What is the best ground cover in "waste areas"?

[Jim Hoak]

In areas of a course that are "waste areas," like under trees where it is difficult to grow grass or other non-fairway, non-rough areas, what is the best ground treatment?  I have seen waste sand treatment, especially in dunesy areas.  I've seen crushed shells at some Florida courses.  I have seen scrub grass or high reed-like grass, which can slow down play in searching for balls.  I have seen dirt that has been specially treated, such as I saw at Sherwood CC at the tournament there a week or so ago, whcih looked surprisingly attractive.  At a course where I play, they have gone to bark and twigs, which I don't like because of the added penalty of playing from it, when you already have trees, etc, in the line of play.  Does one treatment work better than others?  I assume it depends in part on the area of the country and the surrounding grass and other factors.  What do you prefer?
Should there be parameters on how far out of play the various treatment options should be?  Should they be mixed on a course?

[Pete Lavallee]

Jim,

I believe the dirt at Sherwood is a function of the oak trees there; I suspect they do not like to be mulched.

[Doug Siebert]

Bark and twigs is fine, assuming that the waste areas are well out of play (probably a safe assumption except for desert courses)  So as long as it isn't two foot grass where you have no chance of finding your ball or underbrush where even if you see a ball you can't play it or even get to it to identify it, I wouldn't complain.  When waste areas result in near automatic lost balls I start to think that courses that mark such areas as lateral hazards might be on to something...

[Anthony_Nysse]

In not saying that it is, BUT the ground cover under the trees at Sherwood looked similar to what was used under the oak trees at Long Cove. We used a very dark, very finely mulched mulch. It compacted very well, didn't blow around in the wind and was applied just to the edge of the canopy of the tree.