Sean:

When it rained again did that grass come right back to green? That course is really browned out. I'm just wondering if that grass in those photos really is in a state of dormancy or if a lot of it was just dead.

Sean,

Nice pictures, the greens look a little "green" or were they just in a very healthy condition?

Where is this little gem?

Chappers

Tom Paul, I'm rather shocked you would ask Sean if that grass was dead. Grass is tough stuff.
It made me laugh when the media talked about the dead greens at Shinney and the dead fairways at Hoylake. Perhaps I'm just fortunate, or, I just paid attention during those long summer droughts growing up in Chicago, BUT, The grass always came back. It goes dormant to protect itself (crown). Hopefully the super supers can add the intelligent jargon.  

At Ballyneal, I've been able to observe the pattern the turf takes, as it cycles in and out of dormancy. For me, it takes the level of awareness needed, to new heights. i.e. Starting with the turf all browned out. It rains about an inch+. Now, the turf looks brown and the mind thinks it will still act like concrete. Not so. Now, on the second day the color is coming back, leaving only the high spots with a brown patina. By the third day, the high spots have caught up and are actually green again. Here's the interesting part. On the fourth day, the whole place is green but plays like concrete. Once again faking out the brain, requiring a higher level of awareness.  To me that's golf. Not the often heard cries of " I hit that perfectly" only to see the whiners ball end up forty yards over the green.

Sean,

Nice pictures, the greens look a little "green" or were they just in a very healthy condition?

Where is this little gem?

Chappers

Chappers

I am sure you can appreciate that letting the greens go cookie crisp brown to match the fairways would be taking an awfully high risk.  The greens were very firm despite their appearance.  

The pix are of http://www.envillegolfclub.com/ - Stourbridge way.  They have Open qualifying for the next few years.  http://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/news/Enville_Golf_Club_British_Open_Qualifying_2007_article_113463.html  There seems to be somewhat of a rotation between Little Aston, Beau Desert and Copt Heath, but I could be wrong about that - it may just be coincidence with my time in the area.  

There about 18 holes on a beautiful heathland and 18 which are more parkland.  Unfortunately, the heathland is mixed between the 18s.  If a proper archie was brought in to re-design a new heathland course it could be a cracker.  The club would never go for it because it would mean not having two 18s - though a proper archie could probably fashion a parkland 9 holer without moving the clubhouse.  

Tom

Summer dormancy is a bi-product of unwatered fairways.  The reason it was a bit ott was because its difficult to keep the greens which are obviously watered in tune with approach areas.  That said, clubs generally do a good job over here not out of some adherence to a philsophy other than saving brass.

Ciao

But I'll tell you one thing---you take a golf course whose agronomy has been excessively irrigated for years and you suddenly turn off the water and get it to look like those photos above and its grass will be stone cold DEAD!  

Absolutely correct. To go dry like Sean pictured here requires long term conditioning...which is to say that irrigation has to be less the norm than we are used to in the US.

Joe

"Grass is tough stuff."


Adam:

It can be tough stuff but definitely not if you don't leave it alone to a considerable extent to do what it does best naturally.

And that's why I call a lot of modern American agronomy and American golf grass "The Emergency Ward".

It's been so completely over irrigated as to be about constantly half drowned and over administered to with every chemical imaginable that it's basically on constant life support like half dead people in many hospital EMs across the country.

When we land in the Emergency Ward we generally look like shit because we're half dead so isn't it ironic that so many of us think grass that's forced to live in our American Agronomic Emergency Ward looks healthy and looks great?

It sure is ironic to me.

 

This will be tough to top for top quote of the year....and it's only January. Of course, somewhere there is a bunch of other guys who hate what you just said, but still.....

Joe

I have played numerous courses in recent years that did not have fairway irrigation at all, and in the summer those clubs were quite enjoyable to play. The ball rolls forever and the lies are generally good. It really is bad that people think we have to have grass on 'life support' as was just said.

Bradley:

How do you feel some of the more common or popular bents  would do on unirrigated fairways in drought conditions? How about rye? If you had fescue fairways instead of the blue grass I bet you couldn't have run all those carts on it.

Another question; How long do you think fairways can stay in dormancy and survive looking like those photos above?

A lot of these new bents are bred for putting greens; for extreme low mowing heights and tremendous amounts of leaves per square inch etc. They do have huge root systems, and I spoke with a superintendent who never watered his A-series greens in 2007, except to rinse in fertilizers and topdressing once per week. What I can't tell you is how they would perform at a half inch fairway cut. I would be concerned about managing the thatch that they might develop on such big acrerages as is common on fairways.

Penneagle was originally bred for greens in the early 1980's. As a putting turf it was too weak, but at fairway height it performs the best of any "manicured" fairway turf out there, and it does not thatch up on you. I have allowed Penneagle to go completely dormant for over a week and it came back, but the key with that management stratedgy is to keep the carts off it. Any bentgrass, when it it dormant, will be damaged by traffic.

The other issue here is soils. If you have tight clay soils and you let them compelety dry out, they are very difficult to re-wet. I feel that a certain amount of water needs to be applied in the interest of water conservation. The presence of somee water in tight soils, helps to draw additional water in, but when there is no water, there is a period of runoff and waste of water before there is penetration.

Rye grass is not a tillering plant. Rye grass plants are generally originated from seed, whereas blue and bent, and some fescue plants may originate from a mother plant that has sent a tiller out to colonize an area. Rye's drought tolerance mechanism is limited to the depth of the root system. In Illinois most of the great ryegrass fairways that were in the central and lower regions of the state were hit hard by grey leaf spot. The cost of spraying to keep out the leaf spot doesn't seem to make rye any less expensive than the cost of maintaining bentgrass, and there is no overwhelming difference in rye's water requirements verse bent.

Let me hasten to add here:

There are so many factors with this issue of F&F fairways. Grass species is just one piece of the puzzle. Soil is a big factor is how water moves through the soil. And shade complicates everything because it encourages shallow rooted species to encroach on the deeper rooted species when you have a wet year. Irrigation systems are big part because the older systems distribute water so poorly, especially the single row systems.

In my opinion every superintendent out there is doing his best. I really don't know of any superintendents who overwater intentionally. Virtually every superintendent I know of is very serious about water conservation and providing the firmest conditions possible with their circumstances.

Sean,

I can see why it's got a regional qualifier, that's some good company in the area to share the rota with. Amazing how I thought the greens looked a little too watered and TE Paul thought the fairways dead. He clearly didn't watch the Open at Hoylake in 2006!

Chappers

"The pivoting of mowers and rollers is hard on the A-series collars apparently."

That's what I've been hearing---more than some problems with too high a cut on the As the turning on those collars  seems to be the primary reason they're suffering. So what next, do we have to hire another guy to drag a board around the collars so the mower can turn on it? I do know that works well.