Some questions:
1) So how does the average Joe determine if the course is in healthy condition?
2) Can we distinguish easily between dead grass and dormant grass?
3) How quickly can a greenkeeper take the grass from soft to firm, or vice versa?
4) How long does it take for a course to recover from the stresses of hosting a tournament at any level?
Answers:
1) If you, as an average Joe, don't see anything that would concern you if that grass was growing in your front yard, it's probably healthy. If you do happen upon areas that strike you as concerning, it never hurts to ask the Super. You'll either learn something new.....or learn just how much your Super doesn't know or may be trying to hide. We get paid because we're supposed to be the experts. If a Super can't field a question from an average Joe about the health of a particular patch of grass, I'd be worried. But don't go ask the Pro Shop. If a good relationship exists between Maintenance and Pro Shop, you'll get a half right answer. If no relationship exists, you'll get lip service.
2) Dead and dormant can be easy if you know your grasses. There are some that go dormant, and some that don't. If you know grasses and you see one that doesn't go dormant looking that way, it MIGHT be dead. Check on it again in a few weeks and if hasn't changed, it probably is dead. If it's a grass that does go dormant (Bermuda is the most common example), it can be very hard to tell. Use Grant's root test. Pull some up and see if the roots look juicy and white. That's what the plant lives off of when it's dormant. If little to no roots exist, or they're frail and/or crumbly, probably dead (but it might be on purpose if Bermuda is an undesired grass!).
3) Soft to firm depends on a WIDE range of variables, including but not limited to: irrigation, soil, thatch, type of grass, time of year, amount of sun/shade, topographical location (in a swale or on top of a hill), and several more I'm probably forgetting. Each course will be different, there is no general rule. But your Super should be able to make a pretty educated, if not exact, guess. Depends on his experience with that property.
4) Depends on scale of tournament and stresses that have been imposed on the grass. I can guarantee you that there are some courses that are so dialed in that, in small scale tournaments, they don't have to recover.....they can survive a decent size tournament with no problem. Most high level and PGA events vary. And it varies by area. Greens, fairways, roughs, perimeters, etc......all will recover at different rates.
The real conclusion here with these four questions is that there is a reason why superintendents typically make the second highest salary at a golf course (behind the GM), because we're supposed to be trained experts capable of producing what agriculture defines as a "high dollar specialty crop", 100+ acres of grass put under constant unnnatural stress and maintenance regimes. Grant said it perfectly that the only way to get a good answer is to spend time with the Super or on the course in a maintenance role yourself. A Super himself only knows once he's gained experience at his property. And the exactness to which YOUR Super can answer these questions for YOUR course should show how good of a Super you have.
I can answer all of the above questions for my property, but that wouldn't help you, because it's not universally applicable. Hence the generic answer you get above.
