Designing for shortcomings in greenkeeping?

[Ben Hollerbach]

 

While playing a short but quirky course today, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that this is not the way the course was intended to be set up and many concessions were being made. Most likely when this particular course was built 25 years ago the Architect was working under a general understanding of the agronomic standards the course was going to be kept up, but after two and a half decades those have subsided. I specifically noticed the state of the bent greens. Its a difficult task for even the best clubs to keep bent thriving in the middle of the Georgia summer, let alone at a public venue. These greens seemed to be placed on life support to preserve them and showed damage from over watering. While 25 years ago bent was the standard and bermuda was viewed as inferior, I have to think that these greens would have been 10x better if they were covered in one of the new micro bermudas rather than the high maintenance bent.


When designing a public/municipal course is this potential future state taken into consideration and if so what can be done to best prepare for it?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ben,

There are actually a few slightly different questions in there, but the short answer is yes.

As to bent vs. Bermuda, my first few designs on my own were near Atlanta, and those were bent, but now Bermuda.  Not sure anyone changed contours with the grass, because I wasn't involved.

On the design side, the typical public course considers "tuning" bunkers, greens and tees towards efficient machine maintenance.  Some typical design thoughts/compromises (if you think that way)

Greens

Size - Greens are generally bigger.
Shape - If they will be "ride mown"  they usually show wear on the edges if the radius of any edge curve is less than 28 feet, especially if combined with drainage valley (too wet) or high point (to dry)  And, if you allow for some inevitable shrinkage of the edge, we consider using 30 min. radius on public courses.
Internal contours - None can be used, really. That interesting little 6" knob takes up almost 100 sf of actual space, and if you figure a pin no less than 8 foot from it, up to 5-600 "usable cup space."

Tees - Size increases.  Rounded rectangles are probably the combination of best space use efficiency and mowing ease, combining the space saving rectangle, 100% usuable tee with something a tee mower can get around (usually 8-10 foot radius on corners)

Bunkers - Consideration given to the number of bunkers an employee on a power rake can get done in half a day, usually 18-27, or full day max.  On one design I even used a bunkerless hole at the furthest point from the shop to trim bunker travel time.  Edges tuned to both radius of sand rake and steep bank mowers.

There is more, but those are the basics.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Jeff,


Thank you for your reply.


When working on a project have you ever had a situation where you decided against doing something that was going to be really engaging because you were concerned that overtime the hole would not be cared for properly and could turn sour?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yes, there are certainly compromises in the name of maintenance.  In general, I believe if its hard to maintain, it will eventually go away.  If the superintendent is on board during construction, they stay, but supers do move on, and each successive one has less connection to the design. 

Not every owner really cares who designs it, and many call in other architects or do it themselves.  Or, "fix" things in house.  And, every recession brings on cost pressures to reduce maintenance costs, so they may love a feature, but deem it not worth the expense.

So, on many (most for most of us) we do have a choice of designing something really fantastic, but harder (in the eyes of some future superintendent under varying circumstances) or design something a bit less exciting, but a bit more plausible to stand the test of time.

I have actually been going back to see some of my courses recently, and am generally pleased with how they have held up design wise over the last 10-15 years.  Fewer changes than I would have expected, perhaps due to a generally increased awareness of architecture.  And these are on mid to upscale public courses that are often most affected by cost pressures.

[Jerry Kluger]

What would you look for to determine if a bent grass green was been over watered in the south in the summer? Would the thinning of the grass and bare spots be indicative of over watering or perhaps would it be from a failure to properly syringe the area to cool it down or something else?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jerry,

Huge ball marks are always an early indicator.

[Jerry Kluger]

Jeff: So if the greens have areas where they are thinning out with bare spots what is probably causing that?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Hard to tell.  In my experience it's usually shade first, too much slope or traffic, localized dry spots, etc. Or some combo of both.  Thinning often seems to be a response to long term climatic stress.

I would think an overwatered green would be thick and lush and maybe squishy, with any damage areas pretty specific to downward pressure of golf shoes, golf shots, etc.  Even the mower damage I talked about above is usually some kind of gouge, not just thinning.  Sometimes, you can look at the roots on a ball mark. Shallow roots are usually a sign over watering, but they nearly always shorten up in summer in every day or every other day watering.

OR, since yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the release of Caddy Shack, I could just go with "chinch bugs."   Seriously, there are disease charts to ID different turf diseases, which it could also be.
 
But, hopefully, the superintendents will chime in with a better answer.  They see it every day, I see it sporadically.