Opinions - The greens at Bandon

[Pete Wendt]

I am not trying to stir up emotions with my first post, but...What is your opinion of the grassing scheme of Bandon's greens?

Personally, I think the resort is one of the best golfing experiences in the country.  Would bentgrass have been a better choice knowing that they eventually will be predominantly poa anyway?  It may be an americanized point of view, and I am not promoting outageous speeds, I just feel like if there is a weakness it is in the greens.  

This is not a knock on how the greens are maintained, it is a knock on the grass of choice.

[cary lichtenstein]

Pete:

Welcome to GCA.

Re your first post: Suggest you get a helmut, ear plugs and a bulletproof vest

Cary

[Jon Wiggett]

Pete, why are you so sure that they will be predominantly Poa? Yes, leaning towards bent is an american fetish but this is only a surety for poa if used in the wrong climate and/or incorrectly maintained.  

[Bill_McBride]

Considering that my last putt at Bandon was a 40' bomb on #18 at Bandon Trails in July, I thought the greens at Bandon were just dandy!  

Paging Tom Jefferson.

[John Kirk]

Wow.  I know Peter.  Welcome.

I absolutely love the green surfaces at Bandon.  The relatively shaggy and sparse fescue surface makes slow but true greens.  The slower green surfaces are offset by having more slope in them.

Hopefully Tom Jefferson will chime in.  He's the super at one of the three courses; I can't remember which one.  I believe each course is maintained a little differently.  Pacific Dunes seems to have the shaggiest, slowest greens.  As of a couple years ago, they were still cutting poa plants out of the greens to maintain homogenous surfaces.  Bandon Trails is quite young, with perfect fescue surfaces.  Some days the Trails' greens are quite fast, especially for the big slopes.

Bandon Dunes is older, and the poa plants are quite well established in some greens.  I only play there once or twice a year now, but it seems to me they roll the greens regularly to keep them smooth, and quite fast.  I'd like to hear about the challenges of growing fescue and poa simultaneously.  One thing I know about fescue.  Once established, it requires very little input (fertilizer, water).

I always felt that you had to make a lot of mid-length putts at Pacific to score well.  You start enjoying the challenge of aggressively banging 5-12' putts that only break a few inches.

Bent grass surfaces are faster, and require flatter greens.  Flatter greens would look unnatural in a hilly dunes environment.  Also, bent grass requires more water, and plays softer.  A key element of Bandon's appeal is the firm nature of the turf, so that the ball will bounce.

The poa seems to be creeping into the courses, brought in on the shoes of its guests.  No course in Oregon has successfully prevented poa from eventually establishing itself.  I have had a great opportunity to see this in action at Pumpkin Ridge GC over the last 15 years.

Great to have you here.  The previously mentioned Tom Jefferson is superintendent of one of the Bandon courses, probably Bandon Dunes.  

[Tom Jefferson]

John, your post is accurate enough from my point of view that there is little to add, except to clarify that my role here is Common Grounds super, caring for all the resort grounds except the three golf courses..........My duties include the Practice Center, all the landscaping, the roads and trails, plant nursery and native plant work, new landscape installation.  Eric Johnson is the super at Bandon, Ken Nice is at Bandon Trails, Jeff Sutherland at Pacific Dunes.  Troy Russell is the overall Resort Superintendent.

The original choice to plant the greens to predominately fescue was made as it replicates the conditions of the links courses in Europe.  We are comfortable with that choice. The greens at each course, as John notes, are in different stages, each set with it's own age and each with it's own constantly evolving management strategy.  Bandon's are the oldest with the most poa invasion, and the Trails greens are new and pure with fescue.  The effort to keep Pac's greens clear of poa by hand picking the young plants has been successful, in our opinion;  they remain essentially clear of poa.  Our management of the fescue is a work in progress.  We have developed relationships with, and learned from, BIGGA, the R & A, and the superintendents in Scotland

[John Kirk]

Tom,

Just so you know, Pete is superintendent at Kinloch Golf Club near Richmond, VA.  Kinloch is a really good parkland layout (GD #33 in the country, GW #10 modern) renowned for its fine conditioning.  Kinloch is a unique study in bent grass use in a warm, humid southern environment.  They built the golf holes there with extremely wide corridors through the mature forest, to ensure ample air flow over the grass.  The resulting holes are very wide for a parkland course, some offering multiple angles of attack.  Really great.

