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Hot weather taking it's toll on golf courses

solidkjames

solidkjames

Loves drowning golf balls
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704017904575409411501359450.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Read this interesting article by the WSJ regarding clubs suffering from weather this summer. I know my home course has about 4 greens that are REALLY taking a beating from this heat. Anyone else's course showing signs of 100 degree heat? We have bentgrass greens and bermuda fairways. The fairways and rough are the best they have been in years but the greens are losing grass everyday.
 
Yeah all of the courses are like that here too. Black, burnt spots on the greens and even some fairways are getting bad too.
 
Yup. Our course is drinking all the water it can get right now. We have one hole that doesnt get air movement, so its taking the worst beating. We are just trying to get airflow back there
 
Our greens are having some issues too but it's actually because of the unseasonably cold winter we had. It seems courses weren't prepared for such a cold winter and a lot of greens suffered and ended up with a nasty algae that has been really hard to fix. Even the high end private clubs have seen some issues with this.
 
So far the greens are good around me. You really notice the issues being on the fairways and tee boxes. Every lie in a fairway is dusty hardpan. You almost want to be in the rough where there's some 'grass' to work with.
 
my course is in the worst shape that it has been in for 3 or 4 years. A ton of burnt grass, some bad spots on greens too. To make it better, there is a water ban right now so the course can't water as much as they need to.
 
OUr greens are not the best right now. What's really odd is the fairways and first cut are phenominal. The course I've recently began to call home though is in excellent shape. They really did a nice job on the greens and its the best I've played. Going to another course this week that looks good too. The rain we had recently in AZ was big for us. Even if it was a short burst.
 
My regular course switched from bent to miniverde burmuda three years ago because of the expense to keep up the bent. The course is in great shape right now despite the heat.
 
Good article. Our greens are getting kind of ugly right now. Repairing pitch marks is actually kind of difficult because they are so dry. Also noticing lots of bare spots in the fairways.
 
I quess it depends primarily on the type of course. Here (Philly area) public courses are starting to take a beating. Some courses the greens are pretty good, but others are terrible.
Played Seaview yesterday (Atlantic City) and the course is in terrific shape.
 
Three of the holes at my home course have closed greens because of the heat. Superintendent says we will be playing winter hole locations on them for rest of season because of damage. Tee boxes are taking a beating too but most of our fairways are in good shape. Unfortunately, they can't close the course because it a muni and the big money maker for the city during the summer/early fall.
 
We've had a mild summer compared to last year, so the courses have been in better shape.
 
Out here in vegas we're going on our 4th week of 102+ weather. Ok wait it did dip down to 99* one time so we got it good out here. : )

A lot of the courses here are getting beat up. The local muni down the road has already turned into its "summer" course mode. In the summer this course loses ALLL of its rough. Its basically light dirt and dead grass which is very easy to hit off of. Sounds crappy but the greens are still green (and full of pitchmarks!) and the price gets good ($20 with cart). Plus some of my buddies (+20 hdcp) really like how the course plays right now. With no rough all you got to do crank up the driver and make sure you got fresh batteries in the laser rangefinder, because where our drives end up no sprinkler head goes.

Another course out here has resorted to flooding the course from 12-2pm. Out here most people our teeing off by 9 am and then there is a rush during the twilight time (2-4 pm) so there a large gap during the middle of the day. I don't actually mean flooding, its not like the course is built at the base of a dam or anything. But if you're out there when they start watering the course changes instantly. Drives that roll out forever on the hard dry fairways suddenly stick 2 inches into the ground. The putting green turns into a giant sponge you can feel and hear squish when you walk on it. And the pitchmark damage that occurs when the green is like that is atrocious. I know they got to do this keep the course alive, but i don't think peiople should be playin when the course is in that condition. I know, you're first thought is "well why did you keep playing?" My answer? "man I already payed my $30 bucks and they refused to give a refund."
 
