MAY GOLF COURSE UPDATE CONTINUED

MAY GOLF COURSE UPDATE CONTINUED

(Additional Information and Details)

THE TRANSITION ZONE

Most golfers in the Piedmont Triad now realize that we are located in an area of North Carolina better known by agronomists as the “transition zone”. In this area, it is very difficult for warm season (Bermudagrasses) or cool season grasses to live the entire year.  Today, we are experiencing an extreme example of this — as warm season Bermudagrass fairways are showing significant signs of cold weather damage at courses throughout North Carolina.

WINTERKILL

Warm season grasses naturally perform best when it’s hot, and cool season grasses perform best when it’s cold. In the transition zone, however, it becomes too hot in the summer for cool season grasses to survive, and occasionally it can also get too cold in the winter for warm season Bermudagrasses to survive. This latter condition is widely    known as “winterkill”. GREEN COLLARS Early winterkill damage is most evident at Old Town on green collars or fringes (the area just outside of the green’s perimeter). These areas are very complicated to maintain due to their close connection and relationship to the putting surface. Unfortunately, there are distinct differences between these two areas — as the green collar is a warm season 419 Hybrid Bermudagrass, while the green is a cool season Crenshaw Bentgrass. Their sub-surface compositions also look and function differently. The sub-surface composition of a green is made primarily of a sand mix and can drain easily, while the green collar’s sub-surface composition is made primarily of soil, which retains water more readily, especially against the green’s plastic liner. As much maintenance attention is given to green performance today to promote firmer, faster and truer putting surfaces, their outside collars usually shoulder the most traffic, wear-and-tear, stress, and compaction from the constant turning of walking mowers and the compression from green rollers. Foot traffic also makes a difference at common points of entry. Also, collars are normally cut lower than fairways, which altogether help make the turf too weak to withstand cold weather. FAIRWAYS Our fairways have also suffered varying degrees of winterkill. There are no hard and fast rules as to why. Sometimes it depends on the type of turf grass? Here is a list warm season grasses and their cold tolerance ratings. ·      Zoysia - High ·      Common Bermuda - Moderately High ·      Covered Ultra Dwarf Bermuda - Moderate to moderately high ·      Hybrid Bermudagrasses (419, Tifsport, etc.) - Moderate ·      Non-covered Ultra-Dwarf Bermuda - Moderately low The cold tolerant grasses also appear to come out of dormancy earlier in the spring. If you’ve noticed, our Zoysia tees at Old Town greened-up first and showed little damage, but for hole 5. The Common Bermudagrass portion of our fairways greened-up next, and the jury is still out on the performance of the hybrid Tifsport and 419 areas and to what extent they have succumbed to winterkill? An excessive amount of any of the following conditions will result in a weaker plant with shorter root systems, which will have a negative impact on the plant’s ability to withstand cold conditions.     1.    Types of Turf: what is its level of cold tolerance?     2.    Shaded Areas: trees more readily block lower winter sun angles, which effectively          cause shaded turf to remain frozen the longest.     3.    Northern Slope Exposures: receive little, if any, winter sunlight and remain coldest the longest.     4.    Compaction: green collars and path areas with excessive cart traffic.     5.    Winter Desecration: eroded areas from excessive cart traffic as you enter and exit cart paths.     6.    Shorter Mowing Heights for better Performance: Collars, tees, and fairways typically, not roughs.     7.    Immature Sod: new young sod from bunker construction needs to become more established.     8.    Newly Converted Fairways: We have converted 30+ acres of rough to fairways and the plant needs to acclimate itself to shorter mowing heights.   Turf consultants caution clubs from trying to over-simplify winterkill. The sources of winterkill are very site-specific and site dependent as identified in the example below.  If you peer out over the course from Hole 17 tee, you can see a variety of struggling turf areas and can easily attribute different conditions as the cause of each isolated area.    ·      Winterkill at hole 4: caused by tree shade and northern slope exposures.    ·      Winterkill around the bunkers at hole 7: weak immature new sod.    ·      Winterkill at bridge on hole 7: Compaction and desecration from traffic.    ·      Winterkill between fairways at hole 7 and 17: weak turf from newly converted   mowing heights.

