Money Can't Buy Love? (Or save greens?) Preston Trail?

[Mike Demetriou]

I heard from a good source that Preston Trail, in Dallas, shut down quite recently due to excessive heat. My source said that they "lost their greens". Can anyone confirm? This is interesting to me because I had assumed (quite ignorantly I think) that armed with a massive budget, that heat/humidity could be overcome, or at least kept at bay by a Super. Is this untrue? Of course nothing can defend a hurricane, tornado, Tstorm etc, but I've been under the impression that money can overcome severe heat. (that is not to say it SHOULD, but I'm just asking as a technical matter...)

I've never played PT, but I'm told that their course conditions are nearly always impeccable, and so this is particularly surprising.

[Randy Thompson]

Sorry to hear that!

[Anthony_Nysse]

Alan Houdek, Golf Course Superintendent, is one of the longest standing, premier, bentgrass growers in the south. I’d be shocked if it’s human error.
  There are A LOT of courses in the DFW area that are hurt, playing on temp greens or closing for a period of time. Yesterday, the nigh was 109 with an index of 124. It’s going to be hard to keep bent alive, period.

[Shannon Wheeler]

Unless you have tried to grow bentgrass in an area of the coutry where bentgrass does not want to be grown three months out of the year it is not right to assume that human error was involved.  If you are not a member of the club in question, much less on the green's committee, rumors are just that.

[Joe Grasty]

Dallas has been unusually hot this summer.  And this followed an unusually cold winter (we had 3, count 'em, 3 snowfalls this year).

I've not played the high end courses that have bent greens (Colonial, Preston Trail), but I have played Castle Hills and Stonebridge Ranch (Dye) over the last few years, and the bent greens on those courses never seem to be as good as the bermuda greens at a good muni course like Indian Creek or Grapevine.

If you need fans to keep the greens alive, then I think you need to rethink what you grow on the greens.

[mike_beene]

I much prefer bent over Bermuda in Dallas.The newer strains still play pretty nicely in the August heat and are much better for ten months of the year.Besides,the fans are a life saver for those dumb enough to play in August.Cold front will bring high in mid 90s later this week.As Bob Seeger said:" with autumn closing in"

[Randy Thompson]

Alan Houdek, Golf Course Superintendent, is one of the longest standing, premier, bentgrass growers in the south. I’d be shocked if it’s human error.
  There are A LOT of courses in the DFW area that are hurt, playing on temp greens or closing for a period of time. Yesterday, the nigh was 109 with an index of 124. It’s going to be hard to keep bent alive, period.

Tony
Yes, Alan is an excellent superintendent, so for you its the heat

[Anthony_Nysse]

Randy,
  I do not mean to come off rude, but if you do not know anything intimate about the situation at PT, do not comment. We all know how rumors get started, especially on this website. We've seen rumors already abou tthis course and that course. Call the Supt directy and get the report straight from the horses mouse. With the faith that the membership has always had in Alan, Im sure that his wasnt taking orders from anyone regarding height or speed of the new greens.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I too have heard many clubs in north Texas have lost greens this summer. I do not know about PT though. I cannot blame the super if the club really thought bent would work in that area. Of course if he did the totally dumb and say i would love fo you guys to have me take care of that type of grass. This has been a very hot summer but most are too hot for bent even with the fans.

[Randy Thompson]

Randy,
  I do not mean to come off rude, but if you do not know anything intimate about the situation at PT, do not comment. We all know how rumors get started, especially on this website. We've seen rumors already abou tthis course and that course. Call the Supt directy and get the report straight from the horses mouse. With the faith that the membership has always had in Alan, Im sure that his wasnt taking orders from anyone regarding height or speed of the new greens.

To all,
 I have no idea what happened in Preston  Like previously mentioned, Alan is an excellent superintendent and I would be surprized if he made any mistakes and have not directly or indirectly implied such as Antony seems to feel I have!

[Anthony_Nysse]

DFW knows no humidity. Yesterday, it was 109 degree with an index of 124 and the humidity was 18%. Randy, yes I took it as you were pointing a finger at Alan, and after re reading it again, I still think that. I guess I'm a little more touchy because I am familiar with what it happening in DFW. I was just there last year.

[Randy Thompson]

Tony,
Well than, I am glad that I clarrified that was not the case in two different responses!