Pete,

Another superintendent here well known for fescue cultivation is Dan Lucas, who works at the Kingsley Club (GW modern #19) in northern Michigan.  The Kingsley Club is about the same age as Kinloch, and almost universally regarded here as a great course.  They have fescue fairways and L93 bent greens.  I will put you in touch with him if you desire.

I love hanging with the supers.  You guys are my heroes!  Much more interesting than who built the 10th green at Merion!

[Tim Pitner]

I'm no grass expert, but I love the greens at all 3 courses at Bandon.  They are as true as any greens I've putted, and the way the greens blend in with the fairways is, it seems to me, one of the key factors in ensuring that the courses look and play like true links courses (alright, BT doesn't look like a links).  

[Adrian_Stiff]

In the UK we often sow with a bent/ fescue mix (but not a creeping bent) and almost go with which one thrives the better, more often than not the fescue dies, but ocasionally with more liberal water and food it will become the dominant specie. What height do you cut at? We are maintaininng our greens which are high in fescue at 6.5mm throughout the winter and for most of the year they were 5mm. We have noticed a lot of moss ingress recently, our greens are about 5% poa and the recent fusarium attacks seem to have nicely checked the larger poa outcrops around the perimeters. Any similar problems Tom? One of my thoughts when the poa domination really gets bad has always been if I had 36 holes to close one course and completely redo the greens by stripping the turf with a sod cutter, rotavating to 75mm, adding some pure (same) construction sand and then resowing. i reckon you could do the whole job one green = one day and with good conditions have a better playing surface in 3 months. (9 in the UK). Any experience of this. Your 3 course situation and the time aspect seems similar to what we experience, ie you can keep them pretty clean for so long. We found that all of sudden one spring there was just too much to weed out and so basically were forced to live with poa invasion, 5% may not sound much but it definitely looks ugly.

[peter_p]

Dave Wilber was the agronomist working with Doak at Pacific Dunes. Check his feature interview or his website regarding choices of grass.

[Tom_Doak]

Pete:

Golf in Bandon is just not about the speed of the greens.

We didn't really do anything different in our grassing scheme than the first course ... it had been so successful they were resistant to changes.  The current wisdom is that there should be less colonial bent and more fescue in the mix, and that's probably the way we will go with course #4.

If you plant the greens to creeping bent, yes they will be faster, but the transition from fairway to green will be much different and the variety of shots around the greens will be affected.  I have played courses with fescue fairways and bent greens (Sand Hills and Friars Head among others) but I have to say I didn't enjoy the short game quite as much with that arrangement.

It is tough for a course with fescue greens to compete with bentgrass greens next door (see Spanish Bay and Pebble Beach), but at a remote resort like Bandon where people are playing multiple rounds, they seem to get used to the speed difference pretty quickly.  If you changed one course I think you'd have to change them all.

[Pete Wendt]

Thanks for the welcome!  John,  Thanks for the info, and I hope to see you soon.  You blew my cover!

Tom,
  I think you hit the nail on the head with the transition of grasses from fairway to approach to green.  Kudos to everyone involved on a strategic grassing plan, and making it work in the field on a day to day basis.  I was fortunate enough to play all of the Bandon courses as well as the Sheep Ranch this summer.  What a place.  

That is a tough grassing scheme to manage not only from a playability perspective, but also from a wear and tear standpoint.  Obviously the greens need to managed to the slope/contours, and I agree that the speed suits the place.  I think this goes back to the whole Ideal Maintenance Meld discussion and why it has to be an IMM suited for each course, terrain, climate, etc.  This was not a post suggesting A4 stimping 14!

Pete

[Jon Wiggett]

In the UK we often sow with a bent/ fescue mix (but not a creeping bent) and almost go with which one thrives the better, more often than not the fescue dies, but ocasionally with more liberal water and food it will become the dominant specie.

Adrian, WOW!!! I have also heard the opposite to be true. Are you going to be at Harrogate? Would be interresting to talk to you so you can explain exactly what you do.

[Adrian_Stiff]

In the UK we often sow with a bent/ fescue mix (but not a creeping bent) and almost go with which one thrives the better, more often than not the fescue dies, but ocasionally with more liberal water and food it will become the dominant specie.

Adrian, WOW!!! I have also heard the opposite to be true. Are you going to be at Harrogate? Would be interresting to talk to you so you can explain exactly what you do.

