I have been getting this question quite often in the past month or so. Believe me when I say….good. I know it’s hard to understand after looking at some of the outsides of some of these greens, but I ask you to focus your inspection to the center of the greens. The majority of each green is in fantastic shape, with the exception of these outsides and to an untrained eye, those outsides really jump out at you. Just look at this picture of 13 I took this evening – and that’s one of the worst greens out there. Look past the first 6’……..great shape and really healthy.
There are a few reasons that these new greens struggle with maintaining good collars and cleanup laps their first year of existence. The first and most important is no thatch. Most people think of thatch as a bad thing, and it is something that most courses battle to keep in check, but it is still really important especially on new greens. This thatch acts as a shock absorber for wear and traffic. Without any thatch there is no cushion to absorb the traffic – kind of like driving a car without any shocks – you’re going to feel every bump. Without having this protection the highest traffic areas (which are the edges of the greens because of feet, mowers, rollers, etc) tend to struggle towards the end of the summer. There are a few other reasons why these areas struggle on new greens but IT’S NORMAL THE FIRST YEAR.
We knew we would have a difficult first year with these greens, even before the start of construction. We decided to keep a short window for construction to limit the amount of time that the course would be closed. The Fazio guys came in here and said that we should open no earlier than the middle of July, but we knew that wouldn’t work and we could do better than that. We did open in May, even after a terrible winter and early spring and we knew we would struggle a little through the first year until the greens had time to develop some maturity. We struggled a little with some of the outsides……but the greens stayed in great shape – for the most part – throughout a really, really, really wet year.
I guess what I’m trying to say is…….don’t worry…..we’re good. Believe me, I’m not normally the calm voice of reason when dealing with bentgrass greens in this area, but we’re in good shape. I was sleeping like a baby through most of this summer…and that’s saying something. In a normal summer with our old greens (usually July and August) I didn’t exactly log too many sound asleep hours - waking up in the middle of the night worrying about grass….my wife thinks there’s something wrong with me.
These are normal growing pains that every course goes through, to one extent or another. I like to tell people it’s like building a new house and installing all new landscaping and sod. You really don’t get the full effect of the money you put in until a couple years down the road once everything has had a chance to root and mature, but eventually you can see why you spent all that money upfront. You spent a lot of money on these greens…..but not for the first 4 -5 months….you spent the money for the next 20 years.
If anyone has any questions…pick up the phone and call me or shoot me an email. I’d be happy to explain what we have going on and even take a quick ride around the course to look at some stuff if you want.
Brent Graham, CGCS
Director of Golf Maintenance
Two Rivers Country Club
1950 Two Rivers Rd.
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Cell: 757-592-0840
Office: 757-258-4606
Governorsland.com
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