Mike,
I was thinking that at first - no reason to base anything in gca on the incredible skills of Tiger. But when they said there was record number of scores below par, I thought that the conditions may help a wider range of good players. Just idle musings, of course, based on watching the telly ten minutes this morning - before coffee, no less.
Bob,
While there is still some overwatering, and there is the image of overwatering, many, many superintendents now water less (because of water restrictions, cost, or because they "get it" and will argue that is what they do, perhaps modifying Ross' phrase "to keep it healthy." And, the stronger the turf, the less prone it is to weeds and disease, so their are some environmental benefits to watering correctly, while overwatering can increase compaction and make turf disease prone.
I have a fairly well known design that changed superintendents that illustrates the differences in watering approaches of enlightened supers. Based on local climate, we had calculated that it would need 26 million gallons in an average year, and told the water board it would need 10% more as a fudge factor in dry years.
It has a weather station, so I know the first super used almost 50 million gallons one year, and when pressed, reduced it to 44 million gallons. The second super (who was so good he got spirited away to another course) kept the same records and got watering right back down to the calculated nut. More impressively, he used the system to water only when needed. You can track the rain and temperature and he only watered when it didn't rain.
The former supt. never changed his computer settings from grow in, and watered to that level every day of the year, and the course was soggy even on hot days. That, BTW, wasn't atypical in the early days of computer watering when no one really knew how to operate those beasts!
My belief is that the computers could be used to water even less. There is a tendency to look at the weather station and see your Evapotranspiration was 0.25" last night and water that amount to fill the soil back up to "field capacity." However, turf usually won't go dormant until it hits 33% of field capacity. While no super would live that much on the edge, I think watering less is possible for many.
If field capacity is 3", turf will do fine if it has 1" of water in the profile,. If they let the profile go down 50% to 1.5", and assumed it would rain once every ten days, (you desert guys can stop reading now....) they could get by with 0.15" less water per night and only water .1" per night, or 0.2" every other night. If it didn't rain, they would have to bump the watering up eventually, but probably would save more in the long run by not watering the night after it rained.
Sorry for the soapbox, as I know most supers are super committed to water conservation and playing conditions their members would like. Also, every course is a bit different and the firm and fast isn't always an option. However, I feel like you guys do and think every little bit helps.