Oakmonts Greens

[Matthew Hunt]

I was reading a bit about Oakmont’s compelling greens and how unconventional they are with only 18 inches of 'organic material' before clay and the fact that they actively encourage a unique strain of Poa Annua to grow. So questions if anyone can answer.

How fast are they for the US Open/Members play?

What cut height is used and how many times are the greens cut?

Could another course ‘steal’ some of their Poa Annua and cultivate it for use on their greens?

From my knowledge of grass would a single ‘strain’ of Poa Annua grass not be very susceptible to disease?

Do Oakmont’s greens play too fast for their design intent?

For the Architects, would you build greens along Oakmont’s template?

[Phil Benedict]

Matthew,

I have no answers but think these are great questions.

[archie_struthers]

 

Matthew...if possible could you post the article regardng the greens and the composition of the soils. As one who has marvelled over the health of same, and the quality of the greens, it would be interesting reading.
 
thank you

"archie"

[SL_Solow]

I am not a greenkeeper but I work with a very experienced one and interface with agronomists through the Chicago District Golf Association and the USGA.  I have been informed that poa can adapt/mutate to fit specific environments.  This is supposed to be the explanation for Oakmont's poa greens.  I am also told that it does not do very well if transplanted.  There have been efforts to breed poa which can be seeded and produce similar characteristics but they have yet to develop a commercially usable product.

As an aside, the 15th green at my home course, Briarwood, has its own microenvironment and a strain of poa, unique to that green, has developed which is very smoothand tight and can be mowed very closely.

[PThomas]

they slow them down for the pros Matt!

[Bill_McBride]

Poa annua can be a curse or a blessing!  At Pebble Beach and some other top West Coast courses, and at Oakmont, the poa annua is the basic grass of the putting surfaces.   At more courses than you can mention, it is a weed that stops bothering you once it's too hot to grow in the summer.  During the spring, it's a nuisance.  In the warm late spring, it grows into little cauliflowers during the day and drives you nuts.

I think they are pretty lucky and happy too at Pebble and Oakmont.  I know it doesn't get consistently warm enough to kill the poa at Pebble, but I'm surprised to learn that Oakmont in Pittsburgh is that cool.  Maybe it's a unique strain of poa annua!

[Tom_Doak]

Bill M:

Poa annua is an ANNUAL plant.  It wants to die every summer from heat stress, but all those little seedheads are coming up in the spring to replace the grass that will die in the summer.  Each year of seedheads is produced by the plants that survived the stresses of the year before ... so the community is constantly becoming stronger through evolution.  (My apologies to anybody out there who's a creationist; for you guys, just consider these greens to be God's magic.)

The greens at Oakmont are a community of Poa annua plants that have evolved over 100+ years and have adapted to the unique stresses of being mowed super-tight, of the local climate, and of being watered infrequently.  They're as tough as nails.  Lots of great golf courses (Merion, Oak Hill, Pine Valley, National, Shinnecock, etc.) used to have similarly evolved plant communities on their greens, before it became common to rebuild / regrass them about 15-20 years ago.

Once you rebuild the greens you are starting over with "new" poa that hasn't adapted to heat stress or drought stress ... Poa that is much more likely to die on you in a bad summer.

[Matthew Hunt]

Archie, I read on an online version of an industry magizine a number of weeks ago but can't find it via google. Is it only courses in temperate climates that Poa Annua is succesful in?

Tom, is there not a fear at Oakmont that the greens could just die because Poa Annua is prone to disease? Oakmonts greens could offer the conclusion to the evolution debate, I should write about them in my Biology and Religion exams!

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom Doak's post above is an excellent argument against rebuilding aged greens. Very interesting.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Each year of seedheads is produced by the plants that survived the stresses of the year before ... so the community is constantly becoming stronger through evolution.  (My apologies to anybody out there who's a creationist; for you guys, just consider these greens to be God's magic.)

Tom

Must everything in this world have a caveat for a "politically correct" alternative to the truth?  At least put a   or two after your statement.  If the creationists want to live in the dark ages where knowledge and scientific method results in being burned at the stake then let them live in their fantasyland.  Pimping their alternative truth only helps to set back education. (I know you were making a joke but I can never stand seeing creationism given even a joking mention)
 
Thank you for listening  

PS- I've you're currently looking at a job in Kansas then I understand  

[Geoffrey Childs]

Tom Doak's post above is an excellent argument against rebuilding aged greens. Very interesting.

I agree. And very true.

[Ryan Farrow]

I was reading a bit about Oakmont’s compelling greens and how unconventional they are with only 18 inches of 'organic material' before clay and the fact that they actively encourage a unique strain of Poa Annua to grow. So questions if anyone can answer.

How fast are they for the US Open/Members play?

Faster for Member play, slower for US Open play, go figure. The only reason to slow them down for the big boys is to open up more difficult pin positions that would not be fair when they are running at 14.5 on the stimp.

What cut height is used and how many times are the greens cut?

Cut height, don't know if i ever looked, or cared. On a typical day, 3-4 times in the morning, usually 3 hand mows and a triplex cut.


Could another course ‘steal’ some of their Poa Annua and cultivate it for use on their greens?

I would think their neighbors at Oakmont East could. It would be an interesting experiment.


