Bermuda grass

[Mark Brown]

Living in the Southeast for 23 years now, I have come to despise Bermuda rough that is more than about 1.5 inches deep (and fairways, if the coverage isn't full). In most cases, the ball sinks right to the ground and the coarse, horizontal sprigs wrap around the hosel, close the face and stop the club head, with the ball going about 50 yards.

I agree that rough is a hazard, but it shouldn't be this extreme. The worst part however is you can't find the darn ball unless you're right on top of it, and you can add 45 minutes, tons of lost balls and penalty strokes to a round.

There's nothing worse than looking for balls hole after hole and not finding them.

How about some alternatives to Bermuda rough -- like centipede, zoysia, 1" Bermuda rough, pine straw or in coastal areas (example: Harbour Town) hard packed crushed sea shells.

What do you guys think? Move back to Pennsylvania?

Also will Bermuda grass greens ever be as good as bentgrass?

Any brand new Bermuda strains ready to hit the market?

Mini-verte (sp.?) Bermuda greens. Played on it at The Patriot at Grand Harbour, a new Davis Love III design near Greewood, SC. Very strange surface, almost like a cushion, very dense, balls don't make ball marks, and the greens are faster than they look. Didn't seem to hold the ball as well.
Anyone know much about it?

And how is paspalum to play on? New course near Hilton Head has it wall to wall -- greens, fairways and rough

[patrick_burton]

Mark-

i'd hate to get your opinion on the knee-high rough that plagues the british isles; clearly that should mowed down to 1" as well....

as for new strands of bermuda, maybe some southern superintendents could chime in. i've mostly heard about a lot of development w/ seeded bermuda types - none of which to date, have produced acceptable putting surfaces.

imo - no, i don't think bermuda will ever match bent.

paspalum continues to become more refined, newer cultivars are coming out all of the time, with finer leaf blades. sea isle 2000 and sea dwarf are supposed to be among the best. the grass is similar to zoysia in terms of texture, and it's a bit 'sticky'.

-jj  

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I guess that tells us to hit it straight my friend.

[S. Huffstutler]

If I let my Bermuda roughs get over 1.5" I hear about it. I don't think bermuda greens will rival bent in your or my lifetime. Paspalum is great, but still a lot of preliminary research being done, probably a couple of plant generations away from a really great warm season grass that all of us down here will be growing sooner I later, I think.

Steve

[Mike_Young]

Jack,
I'll take that high Btitish grass anyday of the week over the 1.5 bermuda Mark speaks of.  You cannot play form it.  The bbest solution I have seen is to use common bermuda roughs but this presets your fairway delineation. And don't fertilize rough as you do fairway areas.

[Steve Lang]

 

13 Years now playing bermuda in SE TX and frankly it can be a pain if too long, but I don't fret over it nearly as much as wet approaches to greens..  hit it into play and if it takes a 5-wood from 150 yards in the rough, so be it.. luckily winter weather is approaching and while we're playing in the 70's-80's °F during the day, the night time temps are now in the 60's and things should be going dormant soom and shrivelling back a bit..

Long blue grass rough isn't fun either!

Grain is fun!

[Brent Hutto]

Last weekend I met a friend from out of state at a course neither of us had played before. The Bermuda rough was a very consistent length throughout the course of just over two inches. Both of us are high-handicappers and neither of us was hitting the ball well even by our standards. High scores aside, the day turned into an endless slog of looking for one or both balls in the rough on every hole. Almost never could we find it until we were within two or three paces of standing right on top of it.

I don't mind the effect on scoring of having to wedge out of the rough. In terms of our match it was fair because we both had to play out of it. But in terms of pace of play and just plain old enjoyment of the game it sucks. And this was a Lowcountry course with not very wide fairways and a lot of doglegs so I suspect even somewaht better players would still be spending a lot of time looking for balls.

[JohnV]

I played East Lake last week and the rough was already above the hosel.  I can just imagine how high it will be by the time the tour gets there for the Tour Championship.  I could smash a wedge and get my usual distance from it, but forget clubs that were much longer.  The next day I played Atlanta Athletic Club's newly redone Riverside course.  The rough was much shorter and the round was a lot more fun because of it.

[Mike Hendren]

The greater issue is pronunciation:

burmoodah or bermewdah

Champion bermuda give bent a run for its money on speed and firmness.

Mike

[John_Cullum]

The thing that pisses me off is when the supers let the bermuda get over 1 1/2 inches just 3 feet from the green, which happens all of the time. You can't hit a chip shot out of the stuff with any degree of confidence in where it might go.

[S. Huffstutler]

John: Please remember that if I'm mowing at 1.5", the grass continues to grow. My rough mowers only get around once a week during the summer when the grass is really booming along, so the day that it gets cut, it's 1.5", but by the end of the week, it may very well be 2" tall. Instead of blaming the super for letting the grass get too tall 3' off the greens, talk to your archie or green committee about whether or not the design intended for this to happen. Maybe that area needs to be scalped down into a chipping area.

steve

[Jason McNamara]

The thing that pisses me off is when the supers let the bermuda get over 1 1/2 inches just 3 feet from the green, which happens all of the time. You can't hit a chip shot out of the stuff with any degree of confidence in where it might go.

During the summer our bermuda got up to maybe 2.25", meaning finding the ball was a pain and hitting anything much more than wedge was not an option.  There was one spot greenside on a par 5 where the rough had gotten to 4" (!)...  Aim an inch behind the ball, weaken your grip, and give it a 50-yd swing with a sand wedge - it'll pop out about 30 feet.

Jason