Yoccos1981 said:
OUr greens are not the best right now. What's really odd is the fairways and first cut are phenominal. The course I've recently began to call home though is in excellent shape. They really did a nice job on the greens and its the best I've played. Going to another course this week that looks good too. The rain we had recently in AZ was big for us. Even if it was a short burst.
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you can keep the moisture. It made its way up to vegas yesterday. No rain just 100* temperatures and SUPER muggy. *ugh*
 
Some of the greens around us aren't even green :( They have lots of dry areas. Either that, or the greens are super soaked.
 
Greens here are in great shape. Some burnout on the fairways. Our summer weather is once again much warmer than we are used to in the Northeast. While there is never any water in the on course water jugs they seem to be watering the greens regularly. In fact I have even gotten to experience some of what touring players deal with all the time. That is the greens drying during the course of your round. Just another thing that makes me wonder at their ability to score so well with so many variables in their game, in course condition in weather and every other thing going on all of the time.

Question for you Florida folks. Have your winters been unseasonably cold since the frost of several years ago that actually took the orange plants AND the fruit instead of just the fruit in parts of the state where orange groves had once been prominent? I know that year, many farms converted to more durable crops out of necessity. It seems to me that as our winters and summers here have gotten warmer and warmer, your winters have gotten colder. I have not really paid much attention to your summer weather.
 
my club just closed the greens to put in new grass, they had to. they burnt all the greens to the point where there was no grass simply dirt, which makes putting damn near impossible
 
Greens here are ok, but starting to show some signs of getting baked out. Areas around the greens on the other hand are about half dirt and half grass.
 
Greens conditions

As the broiler temperature continues to take its toll on bentgrass greens from the east coast to the far Midwest golf course superintendents have been scratching their heads trying to figure out how to keep the bentgrass alive for just another month.

High temperatures and high humidity are the nemeses of cool season turfgrass. I have spoken with several very experienced golf course superintendents in the last few weeks a quite frankly they are baffled that turf is declining so widespread, rapidly and severely

The problem may be two-fold, one, just plain high soil temperatures, roots of cool season turfgrass begin failing when soil temperatures are above 85° F.

Or perhaps the problem could be a bacterial wilt.

When I was a young assistant superintendent during the 70s in the Chicago suburbs was the first time bacterial wilt was identified from bentgrass. The pathogen only seemed to infect the Toronto C15 variety of bentgrass, the Cadillac of the bentgrass varieties at that time. Now C-15 Toronto bentgrass is long gone, golf courses no longer could afford to keep spraying the bactericide tetracycline to keep turf alive.

In June of 2009, a new bacterial wilt was identified on Penn G2 greens (a relatively new variety of bentgrass). The pathogen caused pale and weak leaf blades. The isolated bacterium was identified by Dr. Joseph Vargas at Michigan State as Acidovorax avenae resulted in wilting and death of plants when inoculated in the laboratory.

Just as recently as this past week, bacterial wilt of bentgrass has been identified at the University of Rhode Island Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at least a dozen times. The bacterium has been identified on several varieties of bentgrass. The disease will likely go to any variety of bentgrass. Symptoms of this bacterium include patches of weak turf, turf with excessive wilted and dead plants.

Of course it’s impossible to diagnose turf diseases without a trained pathologist and proper laboratory it certainly is worth the expense to send a sample to know before treating for a disease that can’t be cured through conventional methods.

I hope this clears up some points, Miketurf.
 
TOAOST21 said:
my club just closed the greens to put in new grass, they had to. they burnt all the greens to the point where there was no grass simply dirt, which makes putting damn near impossible
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Our 13th hole is almost to this point right now. Imagine putting on hardwood floors. NO speed control lol. I pray we get some mid 80 days soon as our club championship is coming up the first week in September and last year our greens were even worse and recovered in time for the tournament, so hopefully we get them back and healthy before then.
 
Played a course last night with ant hills all over every green, tee boxes that I couldn't even get a tee into. Now I understand it's hot here in Nebraska, but come on man, if I'm paying money to play your course I expect some moisture being used!
 
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