From my knowledge of grass would a single ‘strain’ of Poa Annua grass not be very susceptible to disease?

I don't know.


Do Oakmont’s greens play too fast for their design intent?

If anything, faster speeds strengthen the design intent.


For the Architects, would you build greens along Oakmont’s template?

I don't know if there really is a template that you could place Oakmont's greens into, some greens are very subtle (visually), but extremely severe like 1 and 10, others like 9 and 18 are on the crazy side.

[Tom_Doak]

Geoffrey:

I've been rewriting my web site this week and I actually thought about using the phrase "intelligent design" but unfortunately it has been ruined for everyone now.  

Jeff:

Interestingly, some of these courses when they are rebuilding greens have decided to re-seed them with seed collected from the old greens.  At Royal Melbourne, they made the mistake of going to Penncross 25 years ago but only on the Composite course, so when they decided they had made a mistake they just collected seeds off the other greens and grew a turf nursery from that and then resodded.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Geoffrey:

I've been rewriting my web site this week and I actually thought about using the phrase "intelligent design" but unfortunately it has been ruined for everyone now.  

Tom - I think you should use "intelligent design" as a catch phrase on your website.  It's the ONLY reasonable use for such a term that I have read so far. Maybe it will catch on in golf architecture as its other uses are reasoned away with truth.

As an aside a friend of mine grew up at Merion as his dad was a member for 25 years and he worked there too. He swears that the old German Bent they got rid of was as smooth, fast and velvety as any greens he has ever seen and far better then the current modern grasses used there.

[Brendan Dolan]

Ryan,

Do they roll the greens at all?  Is mowing them three or four times a daily practice?  Is there a reason for mowing them this many times?

Thanks,
Brendan  

[John Foley]

How old is the grass on these greens?

When was the last time Oakmont completely redid their greens?

[Mike_Cirba]

Like I said on the Cobb's Creek thread, I have yet to see any positive good coming from replacing a push-up green with a USGA green as far as playability and conditioning, that wasn't coupled with variables such as new irrigation, tree removal, or past neglect.

No, scratch that.   I've yet to see an improvement in any case I'm familiar with.

Perhaps someone can name one?

[Ryan Farrow]

Brendan, yes they roll their greens. Yes 3-4 is daily practice, Yes its probably the only way to get the speeds that high.

John, my understanding is the greens have never been touched aside from the installation of a drainage system a few years ago. I guess that kind of blows to pieces the ASGCA life cycle chart that has push up greens lasting what, 10 years? And Oakmont is going strong at well over 100 years, figure that one out for me.

[Anthony_Nysse]

This should answer alot of questions.

http://top.osu.edu/aboutus/magazines/articles/Mean%20Greens.pdf

In this internship report, it talks about mowing greens daily 2x with a triplex, 2-3x with walkers and 2x rolling. Greens mowers set @.086.

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX

[Ryan Farrow]

Anthony, was just about to post that link, someone started a thread about the article almost a year ago, its really informative and should answer everyones questions.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
While Poa annua is generally an annual grass given its name, there are certainly perennial strains out there. I think it is rather doubtful that every plant in every Poa green dies every summer and is replaced by a totally new plant. I would think most Poa greens, being watered in summer, effectively are given life support through their naturally stressful time and keep on going. However, Poa is very susceptible to fungal attack in hot and humid weather and needs preventative fungicides applied through these periods from my experience with Poa here in Adelaide.

If design is not intelligent by definition, then is just plain design unintelligent without the prefix? I'm like Geoffrey - don't give the creationists an even break!

At Royal Melbourne, the greens were originally planted with Sutton's Mix, which as the name implies was a mix of different bentgrasses and fescues. It was interesting to see how the different grasses over many years tended to colonise different parts of the greens, some might like more shady areas, some might adapt better to slight hollows with extra moisture, others might like the slopier parts. What a travesty that Penncross ever saw the light of day at RM.

cheers Neil

[Jeff_Mingay]

I'm not a turf guy, but the way I see it, monoculture on a green surface is impossible to sustain over time. Thus, it's not as much about grass type as it is about the turf manager.

Rebuilding and re-seeding greens in an attempt to improve the quality of the putting surface is usually a futile effort, isn't it?

[Joe Bausch]

Somebody ought to send this article with a wink to the super at Oakmont:

Fully assess your course’s Poa annua infestation before considering methods for attacking it.

http://www.golfcoursenews.com/news/news.asp?ID=3792

[JohnV]

Fortunately evolution works both ways.  Just as bugs evolve, so do people and grasses.  Over 100 years, Oakmont's strain of grass has probably seen almost every type of disease pass through.  The plants that survived probably have developed resistance to these diseases and as such are less likely to be affected than newly planted greens.

That and the daily, loving care of dedicated people like John Zimmers.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any grass actully cut on the last pass with the mowers at Oakmont or if it is just another rolling pass.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Joe,
  John Zimmers knows what he's doing and you'd be hard pressed to find a more intense superintendent who got it and even thrived on the pressure. Keep in mind that the POA at Oakmont is very unique. Penn State has tried to cultivate it and it is just so adapt to the micro climate at Oakmont. It's almost like a dwarf poa.

Tony Nysse
Asst. SUpt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth