Fully Grassed

[Adam Clayman]

And... It isn't that the grass struggles, it's that people perceive it as struggling, because it goes dormant in a heartbeat.

If WH s any model, the fescue is wasted on the average golfer type.

[Mike Hendren]

Congrats to all. I do have mixed emotions - I keep wanting to volunteer to work on one of Tom's projects, but he somehow keeps building them without me - a wise choice for him, no doubt.

George, after watching the young men raking thatch on the 17th green in 100+ degree temps, I was cured of the romantic notion of hiring on with Doak after retirement.  Building a golf course appears to be incredibly hard work - hardly armchair architect stuff.

Mike

[Eric Smith]

Building a golf course appears to be incredibly hard work

...and dirty!

[Ben Sims]

Congrats to all. I do have mixed emotions - I keep wanting to volunteer to work on one of Tom's projects, but he somehow keeps building them without me - a wise choice for him, no doubt.

George, after watching the young men raking thatch on the 17th green in 100+ degree temps, I was cured of the romantic notion of hiring on with Doak after retirement.  Building a golf course appears to be incredibly hard work - hardly armchair architect stuff.

Mike

George and Bogey,

It's who stays romantic after raking and mulching in the 100 degree heat that are the real wackos.  Because even though 8 days out there was physically exhausting and kills romanticism about golf architecture, it really built a love of being on site and helping create something.  That's why I feel like I'm losing touch with a lot of the architecture literature and opinion, and I'm more interested in getting dirty.

[Jon Wiggett]

Adam,

your perception is probably spot on.

Tom,

my experience of fescue in an arid condition comes from central Europe and not GB which as you rightly say does not suffer from such a climate. I think that Adam has it spot on that most golfers look at the brown and thin (compared to bent) playing surfaces and think it is struggling.

My experience is that fescue handles daily high temperatures in excess of the 100F mark for weeks on end with no rainfall quite comfortably if the soil is free draining, playing surfaces correctly maintained and irrigation water delivered at a temperature closer to the ground temp than most irrigation systems do. HOC a little higher, roll as often as cut, don't feed and no midday watering. Yes, it has a colour closer to sand than green fields but still plays great.

Having said that if the other course has bent then it makes sense to use it on the new course unless you are looking for a contrast.

Jon

[Tom_Doak]

my experience of fescue in an arid condition comes from central Europe and not GB which as you rightly say does not suffer from such a climate. I think that Adam has it spot on that most golfers look at the brown and thin (compared to bent) playing surfaces and think it is struggling.

My experience is that fescue handles daily high temperatures in excess of the 100F mark for weeks on end with no rainfall quite comfortably if the soil is free draining, playing surfaces correctly maintained and irrigation water delivered at a temperature closer to the ground temp than most irrigation systems do. HOC a little higher, roll as often as cut, don't feed and no midday watering. Yes, it has a colour closer to sand than green fields but still plays great.

Jon:

Thanks for this.  I'm probing more deeply because the greenkeepers at most of the sand hills courses have struggled with the fescue, and we were thinking that the humidity was part of the trouble.

How arid is it in central Europe where you are talking about?  At Dismal River the humidity today is 26%.

[Jon Wiggett]

Having dug out my records typical humidity was between 30 to 40 through the main summer months though being a valley climate it could suffer short term swings.

Jon

[Adam Clayman]

Even with the cow poop, the soil out here needs more inputs than one might think. I'm not sure if the usga spec numbers on soil are accurate enough for the percolate'in sandy hills.

[Tom_Doak]

Even with the cow poop, the soil out here needs more inputs than one might think. I'm not sure if the usga spec numbers on soil are accurate enough for the percolate'in sandy hills.

Adam:

It's true that the sand in the sand hills is VERY light, and also true that if you've shaped a fairway or a green very much at all, you've probably destroyed the very thin top layer that has some organic material in it, so that the water percolates extra fast, at least until the grass sward is fully mature.  That was more of a problem at Ballyneal [where we had to fill bowls in several of the fairways] than at Sand Hills or our recent course at Dismal River.

At the same time, the USGA specs for greens mix are slightly misleading.  They specify that the sand should percolate water at +/- 10 inches per hour, but they do so knowing that this will change significantly over time as the grass sward becomes more established, due to the root zone and accumulated organic material.  Having that much percolation in the fairways is highly unusual ... the sand hills are probably the highest perc rate of any courses anywhere.

[Adam Clayman]

Yes Tom, I should've added "to establish."

When DR 101 was re-grassing after their first alterations, they had a hell of a time re-establishing the sward, in spots.