[Anthony_Nysse]

Its not worth it.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Randy,

Alan is an excellent super.  PT members have high demands.  I interviewed for the reno job that Tripp Davis did and the theme was to make conditions "perfect" which I expressed some astonishment at, because from outward appearances conditions were in the 99% range already!

But, that is not my point.  I am sort of appalled at the idea of supers and "human error."  In reality, isn't almost any decision they make regarding turf an "educated guess" as to what might happen with the weather next?  Any particular decision made presuming that the north Texas weather will behave in a "normal" way can result in problems, because they can't control the weather.

It is quite probable in this difficult summer in many parts of the nation that many superintendents have made the correct educated guess about what to do, and it turned out to be an incorrect decision because the extreme weather didn't cooperate, and thus made the super/club pay.

To start with, many courses in DFW are struggling in this weather.  In 1984 (my first year here) many supers got fired after and icy winter and lots of turf loss.  The members thought they "put out the wrong chemicals."  When I tried to explain that if that was the case, we wouldn't be seeing dead grass on nearly every other course, too, it fell on deaf ears.  Nope, their super was incompetent and had made "human error." 

I side with Anthony - your post has shades of this attitude in it, without knowing the details and postulating some plainly wrong info.  Knowing how tough this summer has been for supers everywhere, this is insensitive at best, and close to slanderous at worst.  I suggest we all keep our critiques to our least fave architects here....including me if you want to!

[SL_Solow]

Candidly, I don't like this thread or others of a similar bent.  I know Mike meant no harm, he asks great questions.  I take at face value everyone's statements that they were not pointing fingers.  I also recognize that no one, not even a greenkeeper, is immune from scrutiny.  But after almost 20 years of working with greenkeepers from the consumers side as a greens committee chair etc, I believe that it takes specific knowledge to comment on any individual course.  The variables are too great to generalize.  Moreover, given that every member is an "expert", rumors start and the greenkeeper can be defenseless while he still must take care of his course.  So we really need to be careful with threads like this.

To answer the question, not even a big budget can solve some situations.  Mother nature is a very powerful force.

[Mike Demetriou]

Shelly,
agreed. I wish there was a way to remove the thread. Hard to look back and prophesy that a question about how greens are maintained in extreme conditions (something that must be considered when designing a course no doubt), would devolve into a discussion about whether or not an individual, who by all accounts sounds like a tremendous person, was to blame.

I regret the thread, and I think I'll go back to watching on the sidelines for another couple of years while people argue esoterica.  I wouldn't be offended in the least if the thread attacked me, for sticking my neck out, but this Supt.? What did he do???

What a shame.

[Randy Thompson]

Whats happening here unfortunately is everybody seems to be reading to much into the thread and especially into my comments. I never attacked the superintendent or placed blame on him. My sole point was bentgrass has surrvied North Texas summers for more than seventy years and will continue to do so in the future in many siettings. I have no inclination of what has happened at this particular club. It is very possible they have closed for protecting from any possible future damage and have no damage at all, just like Augusta does every summer. My comments were never meant to be so controversy or damging to any individual, that is not my style but obviously they were not clear and left room for other interputations and therefore I will go back and eliminate them.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Randy,

Not sure bent grass has really thrived in N Texas for 70 years.  Yeah, Colonial has had them since then. I don't recall them ever losing their greens but I bet they have, or at least had years when they struggled.

As noted, I got here in 1984, and nearly all greens in town were Bermuda.  After a killing freeze that year (following a similar one in 1980, I think) many started to think it was easier to baby bent for three months than risk the winter kill again, and also to avoid overseeding, so more widespread bent wasn't common until then.

Almost immediately, most places saw the problems on the other side - bent needs a life support system, not a root zone here.  Texas A & M and others were busy developing both heat tolerant bents AND better putting bermuda grasses, some of which had more cold tolerance.  Somehow, the idea of green covers had never caught on down here, but they became popular for those with Bermuda greens in the last decade or so.

There is the perception that bent, when good, putts better but at a senior event in Austin at that time, the PG was Champions and the course had suffering greens in bent.  When the pros couldn't tell the difference in turf type on the putting green and course, perhaps the tide shifted back to bermuda a bit.

Again, short version is that to say been greens have survived for 70 years is a bit misleading and understates the struggles supers have had with it, and ignores that many courses have lost bent greens over the years here, or members have played in severely over watered, fanned, bent greens just to say they are putting on bent.

