I'd prefer the Cups to be played in Oct on dormant bermuda! Pinehurst 2 would be mint 3rd weekend of October. Southern hills first weekend of October
Southern Hills has bentgrass greens.
Depending on location, bermuda can be a little beat on or slower to wake up if the weather doesn’t help. Think of the Byron Nelson and/or Colonial-we had to really push the grass just to have enough rough for a PGA Event.
I see you are trolling me again. They have Bermuda fairways and rough which makes up 90% of the grass on the course.
No trolling, Ben. You mentioned Pinehurst and SH in the same sentence regarding fall golf. I assumed you implied all bermuda surfaces.
I would add, fwiw, that we're now in the third week in November, and nothing at Pinehurst is dormant yet. Two years ago, the bermuda didn't go dormant in central NC until well into January, and December is now pretty typical. Some of you may have noticed that the planet seems to be warming just a bit; the bermuda grasses in the southeast certainly have noticed!
In fact, there was a discussion here about Hope Valley overseeding in the winter of 2015-16, which wasn't the case; the bermuda was still green well into the new year! The green up in 2016 was more or less standard, so that year the bermuda was only dormant for about three months.
All of THAT said, why anybody would want to aim for tournament golf on dormant bermuda, even if the date for dormancy was at all predictable, is beyond me. Conditions on dormant bermuda can get pretty spongy pretty quickly, divots don't grow back in, collars get really hit-or-miss in terms of playability, and so on. If dormant bermuda is dry, that's one thing, but the lack of root action makes dryness elusive, and certainly NOT something a super and his crew can control.
And, of course, the bermuda greens are dormant, too; lots of courses paint them green for cosmetic reasons thru the winter. Also, many courses with bermuda greens now have just three hole locations for the dormant months; one front, one middle, and one back, with the two not in use covered with a plastic cap, because old cups don't heal and you have scars all over the green all winter. Duke and Tobacco Road are two examples of this. But again, controlling green speeds and conditions on dormant bermuda greens becomes problematic.
In short, if you want a "bermuda grass major" including the greens, then leave the PGA where it's been, and play it in the South in August.