[Patrick_Mucci]

Would severe or long term droughts be the best thing to happen to golf courses ?

[RJ_Daley]

Pat, if I get your drift you are elluding to forced conditions to promote firm and fast, and less emphasis on lush and green.  My answer would be no.  I don't think it is good to have an outside influence like drought force these conditions on a superintendent because he wouldn't have the options of maintaning greens in a healthy state and respond to disease and fertility needs properly.  I would rather have the super have all the water he needs and the support of the customers to use it judiciously...  Firm and fast can be well achieved in non-drought normal conditions.  Perhaps not in a series of monsoons and deluge however.  

Happy New Years,
Noah

[Patrick_Mucci]

RJ,

Yours is a democratic process which could take eons.

Mine is a mandate that the members just might like over time.

And, I'll throw in the caveat that you're perfectly prepared for the situation.

[RJ_Daley]

Pat, I don't get the caveat that one can be perfectly prepared for drought.  How do you mean that?  Are you saying somehow that a super can in some way be prepared for drought.  That is a good question for the supers looking in here.  How would they be prepared for long term drought?  Would it be by being over watered and over fertilized going into a long hot dry period, (which would promote disease and softness) or is it possible to promote deep root health without over watering in advance of drought conditions through more deep tine aeration and long run time less frequent watering?  Inquiring minds want to know...

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I hope you don't mean real drought conditions that could even get into water rationing as we had here two summers ago. That put real stress on our grass, our super, his people and on our resources to control from potential disaster.

Don't forget grass is a living thing and gets conditioned to things like any other living thing! You can't throw it a curve ball all of a sudden. To get the best performance a super has to dial down his irrigation input slowly and carefully with other mixes of applications and natural conditions--right supers?

One of the best firm and fast guys I've ever seen said it took him years to get the program right and to get his agronomy programmed to his program or maybe even the other way around!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul and RJ,

Years ago we had ongoing drought conditions.
They didn't happen overnight, and Supers adjusted to them.
Water was eventually rationed, and at one point only tees and greens could be watered.  Everyone seemed to adjust to the conditions.

The gist of my post was that perhaps an extreme condition, mandating the restricted use of water might acclamate golfers to other than the lush conditions they experience today, and that perhaps, out of that extreme, a policy favoring limited use of water, causing fast and firm conditions might become the standard.

I believe that water will become a limited and/or expensive commodity, especially in Florida and other arid climates, eventually reaching the Northeast and other locations, and that clubs that begin to wean themselves off of their current water use will be in a much better position to maintain acceptable playing conditions in the future.

[Gary Smith (Guest)]

What effect would a great depression have on country clubs?
I bet everything would get firm, fast, and bouncy real quick like, unless Mother Nature intervened. Some folks might even decide they like their golf that way.

[Scott Wicker]

Seems to me that during dry conditions is when the supers have the most control over the playability of the course because they are managing every ounce of water that the course receives.  If I go play a course that is soft and wet and it has been 3 weeks since a significant rain, then it is a dead giveaway as to what is causing these soft conditions.  Moreover, there is no such thing as a perfect irrigation system so when the course relies solely on that system, the inperfections will show themselves if proper discretion is not used.  I really think that during an average or even wetter than average year when the supers feel more secure in not using water, firm and fast conditions will be more prevalent because the irrigation system is relied upon less.  And as always there are exceptions to this generalization.

[Joel_Stewart]

From 7 years ago and its more important now.

[Jordan Wall]

Pat,

I thought about this for a while and I think I can sum my thoughts up as this.

On public courses, which generally get a lot of play, less water is probably a good thing.  Overwatering can just destroy greens when there is a lot of traffic.  So, perhaps a drought would be good.

However, on private courses, I dont think it really matters one way or another, because with smart members, the course should always be in great shape.  Of course, if the course has severe greens (generally I've seen more severe greens on private courses), a drought could be bad, just because the greens could get too fast.

So, I guess it really depends on the type of course.

Cheers,
Jordan

[Jon Wiggett]

Pat,

if you mean by drought a substantial reduction in the amount of rainfall (15%) say over taking place over a long period of time (20 years) then I think you would find that in cool grass climates courses would become firm and fast and the sward much heathier and desease free. It would probably also see a return to slower green speeds, larger greens with bolder contours.

If, however it were to happen over a short time then I would expect courses which were not following a traditional, minimalist regime to suffer quite badly.

In warm grass and transition zones I could not say as it is out of my field of expertise but I could imagine that maybe the sand green might make a major come back in some areas.

[JohnH]

Would severe or long term droughts be the best thing to happen to golf courses ?

For whom, the masses or the minority?  

[Joe Hancock]

Would severe or long term droughts be the best thing to happen to golf courses ?

For whom, the masses or the minority?  

The masses...they just don't know it yet.

Joe

[JohnH]

Would severe or long term droughts be the best thing to happen to golf courses ?

For whom, the masses or the minority?  

The masses...they just don't know it yet.

Joe

Thanks Joe, you caught my drift.

[Craig Sweet]

Jordan...over watering greens...well, it might be a problem, but under watering can be a huge catastrophe....and I don't know too many supers that over water for extended time...

As for "smart members" at private courses....it seems to me that a big problem at many private courses is EVERY member see themselves as being a "smart member", and the super has to deal with 300 bosses that have little or no knowledge of turf yet want to dictate how the course should be managed.

[J_ Crisham]

The one thing not mentioned so far is the effect a drought has on trees.  They become stressed and more suceptible to disease. Probably not an issue at Shinnecock but I would hate to lose some strategic trees at Beverly,my home club.

[Michael_Stachowicz]

An overwatered course that gets the water shut off is just ugly.  Poa doesn't go dormant, it just dies.  You will end up with one clumpy dusty mess.

Now, a course that has alot of bents and fescues, shutting off the water has been used as a control of the weaker grasses.  I believe this was the approach used at Yale this summer and has been talked about on this forum.

You need bents and fescues to get a good, true, playable, fun dormant surface.  Clump grasses like poa annua, ryegrass, bluegrass all look and play terribly when dormant/dead.

Now, if the drought can be used as a motivator to regrass to bents/fescues or force a club to accept a cutback in irrigation for a gradual transition, then it can be successful.

[Joe Hancock]

Michael_Stachowicz,

Very good reply, and as mentioned previously, time is a major factor in this process. A patient, calculated approach will provide a positive outcome.

An overseeding program isn't something I've had the opportunity to implement in this context, but I think it would be an ideal way to create a seed bank of desirable varieties.

Joe

[Kirk Stewart]

Patrick,

Depends on where you live/play golf. In Atlanta, my answer would be "no", perhaps, "hell no"....

With a level 5 water restiction in effect, we have not been able to water anything other than greens. With no rain to fill up the creeks and ponds, green watering is done with extreme caution. We basically were down to days of water availability.
This caused enormous stress on the greens that were already under stress from heat and humidity. Without the ability to cool the canopy of the green, wilt sets in and eventually kills the bent. See East Lake.

Although our fairways where running firm and fast, we expect to see severe winter kill in the zoysia. We did not have the ability to overseed tees with winter rye. We did not have the ability to overseed roughs with Fescue and Rye and we do not have the ability to do any "winter projects" that involve watering i.e. annual plantings.

The outlook for next year is bleek. I firmly believe we might be playing in a dust bowl unless new sources of water are sought--which is a completly different conversation.

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