conditioned bermuda greens I've ever played.

Oak Cliff CC in south Dallas has fairly new TifEagle greens and they were fantastic when I played it about a week ago.  Again, the club focuses a lot of attention on its greens, which are not large by today's standards.  Oak Cliff does not overseed.

I have not played Great Southwest GC since leaving the club at the end of the year, but I hear reports from friends that the "un-overseeded" Champion greens had a bad winter and are still a bit rough.  The greens were designed by Jeff Brauer for bent and after a couple unsuccessful attempts to maitain them, the owner converted to Champion to better match his low-maintenance/high use business model.  The greens had pretty good coverage but have always been bumpy (the course doesn't own a roller) and grainy.  They've also had problems with a fungus or some such disease.  

Courses which converted from bent to Champion under the assumption of lowering their maintenance costs while achieving superior surfaces are finding otherwise.  This is specially true if overseeding is required by their clientele.  

The density of the new bermuda hybrids appear to resist the rye, poa, and/or bent overseed from penetrating, so it neither achieves the aesthetics nor the smoothness during the winter months.  Personally, I much prefer greens that are not overseeded, though they can get real hard, crusty, and fast.  If the winter is particularly cold and the course gets a lot of use (and/or has small greens), it may be mid-summer before the greens come back.