[Ran Morrissett]

What's more important with golf courses - their design or playing conditions?
 
Gut instinct says the design but ... is it really?
 
Take a burnt out course with small greens and not many bunkers. The ball just keeps running and running. The better player senses/fears that he has lost control of his ball, and that eats at him like little else can. It's not the design that is vexing to him - it's the playing conditions.
 
Take a great design like Sand Hills. If it was soft under foot with tee balls and approach shots plugging, then the running approach shots into the 2nd and 3rd greens disappear (just to name two), along with much of the merit of the design. Happily, of course, such is not the case.
 
Yes, some courses with modest playing conditions can still shine through. The brilliant designs at Yale GC and the Addington did during their (former) dark days. However, to overcome such indifferent playing conditions, we are talking about two of the finest designs ever.
 
I once thought topography was the single most important requirement for a great course; now I've come to think that it's the soil and grasses - and that's where Dave Wilber comes in. As a turfgrass consultant and agronomic advisor since 1991, Dave has worked on many of the world's finest courses including Pacific Dunes, Kingsbarn and Ballyneal. By achieving optimal playing conditions, these courses garner praise generally only sung for courses built during golf's Golden Age.
 
Crucially, by getting the soils and grasses right upfront, the owners at such courses avoid all kinds of headaches and expenses down the road.
 
Wedding optimal playing conditions to the design is what Dave's services are about. His answers are among the most in-depth ever posted on this site. Hope you enjoy this highly informative - and important - Feature Interview.
 
Cheers,
 

[SL_Solow]

One of the most interesting interviews yet.  Thanks very much.

[Dave_Wilber]

Wow..when Ran says today...he means today!

It is very much an honor to be interviewed here. I still find it facinating that anyone cares enough to care about grass and this group has always had a keen interest in that side of things. Thanks for that!!

[ward peyronnin]

David,

Haven't had time to peruse the article yet so you may treat this issue. What is it that turf in Scotland has that makes it so springy yet tight? Even seaside courses here don't seem to quite exhibit that degree of crispy yield and gentle feel?

Ward Peyronnin

[Dave_Wilber]

Ward,

I think it's in there. But like I said..it isn't just one thing. And a lot has to do with overall cultural management culture.

[wsmorrison]

David,

Thank you so much for the valuable piece you and Ran contributed.  There's a lot of information in there to digest and it is from a perspective that is most welcome.  

[George Pazin]

David, thanks for taking the time to give such thoughtful answers. I look forward to digesting it a lot more thoroughly this evening.

[Dave_Wilber]

Certainly is my pleasure.

[Ian Andrew]

Ran,

An excellent choice of interview.


Dave,

I really appreciate the amount of time and detail you put into each answer. I have always made a policy of staying completly out of the turf selection and leaving it up to the experts like yourself. Anyone reading this should have their eyes opened to how complicated this stuff really is.

The Walter Woods story just warms us to how much you care. I had the same feelings at Archipalozza where I felt at any moment someone would turn to me and say "you really don't belong here you know" If anyone thought that they were decent enough not to say it out loud.

I have a good friend who is currently fairly obsessed with cell wall thicknesses and he constantly reminds me how much the "turfheads" have embraced the scientific end of soils and plants. There much more sofisticated than people think.

Dave, find a new outlet for writing, you're a very enjoyable read.

Ian

[Michael Moore]

Dave -

I don't know anything about soil and grass, and to be perfectly frank I'm not exactly jumping out of my chair to learn.

However, I am a diligent reader of "Feature Interview" and I was impressed by your knowledge and ability to share it.

I was stunned to read about fairways that were a blend of five different grasses. I immediately thought of the five Bordeaux grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec, which are blended in eerily similar proportions as your golf courses to make fine wine.

Has this informed your work or am I just a wino?

[Dave_Wilber]

Ian..thank you. Very nice comments.

Michael...interesting. How many times does nature combine to make something special. Even if we humans have to get our hands involved. One of the key things I saw right away on my first trip to the UK was that everywhere I went the playing surface had wide genetic diversity and that they encouraged this instead of a monstand/monoculture. I found that the more I liked the surface, the more different grasses I could find. I think there's a limit to this, but that's the fun in finding out.

[Josh Smith]

Dave W. is the man.

I think Ran makes a great observation about how playing conditions can often be as or more important than design.  We all know it is important, but perhaps it is the most important thing.  To have someone at the forefront of getting the playing surfaces right such as Dave seems determined to do is so necessary.

