A tough summer in Philadelphia

[TEPaul]

It seems like the excessive heat and humidity has taken an unusual toll on some of the courses in Philadelphia.

Word is that Aronimink lost their A-4 greens after the Philly Open, followed a week or so later by another major outing (Sigel Charity event).

Llanerch, that's holding the US Amateur qualifier in rotation with Rolling Green today and tomorrow lost their tees and a good deal of fairway turf. I even heard Rolling Green may be struggling too.

Merion East lost a bit of green turf and has shut down until the Amateur to keep the course in some heightened "comfort zone".

The good news is apparently Philly C.C. that's doing the US Am tournament on-site qualifier with Merion East into match play is doing great.

There're probably a ton of other courses around here that're stuggling agronomically due to this heat and humidity.

How's it going this summer in other regions?

[paul cowley]

 Great down here Tom, but bermuda loves 95's [heat and humidity]
....if you keep it up and you might just want to switch over....

[Jeff Morrill]

Played a few rounds in Philly last Sunday and Tuesday with some boys getting ready for the amateur.

Courses were in tough shape.  Lots of rain and puddles that boiled many fairways.  It was terrible.

New England has not had any issues like I saw in Philly.

[Sean McCue]

Tom,

Colorado is great.  No disease to speak of here.  Have not spayed once for disease .  I lived and worked too many summers in Philly.  Great golf courses, but the worst place to try and grow grass.

Sean

[Jimbo]

Is every square inch of green dead? Will they have to regrass?!?

Only Enquiring minds want to know.

"Lost their greens" is so broad a statement, one with the worst connotations, it is irresponsible to just toss it out there. People lose their jobs to rumors like this, which are taken to heart by uniformed and embarrassed members of such  clubs.

"Struggling" is probably a more apt way to put it.  Never in 13 years seen a course that really "lost their greens".

[wsmorrison]

Yes, Tom.  I caddied for a friend, Burt McHugh, at Rolling Green today.  There's hardly any grass on 16 green (the weakest green for years).  I think that one needs to be closed down for a couple of weeks after tomorrow.  13 green is bad and the pin was surprisingly in one of the worst spots on the green.  

A number of areas on tees, fairways and greens where the grass has been weak early in the year have been stressed the most and look to be lost.

I know this past week there was some watering during the height of the day and I'm not certain that it helped matters--could it have hurt?

I'm going over to Merion and Philadelphia Country Club later this week and am anxious to see how they are faring.  Seeing Huntingdon Valley through all of this sure is interesting.  I missed Ran's phone call today but hope to set up the interview with Scott Anderson soon.  Tom, I sent him the same background materials you have.  Do you think they will help form some of the questions?

I spoke to Adam Jessie today, he said there's been about a half inch of rain over the last 70 days out on Long Island and that's been an issue they've been dealing with.  Hard to believe as much rain as we've had in Philadelphia as has Westchester County up through Boston.

[Craig Sweet]

Here in western Montana its your typical hot and dry time. We had, officially, 0.14" of precip. in July....14/100th of an inch!

We're hosting the state Senior Am tourney this week and we have poured the water to the course, especially the greens. I started hand watering them heavily about 3 weeks ago, and we laid down some surfacatant back in June and again in early July. The greens are a tad soft, at least the top 1" or so...cutting pins is still tough work...

Like I said, we're putting down over 650,000 gallons every night and in addition are manually watering the greens as we are making our rounds in the morning.

[Adam_Messix]

Well Guys....

I would love to send you some of the rain that we've had here.  So far, we've had 106 1/2 inches of rain this year in Cashiers and going on 155 inches in the last 11 months.  This is no typo.  Now granted, out 100 year average for annual rainfall is 100 inches/year.  Needless to say, the courses in our area are suffering from issues from the polar opposite end of the spectrum.  

[Bill_McBride]

Wayne, were the bad greens at Rolling Green in the shade of trees that should be removed or cut back?

Here in the South the humidity and heat, particularly in areas enclosed by trees, can be so bad on greens that you sometimes see large oscillating fans to keep the air moving.

