Is Tall Fescue Overdone?

[Jim Sweeney]

I played a golf course on Sunday that has wide playing corridors and dense tall fescue on virtually every hole. All of the 16 players in our game are single digit handicaps. It took five+ hours to play with numerous searches for balls lost in the fescue.

Another course I play has recently introduced fescue in many areas which one would think are out of play. I successfully convinced them to cut back the fesue in other areas. Yet ball searches and unsuccessful attempts too hack out of it still increase round times and decrease golfing pleasure.

Yet a third course in my area was designed with many fescue areas. After a recent change in superintendants, most of the fescue, except in out of play areas, was cut down. While the look suffered, players are much happier, and the course has decreased round times and increased the number of rounds.

It seems like every new course features lots of pretty fescue, but has it been overdone? Long searches and lost balls do not add to the fun of the game. Im many areas, such as the Ohio Valley where I live, does using tall fescue make sense from a naturalistic, use of indigenous plants point of view?

[Andrew Summerell]

We have had the same problem in Australia with a few new courses. In the end, I think heavy or tall rough is over done on many new courses, and some older one. For standard play, the rough needs to be kept at a playable level. When I’ve been in America, it has surprised me how many courses have rough growing right up to the fringe of the green. I know this is popular for tournament golf, especially the US Open & PGA, but for every day golf it’s just ludicrous.

[Chris Tritabaugh]

Just to clarify; tall fescue is a species of turf.  What I believe you are talking about are fine fescues not being mowed.  There are three important factors involved in keeping unmowed fine fescues playable.  Lack of fertilizer, lack of water, and species selection.  Too much fertilizer or water and you end up with the fescue laying over the top of itself and creating an unplayable mess.  Unmowed fine fescue areas should also have high percentages of sheep, and hard fecue and stay away from chewings and creeping red fescue.  The later two tend to become too dense.  If properly maintained unmowed fine fescue looks great, is playable and is not difficult to find your ball.

Hope this helps.

[Wayne_Freedman]

It seems to have become a fad, lately, particularly around bunkers.


"Hey, my fescue is longer than your fescue."

"So??? My fescue is thicker."

"Yeah??? Well my fescue catches more balls.

"So what. It takes more whacks to get out of mine."

"Big deal. I'm into quality, not quantity."

"Well, then fesk your fescue."

"Feskuself..."

[Jon Wiggett]

One of the problems that many courses (new) have is this need to have an instant finished product. If seeded in low enough amounts (5g/m2) no watering and no fertiliser and let to grow in over 4 to 5 years it will provide an attractive low maintenance sward for the rough. As Chris says selecting the right sorts is crucial.

[John_Conley]

It took five+ hours to play with numerous searches for balls lost in the fescue.

Jim, this is related to yesterday's thread about slow play.  I was told I am very slow because I've played in a group that took 4:30 for 18 holes.  Your experience matches mine.  If you wanted us to play in 3:45 you shouldn't have built a course so demanding.  If you play by the rules and try to post a good score it can take a long, long time when you add in looking for balls. 

One good thing about fescue is that it can be cut back.  Lakes are harder to modify.

[Rich Goodale]

In GCA fashion terms, fescue is "the new black."  IMO it looks stupid when introduced to areas where it is not native, and its "playability" in those areas is nil.

[Steve Kline]

I agree with Rich. I live in SW Ohio and my course has a ton of it. It is always super thick and almost impossible to find your ball except in March and maybe April before it has really started growing. The probably didn't plant the right kind, it rains way too much in the spring, the maintenance staff doesn't have a clue how to manage it nor does it care, and MASSIVE weeds are growing everyone in it this year. IT's so bad and obviously the members dislike since virtually the time the club has opened there has been a local rule to play those areas as a water hazard. With that rule we have more water hazards than any course in Florida could dream of. They have cut back a few areas over the years but it is still way too much. The only year the stuff was playable was last year when we had a severe drought with high heat - that kept the stuff thin and playable.

[Mike Sweeney]

I played the Matt Ward highly rated public Hudson Hills for the first time a week or two ago in Westchester County. Architect had a bad piece of property so there were many blind shots off the tee where you could not see the landing areas which were often US Open width due to the terrain. So to make it look cool we then put in high thick fescue.

What a shocker, it was slow to play. I left when we had a 2 group backup on  #16.

