The work at Vesper

[Steve Curry]

I had the great fortune of meeting Allan MacCurrach this last fall and have heard from numerous sources that the work at Vesper came out very well.  Anyone have first hand information and or photos??  I was able to visit a few years ago and was less than impressed with the texture and feel of the greens.  I feel no remorse for saying that, as my close freind was the super at the time and he felt the same way.

Cheers,
Steve

[Eric Johnson]

Steve,
Did they retain the velvet bentgrass?  I thought that was "their grass."

Hope all is well.

[Steve Curry]

Hi Eric,

No, it does seem strange for the home of velevet to give it up but they did and given what I saw when I was there, I would have too.

Thanks,
Steve

[Ray Richard]

B. Silva deleted all the Vesper bent and the collection of funky bunkers. I'm not sure its now a Ross, but the greens are speedier. Vesper bent suffered from puffiness and big nitrogen habits making it a unsuitable for a top club.

[Tom_Doak]

Big nitrogen habits?  I thought velvet bent was supposed to be a low-N grass.

[Michael Powers]

Did they go with greenwich velvet a la Shelter Harbor and Belmont? 

[Ray Richard]

Tom D-

I've spent most of my life working with or around understudies of Manny Francis, the "inventor" of Vesper velvet bent. I knew him well in the early 1980's and his own course, Green Harbor, has Vesper velvet greens that require copious amounts of nitrogen. Manny never applied granular fertilizer; he insisted on using a proportioner-a barrel and hose attachment that burned out many young golf course superintendents. mention proportioner to Mel Lucas or Bert Frederick and they'll wince.

Manny fed his greens weekly and I never saw one putt faster than 6 on the stimp when he was alive. I maintained a course with one Vesper green and it needed twice the nitrogen.

I'm sure the slowness of Vesper bent caused its demise. The need to feed created vigorous stolons that created velcro-like conditions.Large leaf surfaces resist low height-of-cut.

[Chris Hans]

The members at Vesper CC decided to delete the Vesper Velvet here, not Brian Silva.  The decision to re-grass with something other than Velvet was made long before Brian was hired.  The club had an A1-A4 practice green that was built as a pilot-project seven years ago.  Vesper chose to re-grass with A1-A4.  There were a number of bunkers added to the golf course during the restoration.  Only one bunker was removed.  The one bunker that was removed was not an original bunker.  

Brian used a combination of both the 1917 and 1947 Ross drawings plus old aerials as a guide-line for restoration.  The golf course right now is more Ross than it has been in fifty years. We are very proud of that.  

During the project we were visited by a number of people who were curious about what was happening at Vesper.  I did not see you, Ray.  

I have been employed at Vesper for three years now and we have removed countless numbers of trees.  Efforts have been made during those three years to restore the golf course to its original character and we feel very strongly that we have succeeded.

I will be uploading pictures soon, of both before and after our project.

Chris Hans
Asst Super

[Tom_Doak]

Ray / Chris:

I don't know a whole lot about velvet bentgrass except for what I read about 25-30 years ago.  I certainly don't know anything about "Vesper" velvet bent.  But, I thought the whole point of velvet bent was that it had a very fine leaf blade that made it a renowned putting surface back in the day ... which seems to be the dead opposite of everything Ray is saying.

Maybe prior to 1920, 6 on the Stimpmeter wasn't that bad, but there's got to be something more to it than that.

Chris, can you tell us anything about the velvet, or was it being taken out right as you got there?

[Bill Rocco]

Mr. Doak,

You are correct about velvet bentgrass, it is a fine texture grass, and hates warm climates (thats why it was a perfect selection for Vesper).

[Chris Hans]

Tom D

I have worked with Vesper Velvet for three years.  In a mono-stand it could be great.
But once the Poa gets in the trouble begins. We had a lot of Poa and creeping
bentgrass as well. There was a product on the market years ago called tri-calcium-
arsenate which kept the Poa out. It is no longer available.  In the spring the
Poa breaks dormancy long before the Velvet does. The Poa grows actively while
the Velvet does not. The result is bumpy surfaces until early May.  At right about
the same time the Velvet begins actively growing, the Poa begins to produce
seed-head.  So the bumpiness continues for even longer.

Tom, some of your greens, being as wild as they are, may be good with Velvet bentgrass.  You would just need to find a superintendent who could manage the thatch through aggressive aeration, etc.. and still keep the Poa out.  

