Is Grain Considered in Green Design?

[Adam_F_Collins]

My friend, Tim MacEachern would like to know about wether grain on a green can be controlled or predicted ahead of time and thus factored into the design of a green?

He is very aware of grain and the effect it can have on putts, so he wonders how this factors into a design.

[Donnie Beck]

I feel grain is only a result of lack of maintenance practices. With regular verticutting and topdressing grain should not be a factor.

[Troy Alderson]

Adam,

If grain is going to be a factor with the green, the grain will point towards the sun and down slope.  Some golf courses (and very few) manage for a little grain, most do what Donnie stated.  Grain is not a factor in putting these days unless the superintendent is not managing against it, which may be what the owners/members want.  Remember, the longer the blade of grass the deeper the roots are able to grow, even when the blade is laid over.

Because superintendents have been managing against grain and have eliminated it may be the reason why we are having troubles these days with moss, dry spots, weeds, and other problems.

GCA members should be a group promoting a little grain on the greens.  A player that is able to read the grain and compensate is the better golfer.  By eliminating the grain on the greens, we have succumbed to golfers wanting easier golf courses to play.  Much like the high water and fertilizer treatments have done.

Troy

[TEPaul]

Troy Alderson said:

"Remember, the longer the blade of grass the deeper the roots are able to grow, even when the blade is laid over.
Because superintendents have been managing against grain and have eliminated it may be the reason why we are having troubles these days with moss, dry spots, weeds, and other problems."

This is a very important thing to remember, and obviously just another reason why the almost universal demand among golfers to minimize "grain" in putting is another destabilizing characteristic to turf health and endurance.

The only club I'm aware of that actively cultivated a lot of grain back into their greens was HVGC. Seeing as how they were so out-front so long ago in turning their course around from over-irrigated and chemical dependent to really firm and fast and organic, I guess that figures.

Troy:

Is the only real purpose of verticutting to remove grain from greens or are there other reasons to do it? I know you don't have it but do you think long surface leafing works well with all putting greens strains? How about A-4, do you think that'd do well with a lot of grain?

[S. Huffstutler]

I use vertcutting to manage thatch and grooming to manage grain.

Steve

[ForkaB]

As a player, this thread makes me realise that over the past 15-20 years, the word "grain" has been increasingly fading out of my vocabulary.

I personally think this is a good thing, as I always regarded "grain" as some sort of technical/practical aberration of agronomy which could be "cured."

Yes, I know that reading "grain" was (maybe still is, somewhere) a "skill," but I am very happy that this "skill" is being consigned to the dustbin of history.  For obvoius reasons......

[Brad Klein]

Actually, there's an inverse correlation between the length of the leaf blade and the depth of the root mass. The plant is producing and thereby using food, and if growth goes in one place it doesn't go somewhere else.

When blades of grass are heavily watered, the leaf gets elongated or puffy and the roots don't properly develop - which is exactly the case with Poa annua, where the leaf is fragile and dies easily if not watered. Bentgrass, by contrast, has a more durable leaf, and the roots are thereby able to generate deeper penetration into the soil in search of nutrients, water, oxygen. Hold off the surface water and the plant stretches elsewhere. That makes for a healthier plant - and for less grain.

[cary lichtenstein]

Pebble Beach and Coghill, 2 of my favorite courses, used to have alot of grain. I don't know if this is the case today, but figuring out the line and taking the grain into account was something I always enjoyed.

[Tom_Doak]

Somehow I have developed a reputation as being able to read greens very well, despite never consciously taking grain into account.  I think it's overrated.

[Brad Klein]

Doak, don't kid yourself. As sloped as you build most of your greens, anyone can read them!

[Scott_Burroughs]

With today's maintenance practices and grass types, grain
has become almost non-existent, but for some reason, Doak's
Riverfont GC in Virginia, bent greens and all, has a good
amount of grain in the greens (at least in October, they did).  
I actually thought it was a different grass type at first.  I
don't remember if the grain correlated with the sun/slope or
not, but I definitely had to read the grain AND the slope while
lining up my putts.

I don't know why, but I had one of the best putting days in
recent memory there, and those are some fine Doak-contoured greens.

[Doug Siebert]

I feel grain is only a result of lack of maintenance practices. With regular verticutting and topdressing grain should not be a factor.

Donnie,

I gather from this statement you feel grain is a negative factor that should be avoided.

When I was first learning the game I read a few books written by Hogan and Jones and they discussed grain a lot.  I'd try to see the grain in greens but I couldn't.  I figured I just wasn't good enough to notice it yet, but since then I've realized that the greens probably just had a lot less of it than they did "back in the day".  Sure, I see the "shiny" and "dull" grass on greens, but it seemed like what I believed was grain was always running downhill, and if that's the case then what's the point in worrying about it because you can read that anyway!

Even though it would undoubtedly hurt me on the greens I kind of feel like its a loss, just another skill in golf that's been made irrelevant by modern technology -- in this case not the equipment of the golfer but the equipment of the greenskeeper.  I've got to wonder if the reason why there are some greens I just can't get the hang of (TOC being a big one in my mind because I've had a terrible time with short putts on both visits there) is not because I had a bad day but because there's a grain to those greens that I didn't account for.

[Troy Alderson]

TEPaul,

I vertical cut my greens and light top dress and the result is "no" grain on the greens.  I do this because that is what I was taught to do and I know no better.  In order to develop a little grain on the greens I would require the teaching of an experienced superintendent.  Scott Anderson comes to mind but we are separate sides of the continent.  I am one that is very wary of trying new techniques in golf turf maintenance and research them to death before I try.

Brad,

I was referring to bentgrass regarding grain and longer blades equals longer roots.  There are only two grasses in golf turf, bent and fescues, all others are weeds and should be eliminated.  I still have your Oct 27, 2000 article pinned to my board "To be lethal or nonlethal? That is the Question".  Do you write for more popular magazines that get out to the masses?

Troy

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I find grain to be a real issue on most burmuda greens along the gulf coast. Water or bodies of water seem to be more of a factor than sun angles etc. I do agree that maintenance practicies can minimize or even eliminate it. However, there are many good Sups that do not make that a priority.

[Adam_F_Collins]

So, for many grain on a green is a sign of 'lesser quality', and therefore undesirable?

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