That said, the tone of this thread and responses is unfortunate.  But, what else is new on gca.com?

[Randy Thompson]

Jeff,
Likje previously stated, everybody reads what they wanna read and come to conclusions that are not there and that is the biggest problerm IMO. I say bentgrass has survived for seventy or more years in DFW and you start out by saying, not sure if bent has really THRIVED for seventy years! A huge difference between thrived and survived. Most of the top prestigious clubs were bent in the early 80´s. Not a hsitory buff but courses like Shady Oaks, Preston trails, Dallas Country Club, Bentree, Colonial all have had bent for years, how many, forty, fifty, sixty, i don´t know but many years and Colonial 80, I beleive and I doubt there are more difficult settings in the DFW area for bentgrass than Colonial. What was the course in north Dallas that had an open fifty or so years ago, Northwood or something like that. That was the first course I played with bent int he DFW area. Its a difficult area to grow any kind of grass, winters are brutal with lots of winter kill on the Bermuda´s and the long hot summers test the limiits of the bent.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Randy,

In my second to last paragraph I changed that to survives, and simply noted that surviving doesn't imply some clubs losing greens (if only temporarily) never happened, and undersates the annual mighty  struggle occurring in most other summers.

But the details don't matter as much as the general idea that I happen to believe its just way to easy to call out a super.  Or put another way, my answer to your specific question:

I had assumed (quite ignorantly I think) that armed with a massive budget, that heat/humidity could be overcome, or at least kept at bay by a Super. Is this untrue?

The answer is sometimes, yes, that is untrue, at least in DFW.

[Randy Thompson]

Jeff,
Your answer to my specific question is not my question at all but of the person that started the thread! I agree unlimited budgets will not always allow bent to survive or thrive in all areas and a good super helps but is no guarantee either. So many factors are at work here to consider. An important factor is the height of cut, thirty five years ago everybody was cutting at a quarter an inch and higher and there was no stempmeter or at least it was not a common instrument. A lot of the new bents are super dense which means more plants and more competition betweens the plants and less healthier plants and less roots in times of stress, not ideal for long hot North Texas summers. So it becomes a roll of the dice because the Bermuda has plenty of draw backs unless the blankets have completly eliminated any winter kill  in the area and dormant greens can support high golfing traffic throughout the winter without effecting the waking up process in the spring. Overseeding is a roll of the dice also and almost guarantees two months of below standard putting greens.

[Scott Furlong]

I do not know Alan but I know what happened and Alan could not have prevented it…………..IT WAS NOT HUMAN ERROR.       

Randy, you are way in front of your headlights and until you understand that grass is a living breathing thing, kind of like you, you will never understand.  Have you ever been sick…………..have you ever been tired……….have you ever been sunburned…………have ever been cold…………..have you ever been dehydrated………………..have you ever had a headache…………….have you ever sat in front of a fan and thought it was refreshing?  If you look at it this way you might begin to understand.

Not a sermon………………………just a thought.   

[Ian Larson]

So what happened then?

[Anthony_Nysse]

I do not know Alan but I know what happened and Alan could not have prevented it…………..IT WAS NOT HUMAN ERROR.       

Randy, you are way in front of your headlights and until you understand that grass is a living breathing thing, kind of like you, you will never understand.  Have you ever been sick…………..have you ever been tired……….have you ever been sunburned…………have ever been cold…………..have you ever been dehydrated………………..have you ever had a headache…………….have you ever sat in front of a fan and thought it was refreshing?  If you look at it this way you might begin to understand.

Not a sermon………………………just a thought.   

Scott,
  VERY, VERY well stated.

[Randy Thompson]

I do not know Alan but I know what happened and Alan could not have prevented it…………..IT WAS NOT HUMAN ERROR.      

Randy, you are way in front of your headlights and until you understand that grass is a living breathing thing, kind of like you, you will never understand.  
  

Scott,
Well isn´t that special! I have a four year degree in Turf Grass Management, thrity six years total experience, and over thirty growing bent in questionable areas, twenty years as a certified golf course superintendent and twenty years as a consultant on more than fifty top clubs throughout the world. So what are your qualification to tell me I will never understand and give me the opening lecture of turfgrass management 101. I am done with this thread! Kill all the bentgrass in DFW and plant Bermuda, bentgrass can not survive 20 days of one hundred degree weather anywhere no matter what, just ask anybody on GCA.com. God save the king!