The worst thing I ever saw was at a good course in Ponte Vedra FL called Plantation CC, near Sawgrass.  They attempted to grow and maintain bent greens there, may still for all I know, and every green had two or three fans that looked like R2D2.  Very much in play and out of character for a good course.  I'm not sure bent is worth it given the great putting possible on hybrid greens in the south these days.

I'm sure it can get just as bad in Philadelphia.

[James Bennett]

I have driven through Philadelphia twice - new York to washington DC and back, in summer.  So, I don't undertsand the climate, and can't comment on what is best in Philadelphia.  However, there may be value in posing an obvious question.

From the information I've seen here, and the TV vision of Philadelphia Sea Eagles home games, I assume the weather comprises of occasional summer periods involving intense heat and humidity, whilst the winter periods invovle sub-zero temperatures (minimums and maximums) and infrequent snow.  I expect the spring and autumn (and much of the summer) is quite mild and pleasant.  Houdini would be well qualified to grow quality grass year-round in such climates!

If that is so, then

the ideal maintenance meld would be designed to accomodate these two extremes of temperature.  So, what is the best combination of grasses/soils/irrigation/drainage/light and air/etc etc for most-of-year-round play, able to recover from the winter and survive the extremes of summer?


I'm sure there are other maintenance combinations that provide a better surface in one season or another, but that would involve trading off playing conditions for much of the year for the benfit of a shorter time period.  Of course, members want the best, every day, especially if some course down the road is better this month.  

[Jonathan McCord]

    Its seems to be a tough summer at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club as well.  We have lost a few greens to a progressive nematoad problem which has forced us to shut down the course until August 18th.

    This has people concerned because the President's Cup is only 6 weeks off and the greens are in pitiful shape.  We are spraying the greens with an extremely toxic formula, one which, is supposed to kill EVERYTHING but the grass, even small animals.

    RTJ seemed to contract these nematoads, by attempting to solve an earlier problem, leaving the nematoads to untouched.  Hopefully everything will be in good shape for The Cup, but one would have to agree that the added heat and humidity aided the stress on the grass throughout the summer.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Jon,
  I'm going to guess that you're going ahead and putting nemacure on the greens-This stuff can drop a man dead in 30 minutes if exposed. We had to put on a lot this spring, but have definately seen better turf because of it.

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[Gerry B]

the greens were very slow last week at atl city / pv /philly cricket and merion (the slowest that I have ever seen there). better slow than lost

[TEPaul]

"I lived and worked too many summers in Philly.  Great golf courses, but the worst place to try and grow grass."

Sean:

That's what they say. Some in the business around here call it "The Northern tier of the suicide belt".

From one who runs my club who also belongs to The Valley, he said the grass on some of the greens there didn't look good either.

[wsmorrison]

"Wayne, were the bad greens at Rolling Green in the shade of trees that should be removed or cut back?"

Bill,

The worst green sits on a high point with tall trees behind to the south and west.  They've taken quite a few down already but more need to be removed.  They still have a fan running 24/7 so that can't be a good sign.  This green has a long history of trouble from too much mushroom soil to a new ridge put in (I can't figure out why) by OTJ training Shearon.  This pools water into two large low areas on either side and this must have been near boiling during some of the hot/humid days.  Interestingly, it is the only USGA-spec green on the course; all others are original push-up greens.  The rear of two greens with similar orientation have constantly been bad over the years; that is 12 and 13 on the south side.

[wsmorrison]

I am admittedly a lay man when it comes to a lot of things, agronomics especially.  So I don't profess to know much.  Some thoughts though:

The grass on the greens at Rolling Green GC are equal amounts of A-1 and A-4.  Do these strains have a low tolerance for high humidity and a lot of rain during conditions of high temperatures?  I know they are supposed to be very good with dry heat; they sure aren't holding up well this wet summer.  

The old strains at Huntingdon Valley are doing great...but there are a lot of other variables in play.  The maintenance practices over there, in place for many years create a far hardier turf of naturally selected grasses.  The sturdy strains don't undergo the remediation as a result of the weaker strains while under stress.  The practices include far less water and fertilizer, nearly no chemicals, the use of organics and minerals from natural sources and no sand topdressing.  The carefully balanced dynamics show wonderful results year in and year out under a variety of conditions.

