On the Pebble vs. Cypress in Iowa thread tom Huckaby made mention to the poa annua at Pebble being one of the variables that contribute to the challenge or subtlety of the greens. I assume this is because poa is a grass that grows in a clumpy manner as opposed to some of these new fangled strains of bent that play like the felt on a pool table.

There was also recent mention of a statement from Crenshaw to the effect that Cuscowilla's greens were designed and built with bermuda in mind but the owner wanted bent and now they are too severe because of the speed. This is not a direct quote, but is close to the gist of the comment.

On the first cut of rough and green collar thread Kelly Blake Moran educated me on some of the diferent strains of grass that might be used in a rough (or wild) area. It was eye opening   to think of the number of options an architect must weigh in the planning phase of construction.

My Question:
How much consideration (when forming ones own opinion of a course) do the actual strains of grass receive.  

From my experience I can only think of Royal New Kent as having possibly made the wrong decision. I may even be wrong about this because the only time I was ever there was in the heat of July, but they never seemd able to grow much fairway grass down there. Do we only notice when the wrong grass is (or appears to have been) chosen?

JES:

Great question.

Re Pebble, you have it right on.  Poa greens are wonderful when maintained properly, and here in CA, the stuff is so invasive that many clubs have just punted and gone fully poa, Pebble being likely the most famous (though last time I was there, they were experimenting with bent on the 2nd green.... not sure what ever came of that).  But in any case, they are tricky because the stuff does grow unevenly, such that in the pm putts are a lot tougher than in the am, right after mowing.  That just adds to the subtle toughness of those greens, which by my take is a PLUS.  Most others see it as a definite minus.

And Pete makes a GREAT call re Spanish Bay.  Man that course was a lot of fun when it was fescue, less fun now.

I'd just have to say though that these grass considerations are a small exception rather than the norm.  Heck at most courses of any repute you can fairly assume good conditions these days, whatever grass they use.  That's a testament to the skill of the supers, and how far we've come technologically.

So in the end I think you're right... we do only tend to notice when the wrong decision has been made... although here in CA, one does tend to notice big time when a place has bent greens with big poa patches all over that they are unable to keep out, and wonders why they don't just let it go all poa...  

TH

I believe 2 and 15 are now bent at Pebble.
Merion has one of the coolest things I have ever seen, just outside the pro shop, they have a poa green to practice on.
Being as there greens are the purest bent around, I don not really know why, but it is pretty cool..especially late afternoon as the seeds start to bud.

Jari,

They have not "used" any specific type of poa.  It invades the course in a variety of ways.  It especially establishes itself on greens where many ballmarks occur, like short par 3s.  It is a prolific flowering plant, and naturally spreads quite rapidly.  It also spreads from the shoes of golfers from other courses.  The early holes on our courses have more poa than the later ones.

Pumpkin Ridge is in its 14th year of growing grass.  I would estimate that the overall course is about 15-20% poa, but the greens are closer to 40%.  I believe the superintendent thinks it will take another 4-5 years before we have relatively homogenous poa putting surfaces.

By the way, the weather in Oregon the last two weeks is unbelievable.  We have had about 15 straight play days here, with several more to come.  It was about 65 today, and the course is firm and dry.  We played the ball down the last two days, and I never had a muddy lie.  The greens are medium speed, but a little bumpy.

I'm not gloating; it's just strange.  A once in a lifetime winter up here.

I agree wholeheartedly that poa can be a great surface if maintained properly.  Nice tight blades of grass that the ball sits right up on.  Here at Illahe Hills in Salem they replaced half the greens last year and are in the middle of replacing the remaining ones right now.  The greens are actually being sodded with poa grown somewhere in Canada and are being given a few months to grow back in before being reopened.  I'd be curious to know how the poa sod is being cultivated if you can't grow poa from seed.

Mike,

They can cultivate Poa sod by letting the Poa produce its' own seed and then gather it by mowing.  This seed can then be used on new lots.

On Poa greens it is a common practice to mow them so that the clippings are left on the greens when the flowering is at its' peak.  This way you'll always have your own local seed production.

Jari

In the Atlanta area, nearly all courses converted from Bermuda to Bent a while back.  Unlike places like Hilton Head and Dallas, Atlanta has been very slow to convert to the new strains of bermuda greens, even though it would probably be best.  There's still a perception in the area that bent is better, and nobody wants to be the first to convert.  A couple really hot, humid summers is needed to change that, and we've had pretty mild ones lately.

I think one club at Lake Oconee, Port Armour, may have bermuda greens, but I couldn't tell you how they are doing.  If C/C did recommend bermuda, it wouldn't surprise me, but one the other hand, the new bermudas are just as fast as bent, so if the greens are too dramatic for bent, they would be for the new bermudas, too.

AG Crockett

I think I pasted below the link to the thread referrenced about Crenshaw. As you'll see it does not quote Crenshaw, but I think we can trust the source.

SBusch

I was thinking the same as you re: the potrential speed of todays bermudas as compared to bents, but it appears the concern was more in the ability to slow down the greens easier when conditions required.


Obviously grass selection is guided primarily by the climate and location of the golf course. How prominent a role does maintainence economics play versus championship conditioning potential?

