The Grass Is Always Greener…

By Tony Leodora

Did you ever notice that the grass is always greener on someone else’s golf course.  At least that’s the way it seems when you hear some chronically complaining members talk about their home course.

The reality of the situation is that all golf courses have problems growing grass. Some of the problems are more complex than others, but nobody is exempt from the trials and tribulations of growing grass.

Trust me – after spending a number of years talking regularly with area superintendents – there is nothing boring about watching grass grow. As a matter of fact, the slightest triumph can be quite exciting, while any agronomic downturn can send an entire club into panic.

In the course of one golf season, I got an up-close look at three totally different situations. The first took place on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Although it is a short growing season, the quality of the greens rivals anywhere in the country. Without heat, humidity and insect infestations, the superintendents in the UP can produce superior quality conditions, and use far less chemicals than in other areas of the country.

The Philadelphia area is a strange mixture of cool spring and fall conditions, with the danger of oppressive heat and humidity lurking every summer. We saw the disastrous effect of prolonged heat and humidity a few years ago, when courses throughout the region lost greens at an alarming rate. Fortunately, the last two summers have been much milder, giving superintendents a much-needed break.

In the Myrtle Beach area, that break almost never comes. Every summer is hot and humid. And the volume of year-round play never allows the courses to rest.

That’s why USGA Regional Agronomist Adam Moeller calls Myrtle Beach the toughest place in America to grow grass. In a recent interview on the GolfTalk Live radio show Moeller said, “Superintendents in the Myrtle Beach area have a very difficult job. They face a lot of challenges, yet they have to keep their courses in top shape 12 months of the year because visiting golfers are paying premium prices and expect the best conditions. The slightest slip can be a very costly mistake in Myrtle Beach.”

That is one of the reasons golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area are constantly experimenting with new strains of grass. Part of the reason is improving the quality of the putting surface. The other reason is trying to find a strain of grass which will withstand the weather and the traffic.

We all remember the old strain of bermuda grass that was the standard south of the Mason Dixon line. You could hear the golf ball scratch its way across the coarse surface. Slowly that grass has been replaced by a number of different grasses, either hybrids of bermuda or bentgrass.

Now, two Myrtle Beach courses have installed a grass that was developed for use in the tropics – and they both report good initial results. Rivers Edge, the wonderful Arnold Palmer design at the northern end of the Grand Strand in Shallotte, and Pine Lakes International, the area’s oldest golf course, have both turned to sea dwarf paspalum. They are both in the first year of the experiment but nobody seems to be complaining.

“We are extremely pleased with the initial results,” reports Rick Farrell, head professional at Rivers Edge. “The greens seem to be extremely healthy. We are still in the process of cutting them down and getting them up to speed. Once we do that, we think people will rave about the putting surfaces.”

Paspalum is a salt-tolerant strain of grass that can be irrigated with brackish water. On a course like Rivers Edge, that winds through the tidal marshes and is exposed to the weather off the ocean, paspalum minimizes salt damage.

Pine Lakes International, in the middle of Myrtle Beach, is much more sheltered from the effect of salt spray but management decided to go with the paspalum grass when the major renovation was done to the course this year.

While the old Pine Lakes layout was always a favorite, the condition of the greens was always a problem. That problem no longer exists, thanks to the new paspalum grass that provides a very consistent putting surface, with a minimal amount of grain.

“I always liked the old layout but I could play the new Pine Lakes course every day for the rest of my life,” said Jack O’Leary, well-know national golf writer out of Lakeland, Florida. “It is an absolutely marvelous design and the new grass should be a major improvement.”

No wonder the grass is always greener on the other course. They keep coming up with better grass.