Playing at Ballyneal with Dave was a reminder, as was Sand Hills the Day before, how much more fun golf can be when the sand wedge is not the only up and in club.  Chipping with 5 iron, 6 iron, 7 iron adds immeasurable flavor to the game.  And when conditions play as they do at Bandon and Ballyneal (his two projects that I have been to) there is also more than one option from 150 yards out, low runners actually run!!

I cannot wait to see Ballyneal in its full maturity, my feeling is the surface will be unlike anything in the states so far.

Up in Northern Cal, short game is pretty one dimensional these days.  Keep it green, Boo hisss!!  Help Dave.

Josh Smith

[Guy Nicholson]

That was fascinating, even for the neophyte. Anyone else in the golf industry go to school on a rodeo scholarship?  

[RJ_Daley]

Dave, I just had the pleasure of playing at BallyNeal this weekend.  I'm on sensory overload, and will wait a while to post my thoughts on the golf course design.  

I understand that the % of turf cover in the early grow-in was more robust before the heat wave they experienced.  I thought what I saw was impressive as is, considering the short time the course has been open and in play from the actual time it was seeded and grown-in.  The issue of heat stress thinning out isolated areas, is not of concern at this point, I don't think.

But, I am interested in the progression of the turf's maturation under your program as a normal and natural process.  What do you expect to be the natural maturation characteristics of the blends you have now informed us were used on FWs, tees, roughs, and greens?  Anotherwords; do you envision a long term life cylce and evolution to a diverse polystand that will begin to harden to heat, cold, wind-dessication, and water scarcity and dry climate stresses.  Do you think that the turf sward (as you call it) will become a sort of unity of cultivars and species that will eventually be manageable in all climates and seasons, with some cultivars doing better under certain conditions and others rising up when others dampen off or retard from various stresses?  Is it possible that one cultivar will eventually dominate, negating the issue of selecting a polystand approach>  Does this mean that the super will need a diverse bag of cultural practices and macro responses to constantly adapt to environmental changes as the yearly seasons pass, or that the turf will begin to self adjust by virtue of its cultivar-species diversity, and need only micro inputs and actually do better without macro management inputs?

What other material and how did you ammend any organics into the native sand ground, besides shredding the existing ground cover of sages and yuccas, if you did so?



Or, is the goal something else I am not understanding.

[Dave_Wilber]

Dick,

I think the only answers to those questions will come from the golf course itself. I can tell you that what we want is the playing surface to become unique in ability to handle climate and exposue and Dave Hensley's challenge will be to make this happen...or rather let this happen and still do what it takes to have playable turf. So the definition of playable will have to be definied differently in different parts of the season. Much more natural, I think.

Yes, we did do extensive organic carbon oriented pre-plant to bio enhance, fertility boost and physically stabilize the sands. Based on soil testing and expected inputs, etc.

Glad you got to play!

[Anthony Butler]

Dick,

I think the only answers to those questions will come from the golf course itself. I can tell you that what we want is the playing surface to become unique in ability to handle climate and exposue and Dave Hensley's challenge will be to make this happen...or rather let this happen and still do what it takes to have playable turf. So the definition of playable will have to be definied differently in different parts of the season. Much more natural, I think.

Yes, we did do extensive organic carbon oriented pre-plant to bio enhance, fertility boost and physically stabilize the sands. Based on soil testing and expected inputs, etc.

Glad you got to play!

Dave, to paraphrase the words of the great African-American player Snoop Dogg, "... you know a lot about golf and even more about grass"  

[RJ_Daley]

Dave, just to push you a bit further on the edumacation...
Can you point to other polystands on known courses of diversely seeded cultivars and species that have done well (in your evaluation)?  Have you seen it where they wind up with one species and cultivar dominating all others after a period of time? Maybe the case of Whistling Straits FWs now that it has been around a while...

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:

I'll state the most obvious example ... nearly all of the famous courses in the northeastern USA are not monostands as advertised, but actually polystands of bent and native poa annua.  They didn't seed the poa annua, but they keep seeding different bents into it; the poa annua dominates but it isn't 100%.

[RJ_Daley]

What dominates at SHGC after 10 years, compared to what was seeded?

[Dave_Wilber]

Dave, just to push you a bit further on the edumacation...
Can you point to other polystands on known courses of diversely seeded cultivars and species that have done well (in your evaluation)?  Have you seen it where they wind up with one species and cultivar dominating all others after a period of time? Maybe the case of Whistling Straits FWs now that it has been around a while...

