Maintenance Seminar Wk 4 - Smooth Greens

[George Pazin]

As requested by Greg Murphy, I think this is a topic worth exploring; Greg explains his thoughts and questions well, so I will just post them:

I think the most critical component of just about every golf course and most certainly average golf courses, is this: smooth running greens. Not so much fast greens, but smooth greens. I started a thread a few days ago, without any response. Maybe you'd have better luck with the same theme.

This is what I asked in my thread on "Smooth Greens":

How important is construction to smooth running greens?

How important are maintenance "best practices" to smooth running greens? What are the critical best practices? Cutting height? Rolling? Frequent topdressing? Watering regime? Growth inhibitors?

Would anyone care to priorize the importance of:

- type of turf cultivar
- homogeneousness of turf
- cutting height
- rolling practices
- soil profile
- disease
- top dressing practices
- watering practices
- thatch management - verticutting, aerating etc.
- growth inhibitors
- fertilization practices
- other

[Ian Larson]

George,

I wont go deep like I did in the poa annua thread but all of these things are important. They all need to be addressed and they all need to be on a regimented schedule. If the super lets down on any of it, he's getting out of it what he's putting into it, and so are the members.

The biggest part to a smooth green is the grooming. The smoothness is achieved by getting the leaf blades to stand upright and to be very dense.

The one thing that can be thrown out is the homogeneousness of the turf. Supers that have all types of poa in their green stands can still have a smooth rolling green but I dont want to even get started on that monster again.

[JSPayne]

I agree with the main point of what Ian wrote above....that all of the factors listed are important, and he is correct, even a stand of wildly varied turf cultivars and species has the potential to be the smoothest green you've ever seen.

However, under your "Other" factor, it should be specifically mentioned: BUDGET.

Ian also correctly states that grooming: brushing, rolling, topdressing, mowing, and all that's involved is the key to smoothness, but they're all maintenance tasks that require time, equipment and people. The good examples to look at are the low budget courses that have a good reputation for smoothness, because they're obviously doing it right while sticking to the key basics.

However, a disclaimer needs to be thrown in that regardless of the budget, everyone always needs to remember that we, as supers, are in charge of a living organism, constantly in flux and change with its environment. And as much money, time and effort as we try to throw at things, sometimes nature wins to no fault of the super.

For example, I honestly don't believe there is currently any sure fire way to GUARANTEE that greens that have Poa in them won't produce some seedheads. We have many tools at our disposal to combat them and try to prevent it from occurring, but sometimes it still just happens. And I mention this because Poa seedheads seem to be one of the largest complaints in general regarding greens smoothness.

[TX Golf]

JS,

Thanks for the answer regarding the Poa on the other thread. Now a question for this one. Obviously a proper top dressing program is necessary to keep greens healthy and firm. Over time does significant top dressing lead to a decrease in the contours of the greens?? Is this possible to avoid if done correctly (I would assume so as there are many older courses that still have great greens)? Also, when doing a full aeration and sand top dressing, how much sand is usually necessary if the greens are around 4,000 sq ft on average?

[Donnie Beck]

Robert,

We have 4.5 acres of Greens, 3.25 acres of Approaches, and 1.5 acres of tees and I use a total of 300 tons of sand per year. To aerify our greens 10,000 ft2 average it takes close to 100 tons to fill the holes.

[Eric Morrison]

we just aerified and topdressed our greens last week...average green size is 5300 sq.ft.,21 greens, 1/2" hollow tine, 2"spacing, 3.5" deep. We used almost 50 tons of topdressing.

[Bradley Anderson]

When I seeded my first USGA green I added a lot of fertilizers to the soil before the seed went down. Then I tilled the fertilizers in with a Toro Sand Pro. During that phase of the operation I noticed that the peat moss in the mix would occasionally hang up in the tilling bar of the Sand Pro rake and leave grooves in the finished  surface.

After seeding the surface we ran the Toro Sand Pro over the sand to dimple in the seed in, with the knobs of the tires. That worked really well to roll the surface one last time before turning the water on to begin grow in, but it didn't remove some of those minor grooves in the surface that were created when raking-in the fertilizer amendments.

Anyways I was standing back and surveying the situation, trying to figure out a way to get rid of all of these little imperfections in the surface before seeding, and one of my guys shows up with a 1.5" Swan hose and unloads it to water sod around a bunker face. I took the hose and pulled it over the surface just like you would if you were whipping dew on a green. It worked pretty good. Then I added water to the hose to give it more weight, and that really did it. That was the simple (5 minute) step that I put in to my seeding of USGA greens that has worked every time for a perfectly smooth final surface.

[Jon Wiggett]

Well guess I am going to go against the general correct thinking on this one. For a smooth, rolling putting surface you require a surface that will give as little resistance to the forward roll of the ball as possible. It seems to me that the thicker and more upright the blades of grass are, the more resistance they are going to give. If you take this as true then you need to cut your grass as short as possible. If you can't cut so short, then you need a grass that doen't grow upright and is not so dense.

That said, topdressing, light, frequent aeration and rolling are the key points.

[Steve Okula]

As requested by Greg Murphy, I think this is a topic worth exploring; Greg explains his thoughts and questions well, so I will just post them:

I think the most critical component of just about every golf course and most certainly average golf courses, is this: smooth running greens. Not so much fast greens, but smooth greens. I started a thread a few days ago, without any response. Maybe you'd have better luck with the same theme.

This is what I asked in my thread on "Smooth Greens":

How important is construction to smooth running greens?

How important are maintenance "best practices" to smooth running greens? What are the critical best practices? Cutting height? Rolling? Frequent topdressing? Watering regime? Growth inhibitors?

Would anyone care to priorize the importance of:

- type of turf cultivar
- homogeneousness of turf
- cutting height
- rolling practices
- soil profile
- disease
- top dressing practices
- watering practices
- thatch management - verticutting, aerating etc.
- growth inhibitors
- fertilization practices
- other

Here's how I see the priorities.

1. Other, (Budget) without funds you've got a pasture, never mind the rest.

2. Disease control, you can't possibly get smooth out of disease ravaged greens regardless of any other factors.

3. Watering is crucial, too little and your dead, too much and the green will play like a basket of wet socks, plus you'll get problems like diseases (see priority #1).

4. Cutting height, the higher you go, the rougher (and slower) you'll be.

5/6. Thatch management and topdressing practices go hand in hand, inextricably woven to keep the surface firm, and if it's not firm it can't be smooth.

7. Fertilizer regime, like water, too little and your dead, too much and the greens turn to fly paper, with added problems like diseases (see priority #1).

8. Growth regulators, nobody today is consistently providing fast greens, day in and day out, all season long, without them.

9/10. Type of cultivar/homogenous of turf, really the same thing, species and varieties, but fast greens can be had of dozens of different types.

11. Rolling, will help increase speed, but if you're doing everything else right, it really isn't totally necessary.

12. Soil profile, assuming you've got reasonably ordinary soil, whether sand or clay, there are fast greens on all types. But soil types do dictate how you manage the other inputs.