No John, I am not at Harrogate. I'll try and explain more. The main problem with growing fescues and bents together in the same mix is their cultural methods are at the different ends of the spectrum. ie If you want fescue to do well then the three golden rules would be keep away from food, water and mow as high as possible, possibly as high as 6mm in peak season. I dont think you will keep fescue with continous mowing at 3mm. Bent grass likes to be fed and watered more and will tolerate closer mowing. Pressure from golfers to speed the greens often mean that the maintenance practices will favour the bentgrass development over the fescue.. hence loss of fescue... but if you can be liberal and the greenkeeper has the clubs/members backing, you can keep the finer fescues. Bentgrass cultural methods are also similar to those than make poa thrive whilst poa will not do so well if you are encouraging fescue. Equally a poa/old fashined bent sward does not look to bad where as a poa/fescue sward can look a bit ugly. Poa and creeping bentgrass can look nasty sometimes too. In the UK with our climate which is quite sim to Northern California and I suspect the coast up to Vancover its going to be very hard/impossible to keep poa out. Im probably teaching ypu to suck eggs John.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Pete:

Golf in Bandon is just not about the speed of the greens.

We didn't really do anything different in our grassing scheme than the first course ... it had been so successful they were resistant to changes.  The current wisdom is that there should be less colonial bent and more fescue in the mix, and that's probably the way we will go with course #4.

If you plant the greens to creeping bent, yes they will be faster, but the transition from fairway to green will be much different and the variety of shots around the greens will be affected.  I have played courses with fescue fairways and bent greens (Sand Hills and Friars Head among others) but I have to say I didn't enjoy the short game quite as much with that arrangement.

It is tough for a course with fescue greens to compete with bentgrass greens next door (see Spanish Bay and Pebble Beach), but at a remote resort like Bandon where people are playing multiple rounds, they seem to get used to the speed difference pretty quickly.  If you changed one course I think you'd have to change them all.

Tom- I played Spanish Bay when it was fairly new, how much of the fescue remains? is it pretty much the original, do they weed, overseed? do they cut high? Is Spanish Bay successfull? I always felt it was quite a good course but was always going to be shadowed by its neighbours and perhaps get a bit lost.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Mr. Wendt,
  We've spoken on the phone in the passed and from one turf guy to another, welcome to GCA.com! I look forward to hearing some of you comments, especially about turf!

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

[Tom_Doak]

Adrian:

The last time I was in Monterey I pulled into Spanish Bay and jumped out on the closest fairway (I think it was the eleventh) to look for fescue.  It's all poa annua; I could barely even find any fescue in the rough.  The fescue was unpopular there from the start and I believe they "encouraged" the transition by watering and fertilizing ... to tell the truth I don't know if the management there was ever really committed to the idea of fescue, or just went along with it because it sounded better in the permit application and they figured it would transition out soon enough anyway.

I don't believe that is true for all fescue fairways if managed properly.  The most important cultural practice for fescue is the one you left out entirely ... you have to topdress the bejeezus out of it to keep it really sandy underneath.

[Paul Carey]

Spanish Bay is not the same.  I had played the course a few times soon after it opened and returned a couple of years ago and the change was unfortunately dramatic.  The fairways were overwatered, mushy and a bright green.  Drives backed up and were full of mud and this was during a fairly dry period on the Monterey Peninsula.  This was a huge change from the original fescue fairways that were firm and fast and made driving the ball a thoughtful process.  I think the course has lost it's charm with the new maintenance approach.

Paul

[Marc Haring]

Adrian:


... you have to topdress the bejeezus out of it to keep it really sandy underneath.

Tom.

That's interesting and I think you are right. We're going to sand only top dressing this year to try and encourage a bit more fescue back into the greens and we need to pile it on. Also overseeding is key. I think the theory is that you outcompete poa at its own game.


Adrian

I think there's a mix up over the definition of the word liberal here. Can't believe you are liberal with water and fertiliser to try and promote the fescue. Maybe frugal is the word. By the way, I here great reports on the greens at your place.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian:


... you have to topdress the bejeezus out of it to keep it really sandy underneath.

Tom.

That's interesting and I think you are right. We're going to sand only top dressing this year to try and encourage a bit more fescue back into the greens and we need to pile it on. Also overseeding is key. I think the theory is that you outcompete poa at its own game.


Adrian

I think there's a mix up over the definition of the word liberal here. Can't believe you are liberal with water and fertiliser to try and promote the fescue. Maybe frugal is the word. By the way, I here great reports on the greens at your place.

