Do today's grasses allow for fast and firm?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Most of us like F&F conditions.  Yet so many courses have bent grass fairways.  It seems that in the heat of the summer that they need to be watered so frequently that soft is what you get by necessity.  Bermuda, on the other hand, seems to hold up better and water is not as important.
To the supers out there is my thinking correct?

[SL_Solow]

What climate?   Bermuda is not an option in many places and fast and firm is achievable.

[Troy Alderson]

Tommy,

I have only dealt with old grasses.  But, new grasses are created to reduce the need for water and fertilizer.  But, is does take a dedicated superintendent to implement the correct program for the grass used on the golf course.

Troy

[Eric Morrison]

Bentgrasses are a relatively drought tolerant species, and for guys like me in the northeast, Bermuda is not an option. You can achieve F+F conditions with prudent irrigation practices. This is very contingent on having an updated irrigation system with at least double row systems in fairways and individual sprinkler head control. These types of designs, if the sprinkler spacing is done correctly, allows water to be put only where you need it. If you have an older system, with single row sprinklers down the middle of the fairway, you might have to overwater one area to get enough water on another. Hand watering hot spots in fairways is very labor intensive and out of the question for most courses. Drainage is also very important, so you can give the turf the water it needs, but any excess will go through the soil profile quickly. And the last issue, maybe most important, is education. A little bit of brown (not dead!) turf is not necessarily a bad thing!  

[JESII]

The bent grass fairways at Huntingdon Valley (just outside of Philadelphia) handle drought conditions unlike anything I have ever seen...no rain for a coupld weeks and they're brown and crusty, one overnight sprinkle and they're right back to a nice green but still real firm.

All in, best fairways I've played on...

[TEPaul]

Good question. I know our super loves this A-4 bent saying it just loves dryness compared to what we used to have. But on fairways? You got me. All I know is poa is what's called a "wet" grass (needs more water to survive).

[Jim Nugent]

Is there a preferred grass for desert courses?  I'm thinking of soft, soft sand.  

[Dan_Lucas]

I am guessing, because you're playing both bent and bermuda that you are down south. If so bent has a tough time making it through the hot, humid summers down there. It really needs to be babied during the really nasty part of summer while bermuda loves the hot stuff. The key is having a grass suited to the climate you are in.

[RJ_Daley]

That brings me to wonder about cool season regions, and which course might consistently offer the most F&F on dwarf blue grass fairways.  (I mean apart from Wild Horse   )

Seriously, we have a few courses in my area of Wisconsin that have blue grass FWs that are usually cut to about 5/8s or so, that can can be maintained pretty firm and get nice ball roll-out.  Are ther any well known courses that are generally offering such "old time" sort of turf and conditions with blue FWs?

[Dan_Lucas]

Greywalls in Marquette. It's pure joy to watch your ball "rumblin, bumblin, stumblin" over those roller coaster fairways.

[Jon Wiggett]

Tommy,

Bents have been around for as long as there has been turfgrass and It is usually a part of a traditional golfing sward. It is however very confusing for many people, including a lot of greenkeeper, as modern bents are often misnamed i.e. A-4 being called Agrostis stolonifera instead of its real name Agrostis palutris. When you talk about a traditional sward that lends itself to F&F it is made up of Chewings fescue (Festuca rubra commutata), Slender Creeping Red Fescue (Festuca rubra litoralis) and Browntop Bent (Agrotis tenuis).

I believe the bents that you are thinking of are part of the Agrostis palustris strain which were developed for an entirely different enviroment. It is however possible to have F&F even with these grasses and indeed the main factor stopping it from happening more often is the golfer who doesn't seem to like it all that much.

[Doug Siebert]

My home course put in A4 greens and A1 tees and fairways a few years ago.  While they do have to water (syringe) it a bit too much during really hot weather (exacerbated due to the height of cut) it can do really well with very little water so long as it doesn't get excessively hot.  For some reason they kept it a lot drier the first season they had it and have given it more water the past couple seasons.  I'm not really sure if the weather has required that or if it was done due to complaints for less skilled golfers being unable to hold the rock hard greens we had that first year (that was so much fun, but probably not for a 20 handicap)

One thing I've noticed versus the generic bluegrass fairways we had previously is that under similar conditions of dryness I get less roll on the ball, despite it being cut much lower.  I attribute this to the far greater density of grass blades per square inch.  I mean, its really nice stuff, its like walking on $50/square foot carpet, but I think it cushions the landing and bouncing of the ball, which more than makes up for the slightly increased run due to the lower cut height.

Honestly, I think if you transplanted those fairways onto concrete it wouldn't help the roll much, at least for a high ball hitter like me, because the grass acts to cushion the impact so much.  However, for someone like my dad who hits it very low and relies on the running shot, its great because even when its a bit soft he can still get some pretty decent roll.  It is very good for playing a low running shot, but it doesn't allow you to play the ground game with a high ball (see Tiger in last year's Open for an example of that) which diminishes the ground game in my book.

The main reason IMHO that the UK courses play so fast and firm is because the grass there is quite sparse, so there's nothing to cushion the blow when it hits the ground.  There are probably 50x more blades per square inch in an A1 fairway versus TOC's fairways, plus those Scottish fescues tend to lay over (its a lot more bent than bent grass!)

[Tommy Williamsen]

Sorry not to have participated in my own thread but my computer died.  it is still dead, so I am on the one at work.  I live in MD and one of my clubs has L93 while the other has the new Declaration.  Both tend to be watered so much that roll is negligable.  The course with Bermuda is in SC and both the greens (bent) and the fairways stay firm.  The courses in MD two years ago, during the drought all went to Hell.  I know rain is better than sprinklers but Even then the courses were kept wet and the grass still died.  I am baffled.

[Forrest Richardson]

SeaDwarf paspalum has proved wonderful for us in Mexico. A visitor from the UK described it as the closest thing to links fescue he has ever seen. It grows not much over 1-inch and roughs generally are not mowed except in warner months. Fairways are mowed twice per week. Greens and tees daily.