I appreciate all the responses. I had a pretty good idea what the general feeling would be about weeds and their impact on our golf courses.
However, as I see it the naturalization of golf courses is not the trend. Oh yeah, we’ll grow some hairy turf around a few bunkers and maybe leave a few snags about and call it bird habitat. Maybe hydroseed a few out of play areas with some native seed and talk about creating habitat. All that is good, but it is my belief that the turf, and especially any short cut turf, is expected to be free of weeds at most high end courses; no matter the cost in dollars or any potential for chemical problems. Make no mistake, in the vast majority of cases, if your playing a golf course free of all weeds your playing a course that has an extensive chemical program in place. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between and very dependent on the local growing conditions. (sand helps a lot) And since the high end courses pay their supers well, we as a group try and create conditions that help us move upward in our careers.
I really found what Steve had to say interesting. I’m at a public, one owner, golf course and my owner doesn’t care if there are a few weeds about. In fact he encourages me to let the edges transition into the native. So, some brown, ratty turf along the perimeter of the property is just fine with him. My golfers have never said a word to me about weeds. If the fairways are green and dry, the tees level and the greens smooth with good pace then everyone is happy. It’s when other supers or their crew members come and play that I hear about the patches of clover in the rough, or the dandelions in the bunker faces, or the small patches of chickweed in the fairways. They can’t understand at all why we aren’t out spending thousands of dollars keeping the place free of weeds and yet we get thousands of comment cards returned to us annually and weeds has never even been mentioned once!
I wonder sometimes just who we are conditioning our golf courses for.