Who Hates Bermuda

[Tom Naccarato]

Chris,
You need to read what I'm writing or maybe I'm not writing it completely. Does Bermuda belong at your golf course in those types of conditions? Maybe there would be a better turf grass for that situation? My condemnation is for those that think that golf is played on only one type of grass which suits their own game.

Also, I look upon a course being wet to be part of the natural challenge--if that's the conditions which present itself no different then when wind blows.

Last weekend we played in 30-40 MPH Santa Ana's, making the 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 13th holes a lesson in humility. It was great. I think it makes Rustic an even more interesting golf course because you know that your playing in conditions which aren't normal; Mother Nature is throwing it all at you thus the challenge. This is why by definition, Golf is a Sport and not a Game.

So are you telling me that when Mother Nature decides to dispense a few tears, that the challenge shouldn't be altered? Maybe it would be best to just stay in doors if one didn't like it?

[Gary Daughters]

I thought you meant the island.

I can't stand the place.

[Anthony Gray]

Getting back to Bermuda, well if any of you have any problems of playing on indifferent colored fairways, well then you really don't belong on this website. One of the greatest things is to see a course live in different suits throughout the year. When Bermuda turns gold, it is pure gold. Any surface that can produce consistent bounce and roll similar to that of the GREAT LINKS, it is good grass.

  Comparing dormat bermuda to THE GREAT LINKS  Is the end of the world as we know it!!!!!!!!


         Anthony

[Chris Cupit]

Chris,
You need to read what I'm writing or maybe I'm not writing it completely. Does Bermuda belong at your golf course in those types of conditions? Maybe there would be a better turf grass for that situation? My condemnation is for those that think that golf is played on only one type of grass which suits their own game.

Also, I look upon a course being wet to be part of the natural challenge--if that's the conditions which present itself no different then when wind blows.

Last weekend we played in 30-40 MPH Santa Ana's, making the 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 13th holes a lesson in humility. It was great. I think it makes Rustic an even more interesting golf course because you know that your playing in conditions which aren't normal; Mother Nature is throwing it all at you thus the challenge. This is why by definition, Golf is a Sport and not a Game.

So are you telling me that when Mother Nature decides to dispense a few tears, that the challenge shouldn't be altered? Maybe it would be best to just stay in doors if one didn't like it?

My fault--I agreed with what you said and I was only trying to point out that the normal wet spring sux in Atlanta.  I think Bermuda is the right grass although zoysia is now something to consider--still, it's a warm season grass as well that will have a dormancy period.  The tail end of teh dormancy period is obviously going to be the weakest time for the plant for golf purposes as well.

Your point is well taken that there is no perfect grass and the variety of great grasses throughout the country is awesome and hopefully, golfers can experience many different types of playing surfaces.  Arguabley, a more well-rounded golfer becomes adept at these different surfaces maybe in a way similar to a tennis player on different surfaces?

Spring in Atlanta is a tough time for anyone looking for any grass to be perfect and it's just a "yucky" time of year here--even the warm, toothless smile of Beuhlah at the local WH can't seem to stir my melancholy spirit that time of year

My notion of perfect is likely similar to yours as well.  Not asthetically but how good a surfaxce is it to play the ball down on.  Actually, full shots are not so hard but the chips and pitches around the green can be so rough that that aspect of the game can literally be lost here as everyone resorts to the old putter from off the green. 

Just send some of that California sun and wind down here beginning around February 1st!

[Tom Naccarato]

Chris,
Agreed! I'll ship that sunshine, but only if there is some grits--only Waffle House-approved grits with Beulah serving them--as part of the deal!

Anthony Gray, Maybe in other parts of the country, but in California, I think we should embrace Bermuda as the grass that gets us there. It takes less water and produces some very interesting quality turf to go with it. My point in example--when it is maintained as such is Stone Eagle. It plays magnificently this time of year. It's maintained on a level that most wouldn't know it was Bermuda when stepping on to it.

[Anthony Gray]

  Tom

  Thanks for your input and I am looking foward to meeting you at the Buda Cup. I realize the great need for a turf like bermuda in the southeast but this time of year it takes away from the golf experience here, In the local low-ball we never play it down this time of the year primerily because of the turf being dormate, even in the rough. It just does not seem like golf if you know what I mean.

   Anthony

[BCrosby]

    Bob,

  Thanks for you input. But there were plenty of golf courses in the southeast before bermuda was introduced.