I magine that this look is expensive to maintain, but Wayne had a good post on Hidden Creek's fescue earlier in the year. It is very wispy and not dense.

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=618b2376e3d291ab21ad825a6d8659cb&topic=34663.0

[Jim Thompson]

Tall  fescue is not overdone.  Sadly, however, it is often overwatered, overfertilized, and overgrown!  Worse yet is the blue fescue mix used when seeding that is planned to be fescue then watered with blue in the mix;  awful result.

[Scott_Burroughs]

From Bill Coore's mouth, the reason that Hidden Creek (and others) are playable in the 'tall stuff' is that they supposedly seed it at 1/6th the normal rate.  That means 83% less grass=83% more space to find things (not to mention a savings in price and perhaps easier to maintain?).  The Warren Course is also quite easy to find balls in the tall stuff.

This idea needs to get around.  Make it a section at the Superintendents part of the annual golf industry show, or whatever it's called now.

My new home club recently mowed down the thick stuff.  So much for that Audubon Society certification!

[Adam Clayman]

Similar mistakes in execution with regards to minimalist architecture are also popping up all over the place.

[David Stamm]

"The lost ball feature of rough is an ever present evil."- George Thomas

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

All tall grass is not fescue. I think the question needs to be Is Tall Grass Overdone?

Fescue works well in places like Scotland because of the sandy soil and rain fall amounts. Put it in an area with lots of rainfall and it thrives and becomes too thick whether it is fertilized or not.

Anthony

[Phil Benedict]

Jim,

My course has gone nuts with fescue.  The super says he wants it to be a half-stroke penalty but it's really a lost ball hazard in most cases.  The fescue areas have been sprayed with the intent of killing the other grasses and weeds.  Supposedly this will result in a whispier grass.  Right now it's dense and way too close to the playing corridors.  It's worse than lateral water hazards.

[RJ_Daley]

I agree with a number of folks above that fescue that gets thick and unplayable is usually not wispy and sparsely seeded fine fescue, but other mixes of heavy on the blues or other native thick grasses.  Like any other feature of golf course design, there are appropriate and inappropriate places to do things.  Heavy soils and frequent rain, even mid golf season rain likely climates won't be a great place to have native areas with heavy blues or other grassy weeds. 

The look of native areas is wonderful, and great for birds and small animals.  But, the on-going maintenance challenge of native grasses and areas is a field that I don't think the GCSAA or turf experts pay enough attention to.  Burning is a well accepted management practice of tall grass prairie, yet permits to do so are not available in most locales.  And, plant diversity in these native areas is naturally kept in balance with grazing.  How many courses have a herd of bison to put out there to help maintain?  Even our darling course Lawsonia gets way too lush and impossible to find balls or hit one out of without risking hand-wrist injury.  Yes, wider fairways are in order, but even wide fairways are  missed, even by the likes of Phil and Tiger when they hit the wild one. 

[John Mayhugh]

Similar mistakes in execution with regards to minimalist architecture are also popping up all over the place.

Well said.  Tall grass seems like a quick & easy way to look more natural & cut maintenance costs.  But too many places are using it without considering the effect on playability. 

[RJ_Daley]

Agreed, John.  I wonder how many architects are spec'ing the native areas without a solid understanding of the nature of the native prairie seed they are putting down, or the multi-year progression of the maturing of those areas, without knowing what practices are available for the super to maintain it, i.e. the burning question, or what chems and cultural practices can be utilized.

[Yannick Pilon]

I beleive that fescues (or I prefer the term native grasses) are not overused, they should be used even more to reduce the astronomical amount of kentucky bluegrass that is maintained over too many courses.

That being said, I think the fescues are often implemented and maintained in a way that makes them too dense, so it becomes difficult to find balls and play out them.

Properly seeded fescues or native grasses are good for the game, and the environment.

YP

[RJ_Daley]

Yannick, do you think that native areas are inappropriate on certain parkland northern courses or even warm season turf areas?

Personally, I think they are inappropriate to some course designs.  My home course here in GB Wis. for instance.  It is a lovely parkland course, yet native grass areas just isn't a fit.  Our rough areas are rotary deck mowed around not so dense of wooded off FW areas, where the penalty is a jail escape punch out, shaped or whatever, but with a turf of blue grass mowed to a height that most balls can be found readily.  