Vesper Velvet has the finest leaf texture of any turf I have ever seen. The
only thing that is even close is A1 bentgrass when it is super lean (low N).
We tinkered around with different fertility levels over the years and found the
greens were best with about .12lbs of N every two weeks during the growing
season.  I wouldn’t say that is a high fertility level by any means.  Managing
our Velvet greens at a high level was like walking a tight rope without a net.
One slip up and you're finished.  Velvet does not recover from any injury
(wilt, mechanical, disease) very quickly.  We are very aggressive here at
Vesper and we pushed those greens harder than they were meant to be pushed.
There were times when we had great greens (firm and fast, stimping 11 plus).
It was just very difficult to sustain a high level for any length of time. We
cut pretty low (.110) but not super low.

Over the years there were some questionable management practices in place at
Vesper.  Topdressing with #2 hardwood sawdust, the lack of any core aeration
and the proliferation of massive trees around the greens just to name a few.
Every time we did a nematode assay the results came back at 2-3 times the
threshold for treatment.  Nematode issues were a big problem for us. We
conducted a series of soil physical property tests to see what we were up
against and to tailor our programs accordingly.  All of the tests came back with the
same results: low infiltration rates of water and high organic matter
percentages.  Not exactly conducive for championship quality greens.  The club
was faced with two solutions: Aerate aggressively and frequently or rebuild.
The members chose to rebuild.

[Tom_Doak]

Chris:

Thanks for your detailed response.

I have never been more disappointed in a grass than I was with velvet bent.  We tried a test plot of it on a practice green at San Francisco Golf Club when we were going to rebuild their greens; the idea was that if the turf was tight enough, it would keep the poa out and the nematodes which fed on the poa roots.  No such luck ... the green looked awful in a side-by-side comparison with A-4.  But, 6-7 years later, not even the A-4 has kept the poa from infiltrating.

A-1 and A-4 with very low fertility are a great surface, and don't have to be maintained super-fast.  Unfortunately, most of the places I've seen it used, the management is obsessed with getting it fast, even if the greens are severely contoured, and no matter what the architect says.  That's why I still try to fight it when somebody wants to put A-4 on my greens, but the only way I will win that battle is to walk away from the job, that's how insistent some people are.

[Ray Richard]

A few more.points about Vesper velvet bent:

Manny Francis, the long time superintendent, was a turfgrass tinkerer. Legend says he found the original blade of Vesper velvet in a swamp. He built a turf nursery and renovated the green surfaces at Vesper one at a time. He also stolonized hundreds of greens in the Northeast. In the 1960's,Vesper velvet had a great reputation but it didn't produce enough seed; stolonization was the only option. Other velvet bent cultivers are available in seed, but not Vesper. The introduction of Penncross doomed Vesper. Penncross and other modern cultivars, tolerate lower levels of nitrogen, and its aggressive growth promotes quicker recover.

Manny also tinkered with tri-cal and various topdressings. The stories about topdressing with sawdust and stone pack are true. His experiments often got him into agronomic trouble. He hated aerification. He used a Mataway, a vertical mower, to process his greens.

 

[Michael Rossi]

Tom

I have established velvet from seed and maintained it, not vesper but SR7200. Velvet is established like creeping bent but needs the N tap turned off once established. At that point it needs to be treated like fescue, max out at 2lbs N/1000 for the growing season (10-12months). It is the finest leaf textured turf and densest. It will out compete poa and is more shade tolerant than creeping, the trick is not to kill it with kindness.

Velvet has resistance to dollar spot and snow molds, it is susceptible to copper spot and brown patch, wet and higher N diseases. When maintained properly ball mark damage is minimal due to the dry conditions it prefers. Velvet is slow growing and would take many years to creep out into fairways or surrounds as it has primarily a bunch type growth habit, only slightly stoniferous and primarily tillering.

Chris mentioned HOC of .110 which I feel is to low for velvet, from my experience .120 was too low, the stand did get too stressed and struggled to recover. I would suggest that .130-.150 could create very fast conditions if kept dry and thatch was kept diluted. If maintained properly with low N and low water it is extremely tough; fast conditions can be achieved with higher HOC's also.

Velvet lost favor with turf managers after the 2nd world war I believe, It was around that time that turf managers began their fertilizer reliance. Over 2lbs of N would create thatchy, slow, bumpy turf that would require more water, be more susceptible to stress and disease and give the poa a fighting chance.

It makes a great compliment to fescue and would give the definition you seek for putting surfaces from fescue fairways or surrounds while still being able to manage both areas very similar.