  Let me ask this question. It is coming from a golfer not an educated player with turf knowlrdge. I believe with all the watering and possible the introduction of turfs like bermuda it has changed the game negativily. The old way when things got dry the course played differently where the bump and run was more important. Now because of watering and new turfs the weather factor has been minimized and taken use from our roots.

  Do you agree or not?
 

Anthony -

If there were plenty of golf courses in the SE before Bermuda was introduced, what kind of grass were they using? Or, in the alternative, when do you think Bermuda was introduced?

As to your second question, over-watering is not caused by Bermuda. Bermuda does quite well in dry conditions. No grass survives droughts as well. Its the grass of choice in dry areas for that reason.

The problem of over-watering is not Bermuda. It's that people insist that their Bermuda be kept lush and green.

Bob

[Anthony Gray]

    Bob,

  Thanks for you input. But there were plenty of golf courses in the southeast before bermuda was introduced.

  Let me ask this question. It is coming from a golfer not an educated player with turf knowlrdge. I believe with all the watering and possible the introduction of turfs like bermuda it has changed the game negativily. The old way when things got dry the course played differently where the bump and run was more important. Now because of watering and new turfs the weather factor has been minimized and taken use from our roots.

  Do you agree or not?
 

Anthony -

If there were plenty of golf courses in the SE before Bermuda was introduced, what kind of grass were they using? Or, in the alternative, when do you think Bermuda was introduced?

As to your second question, over-watering is not caused by Bermuda. Bermuda does quite well in dry conditions. No grass survives droughts as well. Its the grass of choice in dry areas for that reason.

The problem of over-watering is not Bermuda. It's that people insist that their Bermuda be kept lush and green.

Bob

   Bob,

 I am completely ignorate and uneducated to when bermuda was intrduced to the US. But do you think it changes the way we play the game.

  Thanks for your input.

  Anthony

[Mike Nuzzo]

Anthony,
There were bermuda long before anything else in the south.
It is a warm climate / season grass.

If you look at a map of the great courses of the world - most are in cool climate / season grass locations.

Bent was ported south because it was superior.
Today - good bermudas are better than over watered bent any day in a warm climate.

I didn't mention earlier....
I love playing on dormant bermuda properly maintained.

[Tom Naccarato]

Anthony, Just tilt the club face a little more forward and swing aggressively at it, no different then tackling a plate of Waffle House pancakes with a fork and no knife.

Actually that description is the best way to tackle Kikuyu, but I think it works just as good with Bermuda!

[Anthony Gray]

  Mike ,

  Thanks for your comments and knowledge. But my lawn still looks bad.

        Anthony

  Don't you like the good old days when weather ruled?

           Anthony


 

[Anthony Gray]

Anthony, Just tilt the club face a little more forward and swing aggressively at it, no different then tackling a plate of Waffle House pancakes with a fork and no knife.

Actually that description is the best way to tackle Kikuyu, but I think it works just as good with Bermuda!

  Tom,

   Thanks for the advice. The Kikuyu ate my playing partner up the last time at Pebble. I have great videos of it that I hope to put on youtube soon.

  Anthony

 

[Kenny Baer]

I think bermuda can be a very good surface but my expierence with it in the ATL is just okay. It never gets that firm and fast in the summer and in the winter it stays a little soggy. I think the future in the southeast is the kind of zoysia they have at the Creek club at reynolds. I don't know what it is like in the winter but this summer when I played it the fairways were rolling about 7.

[Anthony Gray]

I think bermuda can be a very good surface but my expierence with it in the ATL is just okay. It never gets that firm and fast in the summer and in the winter it stays a little soggy. I think the future in the southeast is the kind of zoysia they have at the Creek club at reynolds. I don't know what it is like in the winter but this summer when I played it the fairways were rolling about 7.

  Kenny,

  Thanks. I live in the Chattanooga area and relate to you completely.

   Anthony

[A.G._Crockett]

I think bermuda can be a very good surface but my expierence with it in the ATL is just okay. It never gets that firm and fast in the summer and in the winter it stays a little soggy. I think the future in the southeast is the kind of zoysia they have at the Creek club at reynolds. I don't know what it is like in the winter but this summer when I played it the fairways were rolling about 7.