One thing I do notice about A-1 and A-4 is that they do not recover from pitch marks very well.  The membership, like many I suppose, is not overly concerned with fixing ball marks.  Even early in the season there are numerous noticable brown scars from ball marks on the greens.  If the marks aren't repaired properly and promptly, they don't seem to heal well at all.  Scott Anderson agreed that this seems to be a problem with these grasses.  All the more reason for the maintenance practices to promote firm greens that lightly dent when nature allows.  The craters that are formed on soft greens are problematic, seemingly for the entire golf season.

[Cory Lewis]

Strange,  We've had a great year for weather here, and we are only an hour and a half south of philly.  We've had lots of rain but also abundant sunshine.  Every hole is in great shape, the greens are a little slow, but I think we are doing that on purpose, our owner played about a month ago and said that the course was in the best shape he had ever seen it.

[Ted Kramer]

While conditions at Pine Hill haven't been what you'd call fast and firm, the turf is in pretty good shape considering the hot humid weather of late.

The greens are a little "soggy" and a few fairways look a little "beat-up" (how's that for a few "lay-man's phrases" concerning agronomics), but I think that our Super, Kevin Reis, has kept the course in very good/playable shape through a tough few months.

Being a new course, with relatively new turf and without the intrusion of Poa and other strains, can maintence practices be started at Pine Hill to help create and maintain a faster/firmer track?

-Ted

[cary lichtenstein]

Conditions are great here in Colorado...this is the place to be in the summer for the weather, but the golf, we are stuck with Engh, Fazio, Nicklaus and Norman courses...oh well

[mike_malone]

 I would really like to know what Mike Mc Nulty at Philly Country meant by his statement  to Wayne that "the honeymoon is over for A1-A4". I wonder whether we were sold a bill of goods.

[Mike_Sweeney]

We got rained out on Merion East a couple of weeks ago after a Friday night storm, and they were obviously being careful with the upcoming Amateur. Played The West instead which seemed in fine shape, however they probably keep the greens a little longer on a regular basis.

[wsmorrison]

I'll be seeing Mike a bit later this week and look forward to his take.  I recall having lunch with Mike and Tom last year and his cautionary tale about the A-Bents.  We shall see.

[TEPaul]

"The grass on the greens at Rolling Green GC are equal amounts of A-1 and A-4.  Do these strains have a low tolerance for high humidity and a lot of rain during conditions of high temperatures?  I know they are supposed to be very good with dry heat; they sure aren't holding up well this wet summer."

Wayne:

It seems to me from what I've heard about the "A" strain from my super is that grass loves dryness and obviously doesn't mind high heat and even humidity with its dryness.

Aronimink and perhaps Rolling green with their "A" strains probably just ran into an unfortunate chain of weather and play events simultaneously. Aronimink was in a fairly extended tournament mode set-up of low cutting and rolling (Philly Open and the Sigel the followinng week) that ran smack into this intense dry heat, followed by some strong thunderstorms and rain, and then probably most significantly by real high heat and humid conditons immediately following. When a course's greens, even the "A" strain that's supposed to be conducive to low mowing and speed are under that kind of tournament set-up stressing and the ground water from the storms followed immediately by high heat and intense humidity virtually boils the grass, something is going to give and it's generally the grass.

Also of note, during this entire last two weeks or so of really high heat and humidity, rain, and return to high heat and humidity, other than the few hours of those storms there was virtually no wind and air circulation in this region. For the last two weeks it's just been really hot, humid and still.

[JSlonis]

Tom,

I thought after playing Aronimink in the GAP Open that their greens were headed for some trouble.  The first thing I noticed was that the greens seemed "thin".  When you went to fix a ball mark there was not much resistance to the surface and the soil.  It was quite thin and loose.

The greens were softer in the morning, but by the afternoon round they were getting that purple-ish hue.  They were definitely "stressed".  

I am very interested to hear what some of the top Superintendents in the Philly area think about the newer strains of Bent Grass, because we are shutting our club down next August to do much of the same work as some of these courses that are having trouble had done.  

How are the greens at Gulph Mills holding up...and...What type of grass did you use to re-grass?

[Jason Blasberg]

On the South Shore of LI we had a steam bath for most of July and it really took it's toll on our greens at Seawane.  

We've also lost some fairway to turf rot.