Golf courses of interest? - Florida

[Robin Doodson]

Myself and a bunch of aussie supers are planning a trip to the golf show in orlando in february. We were wondering what would be the best courses to visit/play on our trip from an educational point of view. A list of the kind of thing we would be interested in seeing -

-Bay Hill is number 1 on my list as we are soon to embark on a similar redevelopment of our golf course with the Palmer group.
- i would also like to see some of these fantastic new hybrid bermudagrasses that i hear so much about but are unavailable in australia.
-would also like to visit a full paspalum golf course so i can form an opinion of the grass for myself. it keeps being touted as the next best thing but i'm not so sure.
-Anyone know of any courses using zoysia on their golf courses as this is another grass that we have begun to play around with.
-Any courses that oversow for the winter would also be of interest.

any suggestions from those in the know would be greatly appreciated.

robin

[John Moore II]

Myself and a bunch of aussie supers are planning a trip to the golf show in orlando in february. We were wondering what would be the best courses to visit/play on our trip from an educational point of view. A list of the kind of thing we would be interested in seeing -

-Bay Hill is number 1 on my list as we are soon to embark on a similar redevelopment of our golf course with the Palmer group.
- i would also like to see some of these fantastic new hybrid bermudagrasses that i hear so much about but are unavailable in australia.
Nearly any course in Southern Florida will have a hybrid bermuda on the whole course because it stays hot there year round. Just depends on what type you are looking for exactly
 
-would also like to visit a full paspalum golf course so i can form an opinion of the grass for myself. it keeps being touted as the next best thing but i'm not so sure.
The Dye Course at PGA Village has paspalum on the tees, but not the whole course. There is at least one course in Naples that is full paspalum, Alden Pines. But paspalum tends to need a large amount of chemical fungicides and other applications. Paspalum is best used where you have to use gray water or salt water for irrigation. Just go to the paspalum turf website, www.paspalumgrass.com and talk to the developer of these grasses, I am sure he would be eager to help.
-Anyone know of any courses using zoysia on their golf courses as this is another grass that we have begun to play around with.
Zoysia tends to be a cooler weather grass, so you might have to venture farther north to find a course that is full zoysia. The only one I know of is Mattaponi Springs outside Richmond, VA.
-Any courses that oversow for the winter would also be of interest.
Most any upscale course in Northern Florida will overseed for the winter, Bay Hill may, I am not sure.

any suggestions from those in the know would be greatly appreciated.

robin

[Brent Carlson]

Robin,

Pine Barrens is a must see in that area.  It is my favorite course in central Florida.

[Robin Doodson]

here in queensland we only really have tifgreen 328, tifdwarf and a few tifeagle courses including my own. would be interested in looking at emerald (bay hill), mini verdi, champion and any others. adam scott is a member at our course and raves to me and all of our members about these grasses.

have heard old memorial is worth a look. any comment?

robin

[Matthew Runde]

I've heard that mini verde isn't that common in Florida.  On Tuesday, I played a course (Dunedin) which used it.  I'm not the golfer that some of the other GCA members are, but from my perspective, the greens played pretty fast and the ball stopped quickly.  Longer putts seemed easier than shorter ones, and there were quite a few lip-outs.  There had been a bit of rain during the previous days.

I'm sure you probably know about this, but miniverde.com has a list of references.

[Jason Topp]

Robin:

My Orlando experience is pretty limited and I tend to focus on design rather than turf, but here are a few ideas:

1.  Sugarloaf Mountain - Coore/Crenshaw course that has been fighting through some conditioning issues (I think successfully) might be worth a visit.

2.  Southern Dunes - Haines City - I like the course.  I am not sure if there is anything of interest from a conditioning perspective

3.  TPC Sawgrass - is not that long of a drive and they just went through some big challenges trying to recover from a very cold winter in time for the Players Championship.

4.  World Woods - as discussed before

5.  I think Plantation CC near the Fort Myers airport is all Paspalum.  It would be a 3-4 hour drive but I like the course.  Here is a thread I started on the course:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,43499.0/

[Anthony_Nysse]

Robin,
  Bay Hill always overseeds for the tournament and renovated last year. They install Emerald on their greens, which is similar to tifdwaft.
  Naples has several courses that are all paspalum-Collier's Reserve, Old Collier, Tuscany Reserve. Several courses in my area have it on their tees-Breakers, Old Marsh. Old Palm is wall to wall paspalum and Gulfstream has it on their fairways. It's stripes up nice and can take brackish water, but it needs more fungicides that 419 and is more "sticky."
  You wont find zoysia down here. Atlanta is about a far south a you typically find it in mass.