IMHO, Erin Hills may be a course that too much dense native is in deed native prairie, but too much of it.  And, I have no good idea how that can be mitigated, given that particular course design, where is is appropriate and native, yet a pace killer and unplayable in many areas.  

There just doesn't appear to be a good rule of thumb of where native is good, or overdone, or mis-specified by the archie, IMHO.

[Criss Titschinger]

I agree with Rich. I live in SW Ohio and my course has a ton of it. It is always super thick and almost impossible to find your ball except in March and maybe April before it has really started growing. The probably didn't plant the right kind, it rains way too much in the spring, the maintenance staff doesn't have a clue how to manage it nor does it care, and MASSIVE weeds are growing everyone in it this year. IT's so bad and obviously the members dislike since virtually the time the club has opened there has been a local rule to play those areas as a water hazard. With that rule we have more water hazards than any course in Florida could dream of. They have cut back a few areas over the years but it is still way too much. The only year the stuff was playable was last year when we had a severe drought with high heat - that kept the stuff thin and playable.

To tag on this post about SW Ohio, I know Elks Run and it appeared that Grand Vic cut back their fescue in the last couple years to increase PoP.  I'm not sure if Elks brought it back for the Cincy Met Championship though.

I've seen a number of courses treat it as a lateral or water hazard on the scorecard.  Some members of my traveling club w/o real estate get very upset when it's treated as such and not as a lost ball (stroke AND distance).

Is this decision to add this grass usually an Architect's decision or the Club's?

[JLahrman]

Elks Run in Batavia?  I was just out there the other day, and there was a lot of fescue/tall grass/whatever we want to call it.

I usually play Weatherwax, they have a lot of it too.

I don't mind it, once you start cutting it down you're driving up maintenance costs.  And maybe it is seeded too thickly.  My question is...why look for the balls?  With as high as that stuff is this time of year, just retee.  The ball is gone.

[Jim Sweeney]

Stebe Kline and JAL:

It was indeed Elks Run that I played last Sunday and which prompted my question. I too had understood that the high rough had been mowed back after the change in ownership last year, but if it had been it was nowhere near what I had in mind. In fact, I did not see any difference from last year. No chance it was regrown just for the Met championship.

I appreciate the comments about the the difference between tall fescue and unmaintained grasses; in fact, I was hoping someone could clear that up for me because one hears the terms used interchangeably when clearly they should not be. Another misused word for the same condition, I believe is "heather." Maybe someone can clear that up, too.

Phil Benedict's post about tall grass at his home club is a perfect example of what I was thinking about with my original post. I grew up playing that course. I cannot remember, from the early '60s to the late '70s, any tall grass on the course. It is in central Connecticut, on heavy clay soil, with many hard to drain areas. It just doesn't seen to make sense from any number of perspectives. But it is the current fashion, isn't it?

[Greg Chambers]

I'll give you two perspectives from which these areas do make sense--environmentally, and economically.  These areas which once may have been maintained turf no longer are, thus saving cost of mowing, labor, water, fertilizer, pesticides, the list goes on.  These areas may now also be home to any number of flora and or fauna.  The mistake that is made is when these "out of play areas" are converted from turf to call it native areas for lack of better term, yet these areas are indeed in play.  Care must be taken when making these decisions.

[Chris Tritabaugh]

The savings these areas provide are somewhat over stated.  Is there less financial and environment impact than maintained rough?  Probably, but maintaining the type of native/fine fescues areas golfer want can be challenging requiring a good deal of labor and chemical control to keep out non-desirable.

The soils at Northland are heavy clay.  In some areas the fine fescues thrive in other areas they do not.  A number of years ago (well before my time) a decision was made to allow much of the formerly mowed rough to grow up at Northland.  Some of the areas are gorgeous and others are a nightmare.  Here are some pictures I took out on our course last summer.   

The first picture is an example of a nightmare.  If your ball goes in here you are not going to find it and if you do find you will not be able to play it.  This area gets a lot of run off from the fairway and remains fairly wet for most of the spring and early summer.   

The following four photos show excellent unmowed native fine fescue.  These grasses have probably been here since the course was built.  These areas do not get water and keeping these areas free of weeds is not too difficult.  More than likely this area has never or very rarely seen fertilizer.  The maintenance in this area is a fall mowing and some spot spraying for weeds every couple of years. 



The next two photos show what your ball looks like in one of these areas.  Findable and playable.