The Overwatering Myth

[John Kavanaugh]

Youre a genius John. Any good parking lots paved today?

Did a Bridge Deck, a City, a University and a Hospital lot.  Small, small jobs.  Thanks for asking.  btw...It was Genius doing the University job on Columbus Day.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Calm down Don, reread the last part of my post.

"And I even generalized myself with these points because there are always exceptions, and I can think of a ton of exceptions to both of these scenarios."

Did you miss that? Or do you just want to take it upon yourself to take personal offense to a broad statement that did not imply anywhere that private guys work harder than public guys or vice versa. Take the gloves off Don.

...and just because a guy is gone at 2 doesnt mean he works any less harder than the other guy. Dont put words in my mouth.



You should be more worried about JK thinking turf research is the root of all evil and that the superintendent position should be eliminated.

I've found the hard working super to be more the rule than the exception. And you can justify what you write any way you want, but your words speak for themselves. The difference between you and JK is you should know better.

[PGertner]

Mr. Kavanaugh,

You have once again proved the "ignorance is bliss" theory as it applies to yourself.  

Ignorance and arrogance in an angry package.  Those that think they know it all....in fact, know the least.  

Patrick Gertner
Potowomut Golf Club
East Greenwich, RI

[Craig Sweet]

Kavanaugh....pray tell, what on earth does the "pro" do for the club? 

[TEPaul]

Is it true to say, particularly in the heat of summer, that if a club and course is into a real "firm and fast" program, that the crew and/or super needs to say around for extra hours watching the stress level of the course and that if a club is not at all into a F&F program, the super and crew can just go home after a.m. maintenance and turn on the irrigation?

A lot of supers have told me that on some courses.

What do those in the business say about that?

[Grant Saunders]

I think this thread has become more than simply about over watering. I think this debate has descended into a general consensus of a vote of no confidence in Supers/greenkeepers.

It is an age old debate that the golfers feel that the green staff are conspiring against them to lesson their experience of the golf course. Usually, it is the topic of renovating greens that gets the golfers up in arms. The number of times a greenkeeper has to listen to the comment "Why do you have to core, the greens are the best they have ever been" are to many to count. As the golfer becomes more aware of what is involved with course maintenance, the comments start appearing as to how individual practices affect their game personally. Ie "this green is over watered, the rough down the left needs to be cut out further, they should role the greens on "insert golfers day of play" so they putt quicker,  why are they mowing fairways today when they could do them tomorrow instead, and my personal favourite is "why dont you guys work at night so we dont see you when we play".

Greenkeeping is a funny industry in that you find yourself taking instruction from people who have no knowledge in your field whatsoever. It is akin to myself advising a JK how to build a road.

I had a discussion with a golfer tonight regarding his feeling that a certain golf courses greens are shit. He then proceeded to compare this inland, frost and snow prone, higher altitude, resort, browntop dominant, profit driven, labour intensive, soil based, soon to be 27 hole, large area, extreme temperature region golf course with a club membership, coastal location, sea level, non profit organisation, 18 hole, lower input, smaller area, golf course where frost is rare. This is the kind of ignorance that faces superintendents every day.

I would like to congratulate people like Ian Larson, Bradley Anderson, JS Payne and others who are prepared to stand up for the industry and voice their thoughts on issues like overwatering. With this forum, you have the option of reading the posts and acknowledging the criticism. When you are in the business, you have to hear the thoughts and opinions of the uneducated whether you like it or not.

I tend to lose some respect for those who are prepared to generalise and comment on situations without knowing the full facts. People need to stop comparing apples to oranges on here.

[John Kavanaugh]

I have often wondered what the catalyst was the has turned Supers against golfers.  Why are they so quick to call us stupid and uneducated goofs that just get in the way.  It hit me on the way to work this morning.  Caddyshack.  The image of the idiot super in the movie Caddyshack being outsmarted by a gopher has led to a quassi-intellectual revolution all dressed up in pressed pants and penny loafers.  It was just a movie guys, get over it.

I wish I had time to go back over the thousands of posts by supers on this site and count the number of times blame is laid on the stupidity of golfers and committees.  Now we even see the class warfare between Super and Pro rear its ugly head a few posts above.  Luckily my wife told me last night that if I was going to drink I was not going near the computer, cause when a Montana hose handler questions the role of the Pro in such a contemptuous manner trouble was a brewing.

[Bradley Anderson]

I have often wondered what the catalyst was the has turned Supers against golfers.  Why are they so quick to call us stupid and uneducated goofs that just get in the way.  It hit me on the way to work this morning.  Caddyshack.  The image of the idiot super in the movie Caddyshack being outsmarted by a gopher has led to a quassi-intellectual revolution all dressed up in pressed pants and penny loafers.  It was just a movie guys, get over it.

I wish I had time to go back over the thousands of posts by supers on this site and count the number of times blame is laid on the stupidity of golfers and committees.  Now we even see the class warfare between Super and Pro rear its ugly head a few posts above.  Luckily my wife told me last night that if I was going to drink I was not going near the computer, cause when a Montana hose handler questions the role of the Pro in such a contemptuous manner trouble was a brewing.

John,

On this one I agree with you, that we shouldn't complain about the requests and expectations of people we serve, or misunderstandings about what we do. We can all just take that as part of the challenge of our jobs and deal with it.

[Craig Sweet]

Like I said Kavanaugh what does a "pro" do for the club?  Other than sell you some shirts, order you some weird size shoes, organize your tournaments (maybe) and give the wife and kids the occasional lesson, what do they do for the club?  If the pro shop closed up tomorrow would it be missed?

I'm just trying to put this in perspective...

Remember, the title of this thread is "the overwatering myth".

[Bradley Anderson]

Is it true to say, particularly in the heat of summer, that if a club and course is into a real "firm and fast" program, that the crew and/or super needs to say around for extra hours watching the stress level of the course and that if a club is not at all into a F&F program, the super and crew can just go home after a.m. maintenance and turn on the irrigation?

A lot of supers have told me that on some courses.

What do those in the business say about that?

Mr. Paul,
 
Great question.

Yes, on most golf courses F&F can require more hours. And if you don't budget that time on the end of a hose, along with all of the appropriate cultural programs in your labor plan, there's only so much that one or two or even three salaried employees can do to resuscitate the course. 

I think what we are saying when we use the term F&F is large areas of turf that are dehydrated to the verge of wilting. There are agronomic benefits to that kind of management, e.g. the weaker grasses are gradually replaced by the stronger grasses, but even the stronger grasses need water.

Under the F&F management plan you might be well advised to begin by picking your times of the year for stressing the place. And keep in mind that this kind of management plan can not stand up to traffic any better than you or I can survive a beating when we have gone too long without water.

The superintendents that I know are all allowing stress to their courses in spring and fall - even the low budget clubs. And if they have the budget to grow the turf to it's own detriment in the heat of the year, they all do so to varying degrees, or to whatever is appropriate for their clubs, so far as I know.

[JSPayne]

JS Payne,

I may be mistaken, but, I don't think the phrase "over watering" is contexted in the sense that a golf course has a few wet spots.

I believe it's a systemic condition rather than an isolated condition.

In an effort to get back at the REAL topic of this thread....

Patrick,

I provided the example because this has been my personal experience. Golfers see the part of the course where their ball ends up. I've played where golfers in the same group playing at the same time have wildly varied opinions on how the course played. I find it very difficult as a super  to try and see every square yard of turf on my course everyday even when that's my job, so I can only assume that your average golfer, when speaking about course conditions, directly refers to the ground he/she covered during their round. All that being said.....

Maybe we should try to come to some general consensus on what people, at the very least those on this board, define as overwatering....

I've played where fairway after fairway is riddled with soppy mudholes surrounded by bone-dry near-death turf. Is this an overwatered course?

I've played where my drives run out in the fairways, but I get no bounces off the approaches and my ball stops on a dime and leaves a huge pitchmark in the greens. Is this overwatering?

I've played first off in the morning, when the occasional sprinkler is still running trying to finish the night's irrigation and I can hear splashing as I drive my cart through the fairways. Is this overwatering?

I've played many bermuda courses in the transitional zone during this time of the year when it seems like everything is damp, all day, and I still see sprinklers running here and there as I play my round. Is this overwatering?

I've played on a course where 75% of the course played perfect, but there were a few holes on the back nine in the afternoon where I saw maintenance guys out with hoses, flooding bad looking areas of turf, and I had to take relief for casual water in the middle of the fairway. Is this overwatering?

If these examples aren't overwatering.......what constitutes a course being labelled as such?

I think a good part of having well-informed, educated, expierenced supers on this site is to be able to finally answer some of these questions about a section of the golf industry that many truly do not understand. Supers, as we should be to the average golfer, are the  "men behind the curtain." We do most of our work before you're even out of bed and are often invisible, because we're expected to be, but at the same time should be readily accessible when questions or concerns regarding maintenance arise. So here we are.....get your questions answered and your concerns addressed.

[TEPaul]

Bradley:

Very fine answers in your post #59 and also a few things to really take note of with the courses out there----particularly the downside of excessive cart traffic on F&F courses. We just went through that in our recent annual member/guest. The irony is the event is a walking event but the fairways were really stressing and our superintendency noticed that with just the few carts of officials and others the tire tracks on the fairways were not bouncing back and so he immediately flagged carts crossing or traveling on fairways.

[Bradley Anderson]

JS Payne,

I may be mistaken, but, I don't think the phrase "over watering" is contexted in the sense that a golf course has a few wet spots.

I believe it's a systemic condition rather than an isolated condition.

In an effort to get back at the REAL topic of this thread....

Patrick,

I've played first off in the morning, when the occasional sprinkler is still running trying to finish the night's irrigation and I can hear splashing as I drive my cart through the fairways. Is this overwatering?

JS,

As you probably know,some courses still have pump stations that only put out 800 gallons per minute or so. Those guys are running sprinklers well into the early daylight hours to finish normal watering cycles. If the soils on those golf courses have slow percolation rates, the water cylces that were finishing up at 6:00 in the morning on the bigger fairways is going to linger for awhile. Now if you give that same guy a 1,700 gallon per minute system with big enough pipe in the ground to handle the flow he can water everything by 2:30 AM. Moreover, he can apply the same amount of water to the fairway with two or three start times so that the water can penetrate without runoff into the swales of pockets.

So again, I would say that the guy with the 800 gpm system may seem to be overwatering, but he is only doing the best he can with the tools that he has.

[Sean_A]

I will be the first to admit that I have a minimal grasp of what it takes to keep a course in good nick, but it seems to me that I have seen many a wet course in fine weather conditions and wondered what the heck is going on.  Having said that, I have two questions.

1. Do the supers here think the type of grass used on many courses prohibits them from keeping the course drier? In other words, are grasses not suited to local environments a problem in terms of keeping courses dry when the weather permits?  

2. Bringing back Tom's point, do the supers here think their courses would be drier if the membership were not involved?  

Ciao

[Chuck Brown]

Excellent!  So not only should carts be restricted when courses are very wet, they should also be restricted when courses are very dry.  Sounds good to me!

What sort of irrigation does Royal Liverpool have?  Because I'm good with whatever they were doing, or not doing, during that dry July of 2006.

[JSPayne]

Bradley,

Good response....you're preaching to the choir. I personally don't consider any of my examples cited overwatering, and cite them because they are specific examples that I've encountered working on courses and listening to golfer/member complaints. Luckily enough, since I heard the complaint, I was able to address it as best I could to try and educate on the situation. 50% of the time it worked. The other 50% the golfer/member wanted to give me a better solution to "make sure it doesn't happen again."

Sean,

You hit one nail on the head. Grass type plays a significant role in F & F. Coming into my current job, I knew the biggest challange for me at my current property would be to keep a pure ryegrass course alive during the week-long 100+ degree heat spells we can have here. As a consequence of having this grass in this climate, I have to water significantly more that some other courses. PLEASE READ THAT CORRECTLY: I have to water more, NOT I have to overwater. There is a difference. But.....that being said.....if my labor budget gets cut much more, or things change significantly for our business, and I am not able to have two guys handwatering everyday of the summer into the late afternoon, I will be forced to turn on more sprinklers when a shot with a hose would do, and run more water than is probably necessary to assist my guys in getting the job done in the alloted 8-hour workday (no overtime allowed) and to maintain adaquate turf health.

In regards to your second question, I don't know what you are commenting on exactly regarding "member involvement." I have yet to experience a course were the members told the super when, where and how much to water. Now, if you're referring to the "keep it green, no matter what" member involvement, then yes......should many supers not have to try and fight this status quo, I think you would see a lot better conditioned golf courses, with healthier turf, but that may not look quite as aesthetically pleasing on a regular basis.

[Don_Mahaffey]

JS makes some very good points. What Superintendents understand that the lay golfer struggles with is a wet golf course is relative and not necessarily wet just because of over watering. If you want a golf course to play consistently firm and fast you need,

Soils that drain,
Adequate labor to spot (hand) water,
Time, equipment, and resources to manage organic build up,
Time, equipment, and resources to manage compaction,
A high-quality irrigation system,
Knowledgeable management that develops and implements nutritional programs that produce stress resistant, deep rooted turf,
Limit carts during periods of drought/heat stress
And a well constructed golf course that drains well.
Players/members that will accept an off-color course.

I’m sure some of the other supers here can add to my list, but you start taking away from what I list above and it will be very tough to CONSISTENTLY produce a firm fast playing surface unless you have ideal soil conditions and climate.

I think most supers strive to produce a dry playing field, and often do in the spring and fall, but it can get very tough to do late in the summer.

And, BTW, I have been told by an ex-boss to green it up when some of my blue/rye humps and bumps were going off color on hot summer afternoons. Didn't matter that they always came back after an irrigation cycle, it was my job to keep 'em green all the time. In that case, I did have to over water, because the turf was never in danger of dying. When you work at a place where no wilting is acceptable, you will have to use more water than you should...unless you have an army of hose draggers.

[George Pazin]

Other than some personal vitriol flying around, this thread is way better than any week of the recent maintenance seminar series - thanks for a terrific topic and thanks everyone for a lot of good info.

Perhaps it would be better if each week a super would enlighten us with a new myth.

[Eric Johnson]

JS makes some very good points. What Superintendents understand that the lay golfer struggles with is a wet golf course is relative and not necessarily wet just because of over watering. If you want a golf course to play consistently firm and fast you need,

Soils that drain,
Adequate labor to spot (hand) water,
Time, equipment, and resources to manage organic build up,
Time, equipment, and resources to manage compaction,
A high-quality irrigation system,
Knowledgeable management that develops and implements nutritional programs that produce stress resistant, deep rooted turf,
Limit carts during periods of drought/heat stress
And a well constructed golf course that drains well.
Players/members that will accept an off-color course.

I’m sure some of the other supers here can add to my list, but you start taking away from what I list above and it will be very tough to CONSISTENTLY produce a firm fast playing surface unless you have ideal soil conditions and climate.

I think most supers strive to produce a dry playing field, and often do in the spring and fall, but it can get very tough to do late in the summer.