  Weak turf does not cause winterkill by itself, sometimes it depends on whether there's   freezing temperatures for X number of days, sub-20-degree temperatures for X number of days, whether the snow came before or after the first deep frost, how deep the frost layer is, or how much windchill was there at what moisture levels, etc.

The agronomist for McConnell Golf blames North Carolina’s proliferation of winterkill on yet another weather-related scenario:

Consider that December and January were damper and milder than normal. The cell walls of the Bermudagrass were full of moisture for the first half of winter and when the extreme cold came in February, the plant’s cell walls burst just like a frozen water pipe. In a typical winter, we see colder weather much earlier, which gives the plant a chance to “harden off slowly and prepare for the cold”.

In summary, winterkill is a multi-variant equation with infinity-minus N variables.

2015 GAME PLAN

Here’s our evolving plan of action for turf replacement this year:

1        Amount of Damage? We have been monitoring our dormant turf to distinguish between areas that have perished versus areas that have not greened-up yet due to a cold spring and low soil temperatures? With daily temperatures in the 80’s and evening temperatures in the 60’s for the next eight days, we expect to know more precisely the amount of damage by next week.

2        Cost to Repair: We have been measuring potential damaged areas to help formulate early cost estimates for repair. Our damaged green collars required immediate sodding. Future sodding will also occur in worn out areas around cart paths. Because of the expense, We, however, had to evaluate different options with larger fairway areas. We anticipate losing approximately seven acres of fairway turf. Portions of the following fairways have been impacted the worst: holes, 3, 5, 8, 9, 16, and 18.

·    Sodding Option: In short, sodding is quick and expensive. If we elected to sod everything in question now, (and depending on its availability, as sod is in high demand), it would cost approximately $132K plus labor, with a recovery time of early-June.

·    Sprigging Option: Sprigging (or row-planting) is a long, six-week process, but it’s a far less-expensive option. Peak sprigging conditions occur in the heat of the summer. Sprigging requires excessive water, so sections of the fairways (listed above) will be roped-off and unplayable. The cost of sprigging larger fairway areas in conjunction with sodding small detail areas is estimated at $35K. Sprigging fairways will begin June 8, the Monday following Member-Guest weekend and will be performed by Modern Turf out of Pinehurst. The course should be fully recovered by the third week in July.

·    Rationale: The difference between sodding and sprigging fairways translated into a variance of $97K. That equates roughly to a $16K/week proposition for the six weeks at issue (between June 1^st and mid-July), which the Board voted down at this time.

3      Meanwhile, we will begin exercising some aggressive maintenance practices that will help promote our hybrid Bermuda turf to jump out of dormancy. This will include brushing and dragging insulated dormant areas, fertilizing, needle-tine aerifying, topdressing and keeping soil moisture at an optimal level.

FUTURE YEARS

Our plan for future years is to minimize the conditions that promote winterkill and the time it takes to transition out of dormancy.

1.    Utilize turning mats more regularly for mowers to reduce the stress on our green collars.

2.    Utilize more directional signs/ropes/stakes to promote scattering on and off cart paths at varied locations to reduce wear in isolated areas.

3.    Transition to a higher fairway cuts earlier in the fall for a fuller cushion going into the winter.

4.    Test a new resilient strain of Northbridge Bermuda or bentgrass to determine how these grasses handle traffic on our collars.

5.    Purchase sod from Georgia, so it arrives greener and more mature earlier in the spring providing longer establishment times.

6.    Budget for more sod with the necessary manpower to blitz the course in case of hardships.

7.    Re-visit the Pros and Cons of Over-seeding