[cary lichtenstein]

Old Palm in Palm Beach Gardens is 100% Paspalum, even on the greens. It is private so you can take a good look at high end maintence on that type of grass.

[Bill_McBride]

Pensacola is in Florida but an 8 hour drive from Orlando.      We have tifdwarf greens and 419 fairways, very happy with both.  The best thing we've ever done was stop over seeding when the new course was finished in 2006 (after Hurricane Ivan tore up the old one:  http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/pensacola-country-club).  We have none of the old agonies of transition twice a year, and we have a fast and reasonably firm playing surface all winter.

For those who have to see "green," no problem - we dye the greens a nice emerald hue!

[Robin Doodson]

Pensacola is in Florida but an 8 hour drive from Orlando.      We have tifdwarf greens and 419 fairways, very happy with both.  The best thing we've ever done was stop over seeding when the new course was finished in 2006 (after Hurricane Ivan tore up the old one:  http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/pensacola-country-club).  We have none of the old agonies of transition twice a year, and we have a fast and reasonably firm playing surface all winter.

For those who have to see "green," no problem - we dye the greens a nice emerald hue!

i keep hearing of these agonising transitions on golf courses but we have oversown the past 2 seasons here and the greens really haven't skipped a beat going in and out. our members don't only like the colour but the playability of the oversown greens. they can spin the ball back with a 5 iron rather than the ball bounding through on the bermuda greens. we are only oversowing tees and greens at the moment so it would be great to see some fully oversown courses before committiing to the whole shooting match.


robin

[John Moore II]

Pensacola is in Florida but an 8 hour drive from Orlando.      We have tifdwarf greens and 419 fairways, very happy with both.  The best thing we've ever done was stop over seeding when the new course was finished in 2006 (after Hurricane Ivan tore up the old one:  http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/pensacola-country-club).  We have none of the old agonies of transition twice a year, and we have a fast and reasonably firm playing surface all winter.

For those who have to see "green," no problem - we dye the greens a nice emerald hue!

i keep hearing of these agonising transitions on golf courses but we have oversown the past 2 seasons here and the greens really haven't skipped a beat going in and out. our members don't only like the colour but the playability of the oversown greens. they can spin the ball back with a 5 iron rather than the ball bounding through on the bermuda greens. we are only oversowing tees and greens at the moment so it would be great to see some fully oversown courses before committiing to the whole shooting match.


robin

Depending on climate it can be a very difficult transition from winter to spring with overseeded fairways. The rough doesn't matter much. But with the fairway, it tends to be difficult to keep the fairways in good shape while they are transitioning over. Often times the rye/fescue or whatever might be used dies off because of heat faster than the bermuda can catch up. They are also more prone to weed encroachment because from what I have been told it is more difficult to apply chemicals to the turf because most the kill weeds will also kill off the rye (I could be wrong on that, been 2 years since I had to deal with that). The course in the Pinehurst area with the best turf in the spring and summer months was the Country Club of North Carolina and they did not overseed the fairways or any part of the course. And their turf health was the best of any around. So, take that for what you will...

[Bill_McBride]

Pensacola is in Florida but an 8 hour drive from Orlando.      We have tifdwarf greens and 419 fairways, very happy with both.  The best thing we've ever done was stop over seeding when the new course was finished in 2006 (after Hurricane Ivan tore up the old one:  http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/pensacola-country-club).  We have none of the old agonies of transition twice a year, and we have a fast and reasonably firm playing surface all winter.

For those who have to see "green," no problem - we dye the greens a nice emerald hue!

i keep hearing of these agonising transitions on golf courses but we have oversown the past 2 seasons here and the greens really haven't skipped a beat going in and out. our members don't only like the colour but the playability of the oversown greens. they can spin the ball back with a 5 iron rather than the ball bounding through on the bermuda greens. we are only oversowing tees and greens at the moment so it would be great to see some fully oversown courses before committiing to the whole shooting match.


robin

You are fortunate - we typically had at least two weeks of a problem with the greens in the spring.

[Tom_Doak]

Robin:

Ask me again at the end of next week, if you see this.

[Robin Doodson]

Robin:

Ask me again at the end of next week, if you see this.

will do