And, BTW, I have been told by an ex-boss to green it up when some of my blue/rye humps and bumps were going off color on hot summer afternoons. Didn't matter that they always came back after an irrigation cycle, it was my job to keep 'em green all the time. In that case, I did have to over water, because the turf was never in danger of dying. When you work at a place where no wilting is acceptable, you will have to use more water than you should...unless you have an army of hose draggers.

Don,

Turf species can play a huge role in attaining AND sustaining F/F conditions. 

It's close to 100pm, back to the armchair........ 

[Patrick_Mucci]

JS Payne,

I may be mistaken, but, I don't think the phrase "over watering" is contexted in the sense that a golf course has a few wet spots.

I believe it's a systemic condition rather than an isolated condition.

In an effort to get back at the REAL topic of this thread....

Patrick,

I've played first off in the morning, when the occasional sprinkler is still running trying to finish the night's irrigation and I can hear splashing as I drive my cart through the fairways. Is this overwatering?

Probably not, in my mind.

Morning dew, or an overnight shower, combined with the early morning irrigation cycle doesn't an overwatered course make.

I'd like to know the condition of the course at 9:00, 11:00, 1:00 and 3:00, along with the weather for the previous week or so before making a determination.

In addition, an irrigation cycle at a specific location could be improper due to a variety of factors, including programing errors or damaged equipment. 

[JSPayne]

Patrick,

Excellent response.

I guess I'm only trying to find out if someone can give me a general explanation of what your average golfer, or even yourself personally, considers "overwatering." Several courses have been mentioned on this site recently as being overwatered with no real explanation of what that means exactly. Every ball hit plugged? Had to take relief from casual water a half dozen times? Drives didn't run out "as much as they should?" What?

Btw......I think I may have a new myth to start a new thread: A wall-to-wall green course does not equal an overwatered or non-F&F course. I'll save the details on this for later.

[Greg Chambers]

JS,

I have played many golf courses this summer that I considered to be over watered.  I play all my golf in the afternoons, and at more than a few golf courses, conditions were still wet late in the day.  I had mud on my ball consistently, and on one course had to take relief from casual water whenever I was in a fairway--almost every single shot.  This after no rain.  That's over watered.  But it sure was green.  On another course I had finished my round in the rain, went to the clubhouse to enjoy a beverage, and watched the irrigation cycle turn on.  That's over watered.  But that course too was very green.

[Ian Larson]

Seeing an irrigation cycle during a rain event can actually make sense.....

Ive done it many times as I would inject wetting agent into the irrigation system. When I knew it was going to rain I would run each head one turn ( about 3 minutes ) and the rain would naturally soak in the wetting agent better than what the irrigation system itself could do.

[Greg Chambers]

Ian,

I understand that, and I've done it myself.  These heads were running 10-15 minute cycles, while raining, and I thought the course was too wet when we started.  That's over watering, not a myth.

[JSPayne]

Greg,

Given that you've said you've injected wetting agent like Ian has, I would guess you are a super. As such, I'm sure you probably considered all of the below, but please run through answers for them for me as well if you don't mind:

Choose one particular example, hopefully the most recent, you remember where a course you played was overwatered.

- Did you notice ANY dry spots, anywhere, on the course, even if where your ball ended up was wet most of the time?

- Did you happen to notice what kind of irrigation system? New automated heads, or old ones, triangular spacing or single row?

- Is there any chance the course had just overseeded, fertilized or put down a wall-to-wall chemical application that needed to be watered in before you played?

- Any idea how many people were on the maintenance crew?

- What was the overall level of maintenance? What kind of course was it?

- Are you aware of any special water restrictions (there is a course in my area that has restrictions such that it takes three days to water his entire course......as such he often has to put down more water in certain areas to carry him through the days he has to go without before the cycle catches that same area again)?

I'm sure I could think of more relevant questions, but if you wouldn't mind, answers to these above would be helpful. And if you think there's no point in pondering all of the above, I ask you.......if one of the above is truly a reason why you experienced the course "overwatered," how do you recommend getting around that result when the above factors play a role?