Pumpkin Ridge is a high profile championship venue, it surprises me to hear they are making a slow conversion to poa. I can't argue the choice of poa (it seems the climate in that region must be quite good for it), rather the decision to spend the number of years they are spending to fully convert. How do the greens at Pumpkin Ridge play today at 40% poa? I am under the impression it is difficult to produce a good consistent surface with an even amount of poa and bent. If this impression of my is wrong it eliminates my curiosity on the timeframe.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=16895;start=msg295698#msg295698

Pumpkin Ridge is a high profile championship venue, it surprises me to hear they are making a slow conversion to poa. I can't argue the choice of poa (it seems the climate in that region must be quite good for it), rather the decision to spend the number of years they are spending to fully convert. How do the greens at Pumpkin Ridge play today at 40% poa? I am under the impression it is difficult to produce a good consistent surface with an even amount of poa and bent. If this impression of my is wrong it eliminates my curiosity on the timeframe.

One word: MONEY.  Remember that Pumpkin Ridge is 50% owned by National Golf.  The cheapest way to do it is just to let it happen.  Also, it is definitely the off season there, as the weather warms up and the bent starts growing again, the problem will lessen for the summer when most golfers are out there.  It is only the die hards who really are seeing the worst of it.

JES, I agree totally.  I was a member of Pumpkin Ridge from when it opened in 1992 until 2 years ago when I left the area and my membership finally made it to the top of the "get out" list.  John Kirk and I played hundreds of rounds together over that time and both feel the same way.

There are 5 owners at Pumpkin Ridge, the original 4 including 3 Americans and one Japanese and American Golf (not National Golf as I said before as they are the people who run it under contract.)  American Golf / National Golf look to do things as inexpensively as possible and probably don't care a lot about USGA events.  Gaylord Davis, who is one of the original owners, wants USGA events badly.  I'm not sure how the others feel at this point.  There is a constant struggle there about this.

A few years ago, the superintendent (Bill Webster) had crews hand picking poa from the greens and tees in an effort to keep it out.  He even deputized a bunch of us to pull it on the tees and fairways when we saw it.  As I understand from John this kind of intense effort has stopped.

Bill told us years ago that eventually the poa would win regardless of his efforts.  He said it would be a 4-5 year process while the greens converted and during that time things would not be good.  After that we would have great poa greens like the older courses in the Northwest.  I don't think the idea of re-sodding the greens has ever come up in a general discussion.

PR has the US Women's Amateur booked for 2006.  They can probably get by for a week if the summer is warm enough to kill the poa.  Besides the young girls won't complain too much and nobody would be paying much attention anyway.  If the Senior Open was still scheduled there they might be being more aggresive.  Beyond that, the USGA is booked up through at least 2009 for all its championships so the conversion will be pretty much complete before any other events show up there.

JES,  no doubt. The greens at courses like Portland, Waverley, Royal Oaks and Columbia Edgewater are as good as any I've putted.  

PR's greens should get that good eventually also.  In thinking about it I believe they did talk about resodding the 4th green on the Ghost Creek course with all poa as it was the one that was the furthest along a few years ago, but I don't think they've ever done it.

I find this discussion interesting because it highlights the regional differences in grass.  Bermuda at Cuscowilla would have done very well due to the heat.  Although the Bent seemed fine when I played there.

Poa is the grass(weed)of the Northwest.  The Poa is actually a number of different varieties of grasses.  Washington State actualy lists it as a noxious weed.  But when easterners and midwesterners hear us waxing rhapsodic about our poa, they simply shake their heads.  The poa in the northwest does well because we have cool damp conditions and relatively low humidity during the summer months.  Conditions that are uncommon in other areas of the country.  

Yes the poa can get soft and mushy if not cared for appropriately and it grows in fits and starts during the course ofthe day, actually faster than the bents, but give me a firm poa green and it putts as well as any.  

Famous courses with Poa annua greens would include nearly every great course in the world that's over twenty years old and has not gassed and reseeded their greens recently.  Oakmont is the sine qua non, but Poa annua is everywhere, from Royal Melbourne to St. Andrews to the desert around Stone Eagle, where it is popping up all over after the recent rains, even though no grass has ever been seeded up there.

Merion used to have great bent/poa greens until they all died from ice damage in 1992; now it's a pure bent hybrid and they look like they came from outer space [just my opinion] because they're too pure.  Maybe that practice green survived when all the others died.

Poa annua is an ANNUAL plant, which means it dies when it becomes too stressed by heat or drought; but it produces a million seeds so new plants spring up to replace the dead. This is why, as a green matures over 20-30 years, eventually the most drought-tolerant plants in the mix become dominant in the green.  [see Charles Darwin for more detail]

Grass selection for new courses is a complicated but important issue.  I know just enough to be really dangerous, and frequently find myself disagreeing with the soon-to-be superintendent over how things ought to look and be maintained.  It's hard to argue, because they're the grass expert; and yet I've seen way more grass grown in way more different situations than they have, and I may have specific ideas about how I want the course to play, that they don't appreciate.  Seed salesmen get the superintendent's or client's ear, too, and complicate things while they are really just hawking their own wares and badmouthing the competition's varieties.

Bill C.:  Your statement about "high end courses" not using Bermuda greens is right on the mark, most owners don't want this precisely because the customers have preconceptions about what a high-end course should have.  But there are a lot of places where bentgrass greens wind up being crummy because they are overwatered by superintendents who are afraid of stressing them out too much.  

Cuscowilla has no such problems because Rusty Mercer is a great superintendent and understands how the course is intended to play.  Andy Woolston at Riverfront up in Virginia did the same for us; we were scared those greens would be overwatered to keep them alive during heavy summer traffic, but Andy showed us it didn't have to turn out that way.