Transition to Native

[Jason Topp]

Most courses I play with native areas have a thick strip of irrigated native next to the rough that pose both playing and appearance problems.  It is difficult to find your ball, difficult to hit the ball if you find it and it looks goofy.  It seems to me that setting up irrigation so that the outside rough area is a bit brown before getting to the native would greatly reduce but probably not eliminate this issue. 


Are there courses that handle this transition well?  How do they do it?

[David Cronheim]

Good clubs do it pretty simply - the irrigation heads don't throw water in the native. Full stop. How they do that can range from putting heads along the native line that throw in towards the fairway to having the native far enough away that existing heads in the rough can't reach it. You'd be surprised how much you can fine tune water throw on these newer systems. Really incredible.

[Buck Wolter]

I think Kingsley has gotten better with this over the years to improve the look and especially the playability. Playing with a local member recently he pointed to a rough mower they got that can mow pretty extreme side hills. For those that are familiar the left side of #2 and a large area short of #9 is now a tall rough mow of I'd guess 3-4" fescue which I think blends in well into the taller fescue as it's not manicured. I think the left miss may be the best on #2 now though it is still lie dependent.

IMO Architects and Supers need to look closely at the low areas and really dial in the edge of the fairway/rough/native and the irrigation in those areas-- better to have some brown rough going to sparse native than lush rough into lush native.

[David Cronheim]

better to have some brown rough going to sparse native than lush rough into lush native.

How often the opposite is true! Burnt out rough where the ball bounces for ever, but native in low-lying areas that stay wet.

[Tom_Doak]

One of the reasons we sometimes build less strategic bunkers is to make a transition between the native and the fairway.  The rough line coming to the back of the bunkers looks very natural, instead of being decided on by the architect or the greenkeeper.

[Jason Topp]

One of the reasons we sometimes build less strategic bunkers is to make a transition between the native and the fairway.  The rough line coming to the back of the bunkers looks very natural, instead of being decided on by the architect or the greenkeeper.

I recall Royal Melbourne using this approach with many of its bunkers.