Marc, yes I mean, frugal, sparingly, cautiously. I not sure if I ever explained to you I am dyslexic. Well I used to be I am KO now. No wonder Jon Wiggett thought I was mad. Our greens have not been cut for 5 weeks, Nick was going to cut today at 7˝mm!!!!! but the frost. We have a lot of moss at the moment. In 2006 I think we reduced our feeding programme by about 75%, partly due to conversations I have had with you and partly my own greenkeeping skills from 17 years ago. I think some of 'balanced programmes' designed by the fertilizersaleman are maybe not so balanced in the right way. The fescue has done well this year.
Tom- Yes topdressing is the key to keeping all fine turf well in my opionion, Ive always been a straight sand man 6 times a year, and looked upon the straight sand as a method of diluting the natural building thatch. I would propably say top dressing on creeping bents would be even more important since the growth and thatch accumulation is going to be more vigourous. After a sandy topdressing on fescue cut at 5mm its amazing how quick the greens can get. I always wondered if they would be successfull in keeping the fescue at Spanish Bay. I think I was there early 1989 and I thought it was going to be difficult thans for confirming it.

[Jon Wiggett]

Hi Adrian,

thank god it was you. I thought I had totally lost the plot. I have found that if the site has good deep drainage (if possble set atleast below 3 feet) and that the surface is regulary aerated and sanded (greens spiked, slitted, verticut or microtined every 10 to 14 days and topdress finely every week or so if growth allows) with a minimum amount of N the Fescue keeps the upper hand very well.
I have also found as a player that fescue cut at 6-7mm usually gives a better and often faster surface than poa or bent at 3-4mm. Interrestingly I have also had the experience that keeping a pure stand of fescue is easier in a warm climate than a cool climate though the course does look like an Open Championship venue through much of the summer it still plays good and is very good in the winter.

[W.H. Cosgrove]

The greens at Bandon were spectacular in their original form.  Now like every other green in the Pacific Northwest they are going to poa.  While it is possible, I'm told, to keep the poa out.  The cost is very high.  

Topdress, verticut and aerate the heck out them and they might stay nice and firm.  Poa can be a fabulous surface in the mild weather of the PNW.  

[Adrian_Stiff]

Hi Adrian,

thank god it was you. I thought I had totally lost the plot. I have found that if the site has good deep drainage (if possble set atleast below 3 feet) and that the surface is regulary aerated and sanded (greens spiked, slitted, verticut or microtined every 10 to 14 days and topdress finely every week or so if growth allows) with a minimum amount of N the Fescue keeps the upper hand very well.
I have also found as a player that fescue cut at 6-7mm usually gives a better and often faster surface than poa or bent at 3-4mm. Interrestingly I have also had the experience that keeping a pure stand of fescue is easier in a warm climate than a cool climate though the course does look like an Open Championship venue through much of the summer it still plays good and is very good in the winter.

Interesting your comments on the speed and height relationship John. I agree they can still play a nice speed. We cut today at 7˝mm. Thats our highest height since the greens were a month old.

[Jon Wiggett]

Adrian,

Although I have never had confirmation I have always had the (gut) feeling that speed has a lot to do with moisture in the sward. Greens that a wet are slower than greens that are dry. Poa/bent have broader leaves which not only stand up giving more resistance to the rolling ball but also have a higher water retention even when cut much shorter. This is also one of the reasons that fescue is less desease prone as most turfgrass deseases rely on water as one of the factors in their development. Fescue will also develop most deseases if the conditions are correct for the desease but such conditions are unlikely to occur if the maintenance program is fescue friendly. This cannot be said for most other turf grasses.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian,

Although I have never had confirmation I have always had the (gut) feeling that speed has a lot to do with moisture in the sward. Greens that a wet are slower than greens that are dry. Poa/bent have broader leaves which not only stand up giving more resistance to the rolling ball but also have a higher water retention even when cut much shorter. This is also one of the reasons that fescue is less desease prone as most turfgrass deseases rely on water as one of the factors in their development. Fescue will also develop most deseases if the conditions are correct for the desease but such conditions are unlikely to occur if the maintenance program is fescue friendly. This cannot be said for most other turf grasses.

Jon- We think along similar lines I agree dry = faster, plus a dry turf is a healthier turf. I also think the fine leaf offers less resistance, the thicker leaf even when dry will inhibit the ball speed some.