Green is the new green?

[Pat Burke]

Biased opinion from me.
I prefer (most of the time) overseed here in southern Cal.
But, like anything else, it depends on if it is done well.
Of course, the same can be said of not overseeding.  I believe it was Tom D who mentioned drainage
issues for fairways seriously having an effect on dormant fairways.  In socal, so many courses drain poorly, and have
poor soils, that recovery from the rains we get in winter is slow, and sloppy.  Add poor weed control, and you get
uneven, spotty turf with a Heinz 57 of grasses that leads to a pretty poor surface.

We have 36 holes, overseed one course pretty much wall to wall (not greens, they are Poa).  On the other course, no overseed except roughs (?).  The dormant fairways are well taken care of, and poa and weed control is really done well.  Even with that, after our big rains, the course is just now coming around to playing nicely.  The overseeded course recovered in a couple of days, and had many more rounds than the dormant.  In fairness, there usually a little more play on the overseeded course, but it was significant after the rain

[Anthony_Nysse]

I just talked to someone at a multi-course resort about that, and he said that if you paint the greens it's not a lot cheaper to eliminate overseeding.

Painting the greens is NOT cheaper? I'd certainly like to hear the science behind that thinking. Non overseeded greens may have to be mowed once a week, rolled once a week. An overseeded green has to be mowed everyday and thats just the tip of the iceburg.
  Ken, please elaborate his thinking...I'm very interested.

[Ken Moum]

I just talked to someone at a multi-course resort about that, and he said that if you paint the greens it's not a lot cheaper to eliminate overseeding.

Painting the greens is NOT cheaper? I'd certainly like to hear the science behind that thinking. Non overseeded greens may have to be mowed once a week, rolled once a week. An overseeded green has to be mowed everyday and thats just the tip of the iceburg.
  Ken, please elaborate his thinking...I'm very interested.

He didn't say it wasn't cheaper, he said it wasn't a LOT cheaper.  I was interviewing him for an article about heat stress, and it just came up in passing, so I don't have much to add.  He just said that with the cost of paint, and having to mow them some, it wasn't as much of a saving as you might think. 

I assume he ran the numbers because they're doing it on some of their courses, and not others.

Ken

[Tom_Doak]

I just talked to someone at a multi-course resort about that, and he said that if you paint the greens it's not a lot cheaper to eliminate overseeding.

Painting the greens is NOT cheaper? I'd certainly like to hear the science behind that thinking. Non overseeded greens may have to be mowed once a week, rolled once a week. An overseeded green has to be mowed everyday and thats just the tip of the iceburg.
  Ken, please elaborate his thinking...I'm very interested.

He didn't say it wasn't cheaper, he said it wasn't a LOT cheaper.  I was interviewing him for an article about heat stress, and it just came up in passing, so I don't have much to add.  He just said that with the cost of paint, and having to mow them some, it wasn't as much of a saving as you might think. 

I assume he ran the numbers because they're doing it on some of their courses, and not others.

Ken

Ken:

That's probably just an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e., We like to overseed, let's run the numbers to see how much it really costs ... oh, it doesn't cost THAT much more ... especially if we forget to include some stuff.

[Ken Moum]

Ken:

That's probably just an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e., We like to overseed, let's run the numbers to see how much it really costs ... oh, it doesn't cost THAT much more ... especially if we forget to include some stuff.

I suppose that's possible, but I think he said he liked the paint, and would probably end up doing it on all his courses.

We're making too much of this, it was an offhand coment when I asked if he saved a lot of money by painting the greens.

K