Dick...you seem to be looking hard at a point or something and I'm not sure what it is.

But I know genetic diversity isn't anything new (as Tom points out case in hand with Poa) so I think there are bunches of examples where that system has thrived and not just in the UK or in Coastal areas. If, in the end one particular grass species or even inside of that one particular cultivar ends up being the dominant carrier of the sward, then I always wonder if human intervention is involved and we look for those factors to see if such involvement may have taken away somthing desireable. And the truth is, not every situation is right for polystanding and many clients are joyfully fulfilled by their monostands if that's what they want. Just my opinion of course, but this is where the artwork comes very close to the agronomy and I'm not sure there is one particular answer due to all the variables involved.

 

[Jay Flemma]

It was so great meeting Dave at Ballyneal and seeing the great work he and Doak and Rupert and everyone did there.  Nice job with the interview Ran!

[Dave_Wilber]

Thanks, Jay. Nice meeting you too.

[RJ_Daley]

Dave, I am looking hard at the point of seeing one of the most exciting canvasses of golf I have ever seen, or hope to see, and am totally on board with the desired turf presentation.  The concept of a motteled weave of turf species dominated by multiple cultivars of fescues, maintained on the healthy and strong edge of survival and hearty enough to withstand the climatic swings that will be experienced out there at BallyNeal are the palatte on which Tom Doak and Co. have given this amazing presentation of golf.

I am hoping that as time goes by, the grasses will become absolutely ancient looking, with textures of light greens and yellows motteled into weaves of tans and browns as fairways melt into native textures of seasonal color.  The greens are fabulous already IMHO.  Sure, there are some high and struggling spots on knobs and such.  What the heck would one expect from turf that is not more than a year old?  

But, what has been the experience with long term highly comprised turf swards dominated by fescues out there?  Given the micro climate differences, still... can the turf evolve as we would all like it?  Will the turf evolution perpetuate into a dominant situation where poa will overtake the more fragile fescue?  Even if the maintenance plan is to go extreemly light on inputs of fert and irrigation (as light as botanically possible) won't the evolution be inevitable to a dominant species and cultivar that will require some sort of turf management practices that heretofor has not been discovered by those other superintendents out there that have and are trying to maintain the desired firmness and perpetuation of fescue areas.

I'm thinking of the early stand of turf seeded to FWs at SHGC which were fescues, and what and how it inescapably evolved through winters and other climatic impositions to poa and softer than conceived of surfaces - in spots.   I'm thinking of the original wide surrounds of fescue (that are a feature that Wild Horse shares with BallyNeal), where the onslaught of climate and stress has worked to soften and give way to the unavoidable transition to the more dominant species, which do soften from the original concept.  

Wild Horse (which I did recently see on this trip) still functions pretty well as to what the surrounds are supposed to do.  But, they aren't like they were 5 years ago.  

As to fairways, Wild Horse went with dwarf blue in the FW from the start.  It works there beautifully, but I wouldn't want to see it at BallyNeal, because it doesn't fit in the overall concept.  It is a great surface to play from.  Their blue FWs are greatly more maintainable (I don't think there is much arguement on that) and it stands up to the stresses of many more rounds played and carts constantly driven there.  Bally is not, and should not be that.  But, can the line be held and maintained at BN as conceived?  I'm rooting for such.  I can't say enough about the conception and marriage of the design team and turf maintainace program, and their goals.  BallyNeal is the new gold standard, IMHO.  

[Dave_Wilber]

Really good questions. I feel like saying that if I knew the answers to some of them I'd be better off playing No-Limit Texas Hold-em

[Adam Clayman]

Great going Dave!

Dick, After you left we were treated to a day at SHGC. Corey joined us, and it was a day filled with yucks and learning. To one of your points, Poa encroachment, Corey told us one of the little tricks was to not spray for the dollar spot. The reason? It affected the poa first, so sprayng the dollar spot was counter-productive. I believe he said the greens were Providence bent and they sure rolled true.(and fast)

On the old subject of winter watering, they now use some of the aluminium pipe the farmers use to get out and water on days where it's possible. Justin told us he was able to water 27 days last January. The course was in great shape.

As for Ballyneal, since you left on Sunday, Dave top dressed many of the problem areas, as well as many of the collars. The aerifying has continued, but no plugs. Just holes which are already healing on the greens. The green speeds were not affected too much, and many balls ran out with a small form of ball creep.

I have complete confidence that the turf will be as world class as the design, in Holyoke.

Thanks Dave and Dave!

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