Golf courses, especially in the Northeast, have their hands full managing everything from tree shade to elevation changes
Getty Images
The Country Club, in Brookline, Mass., Host this week’s US Open, is a rarefied place. But in some respects, it’s also emblematic of golf in New England.
Like many courses around the region, it sits on lilting land, flanked by trees and ornamented by granite outcrops – all beautiful features that can double as agronomic challenges. It’s not always easy to grow and maintain grass on sloping, rocky soil, shaded by oaks and pines. Add to favorites
Much of The Country Club sits on sloping land.
USGA / Jeff Haynes
As the organization in charge of the US Open, the United States Golf Association has been working with the Country Club to get the course ready for the championship. But the governing body’s turf-care efforts are not limited to one property, one week of the year; the commitment is widespread, and it carries out across the calendar.
In his role as agronomist for the USGA Green Section, in the Northeast, John Daniels consults with scores of courses around New England, New York and eastern Canada. We have asked him about the regional issues and his colleagues have often encountered, and it is a national championship or everyday play.
1. Rocky lights
Granite outcrops are common on courses in the Northeast. And that’s nothing compared to the stuff that you can’t see. Rocky lighting can complicate work on underground projects such as upgrades to drainage and irrigation systems.
“You might have spent time digging rocks up or breaking them up with rock hammers,” Daniels says.
Those same conditions can also be tough on turf, as rocky light just causes the temperatures to rise, heat up and dry out grasses. Special treatment, like spot-watering, may be required to alleviate drought-like stresses. Bottom line: There’s so much more going on than meets the eye. Getting golf grounds into peak condition requires the understanding of what’s happening underground.
Some granite outcroppings are visible on golf courses, but often much more rock is lurking beneath the ground.
Getty Images
2. Ups and downs
Elevation changes golfers and agronomists alike. They affect everything from temperature and drainage to the amount of shade and sun and patch of turf receives. When the land moves up and down, turf-care practices often need to shift as well.
“It might be the area of the course gets less morning light, so it takes longer to wake up,” Daniels says. “Or it could be that water tends to collect in one area, so it needs less irrigation. You’ve got a lot of unique environments that respond in a very specific way, so your approach has to be site-specific as well. ”
3. Season’s beatings
This past winter was a rough one in New England, and while The Country Club escaped largely unscathed, Daniels says, many courses did not. Most of the damage due to greens. Some were hit by flooding. Others suffered from dramatic fluctuations in temperatures – a rapid succession of thawing and freezing that causes water absorbed by plants to expand, rupturing cells.
6 grass types every golfer should know, and how each horse affects your game
Josh Sens
Poa annua is particularly vulnerable to this, and poa annua is a common varietal on greens in the Northeast. Daniels and his colleagues spent considerable time this spring helping courses devise recovery programs. In some cases, that is keeping greens closed for a period. In others, it involved cultivation tactics, such as inter-seeding, sodding, and plugging.
“The greens that suffered the most were the ones that couldn’t drain quick enough,” Daniels says. “So that’s something we’re focusing on as well – trying to put them in a better place so there’s another winter winter down the line, they can emerge better off.”
4. The idiosyncrasies of age
A lot of courses in the Northeast date to the Golden Age, and their features reflect that vintage. By contemporary standards, many are relatively short, with smaller and more undulated greens than those found on modern layouts. Just as designs were different in those days, so were maintenance practices.
Putting surfaces, for instance, they weren’t so tight. “When you look at the greens on those older courses, they are usually steeper slopes that weren’t built with today’s green speeds in mind,” Daniels says. “And so, as greens get faster, you reduce the number of hole locations that you can have.”
When you set out to gain speed, you run the risk of losing cool architectural features. The goal is to help courses find the sweet spot in between.
“A lot of times,” Daniels says, “the realization is that getting healthy, smooth, true rolling greens is not necessarily the fastest possible greens – that’s the better approach to focus on.”
5. 50 shades of shade
Tree problems are not unique to Northeast courses. But on Northeast courses, those shade problems are often closely tied to age.
“When a lot of these courses were built, they had smaller trees, and smaller trees,” Daniels says.
Why golf courses remove trees (and why you want to do your own yard)
Josh Sens
Decades later, those sylvan features may no longer fit the course. In some cases, a larger, or recently applied tree, with the architect’s original intent, diminishes the quality of a hole. With its shade or roots, a tree might also be a detriment to the turf. Like all living things, trees also get sick and die. They might grow unsightly. Or pose a safety hazard. All those considerations come into play when weighing whether to remove or prune a tree.
“It’s not that superintendents have a vendetta against trees,” Daniels says. “It’s sometimes the problem that has gotten so out of hand, it takes work to get things back in order.”
6. Come tournament time…
For a championship as fine-tuned as the US Open, preparations often start years in advance. As part of a restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, the Country Club has removed several trees, and several greens have been enlarged, recovering old hole locations and bringing bunkers more closely into play. For the tournament, conditions are meant to be firm and fast.
That is, the club has also upgraded drainage in the fairway and, with input from the USGA, carried out an aggressive topdressing program, which helps the entire course to dry even after heavy rains. The benefits of change should be in evidence this week, but they are also intended for the long term.
“We look at courses years ahead and we also work to help the tournament approaches,” Daniels says. “But everything is going to have a positive impact 365 days a year and be helpful for the membership for years to come.”