Zoysia works at the Creek Club because they get very, very few rounds.  Zoysia doesn't grow fast enough to recover from divots and damage on a course that gets heavy play, and won't ever replace bermuda as the turf of choice in the South.  The most you'll see of it on high volume courses is around bunkers and greens because it is less intrusive.

[BCrosby]

Agreed, A.G. The other thing about zoysia (as East Lake found out), once you set fw widths with zoysia, you can't change them. That's because roughs are always going to be a different kind of grass. In the SE that means Bermuda.

Like it or not, Bermuda always has been and always will be the main turf grass in the SE.

Bob

[Kenny Baer]

I think bermuda can be a very good surface but my expierence with it in the ATL is just okay. It never gets that firm and fast in the summer and in the winter it stays a little soggy. I think the future in the southeast is the kind of zoysia they have at the Creek club at reynolds. I don't know what it is like in the winter but this summer when I played it the fairways were rolling about 7.

Zoysia works at the Creek Club because they get very, very few rounds.  Zoysia doesn't grow fast enough to recover from divots and damage on a course that gets heavy play, and won't ever replace bermuda as the turf of choice in the South.  The most you'll see of it on high volume courses is around bunkers and greens because it is less intrusive.

Even the new kind of zoysia?  (Whatever it is...I think Diamond)  It was just so much different than any other zoysia that I had played on previously; literally night/day compared to the old school stuff.

I have no idea I am just asking.

[Anthony Gray]

   It appears that it may be a money issue?

     Anthony

[Chris Cupit]

I think bermuda can be a very good surface but my expierence with it in the ATL is just okay. It never gets that firm and fast in the summer and in the winter it stays a little soggy. I think the future in the southeast is the kind of zoysia they have at the Creek club at reynolds. I don't know what it is like in the winter but this summer when I played it the fairways were rolling about 7.

Zoysia works at the Creek Club because they get very, very few rounds.  Zoysia doesn't grow fast enough to recover from divots and damage on a course that gets heavy play, and won't ever replace bermuda as the turf of choice in the South.  The most you'll see of it on high volume courses is around bunkers and greens because it is less intrusive.

Even the new kind of zoysia?  (Whatever it is...I think Diamond)  It was just so much different than any other zoysia that I had played on previously; literally night/day compared to the old school stuff.

I have no idea I am just asking.

Ken,

My experience is that the diamond zoysia has held up very well on a highly trafficked course--much to my pleasant surprise.  I re-did my course and did all diamond zoysia tee boxes.  On my par threes I had bermuda that required re-sodding at the end of every summer   The diamond is slower growing but it is much harder to create a divot in the first place versus the bermuda!  Often the "divot" is a very thin sliver unlike a big chunk of turf that could come out of the old bermuda tees.

I have spoken with David Stone at the Honors a lot about zoysias as well as my own super (Mark Hoban).  Interestingly, neither thinks diamond is the best new zoysia for a fairway application in Atlanta but I think you will see more and more clubs go to zoysia when possible.  It is more expensive than bermuda--must be sodded pretty much (or sprigged) versus seeding/sprigging of bermuda and the  zoysia sod is more expensive than bermuda sod. It is so pricy I installed a zoysia nursery to avoid having to buy and pay for delivery charges of zoysia.



My course did 37,000 rounds last year and the tees on the par threes held up very well. 

[Paul Jones]

I like bermuda - it is the grain that I do not like.

Paul

[Anthony_Nysse]

The Creek Club has Zeon on the fwys.

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

[Kenny Baer]

Thank you for the great information; that is what I was looking for.

[Anthony Gray]

  Kenny,

  There has never been a major in Bermuda......I think.......Look foward to seeing you at Holston Hills.

    Anthony

[Chuck Brown]

As a lifelong northerner, I have a real curiosity about Bermuda grass.  I actually like it better than the grasses (kikuyu, etc.) that I have seen in Southern California.  Agronomy-wise, Torrey Pines is a mess in my view.  Riviera less so.

My experience in the southeast is that Bermuda is a much more consistent surface, and dormant or not, I kind of like it.

It always seemed to me, for some odd reason, that the good local ams in the southeast played Pings, or other irons with a sharp leading edge and some moderate bounce.  Anybody else have the same impression?  Is it the downward angle of attack that is that important?

[Anthony_Nysse]

Anthony,
  The 1969 US Open was played at Champions, down in houston-quite possibly bermudagrass greens.
 
The PGA Championship in 1987 - was at PGA National, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

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