Setting the Standard

With fall upon us – meaning shorter days, cooler temperatures and relatively fewer golfers – now’s a good time to start thinking about your design and maintenance expectations for next season by creating a set of standards for your golf course.

Let’s be clear: No, it’s not too early to get this process underway, and standards development is not a new concept by any means. The USGA Green Section and other turf publications have written about it before. As designers, setting expectations is something we do as a matter of course during initial design programming. Simply put, we set a goal, then determine a method to achieve it.

It’s an approach we tend to take for granted, but it’s a fundamental process worth sharing again, and now seems like a good time to do so – not only because the autumn months bring superintendents a little more time to breathe, but also because I just read a great story on setting green standards featuring John Zimmers, the superintendent at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club.

The story appeared in one of GCI’s Talkin’ Turf features. Enter bit.ly/1ryDLAj into your browser to read the article.

Zimmers concentrates on greens and the specific standard of green speed. Obviously just one aspect of a comprehensive program, his example illustrates the benefits of setting quantitative and qualitative benchmarks for all the vital components of your golf course, in order of importance, which usually goes something like this: greens, fairways, approach areas, green surrounds, tees, primary rough, sand bunkers and practice range.

These priorities will vary from course to course. And it’s a good idea to survey your members to pinpoint exactly what their priorities are.

But the real work here, once the priorities are established, falls to the superintendent and, when appropriate, to the golf course architect with whom that superintendent collaborates. By working together, the two can apply to those standards all relevant data, i.e. the man-hours it would take to reach them, the climatic conditions that will allow (or hinder) success, the design changes or capital expenditures required to meet or maintain the long-term expectations.

Why is it important to compile these objectives?

Well, if we were all running golf courses with unlimited budgets, maybe it wouldn’t be that important. But only a handful of elite clubs, if any, fit that description. The rest of us are obliged to make do with limited resources. Realistic standards for all the vital components of the course allow course managers to measure performance year to year; they allow superintendents to assess the time and money they’re actually spending on bunker maintenance vs. tee maintenance, for example; they can be vital to making the case for renovation, large scale or (more likely) limited scale; they can also help you assess beforehand what’s truly affordable.

I get into the nuts and bolts of putting together a standards document below, using an actual document developed by a client club. I don’t want to name the client, because sharing this info outside a club can be delicate, but suffice to say, this club cannot just go out and commission a $6 million renovation. Its standards were developed to create benchmarks up to which the superintendent, club management and the members want their course to live. When those expectations aren’t being met, established standards help pinpoint what needs attention, be it more man hours, a different approach, renovation, etc.

The fall season is the ideal time to get started on this process, because, as Zimmers indicated in the linked story, “starting each season with an approved set of course standards makes the conversation easier because everyone has a clear idea of the end goal. When members get involved in developing standards, they become more aware of budgeting – a process that’s inseparable from green speed.”

If you went and read that story, you know that Zimmers talked exclusively about greens standards. So, I’m going to highlight something a bit further down the list of priorities at most clubs: fairway standards.

Notice, too, that the standards themselves are only part of the process. They are followed by those reasons why expectations are not currently being met – and what the club and its superintendent actually need to do in order to achieve the desired goals. In areas where things aren’t up to snuff, it makes sense to insert these “next steps” so management and members understand what the superintendent is dealing with.

With solutions, it’s important to provide anticipated cost, which is frankly where we, as architects and course contractors, get involved, though we work with lots of clients in the assessment stage, too.

I should point out that this particular standard was laid out by Jerry Kershasky, former superintendent at Westmoor Country Club in Brookfield, Wis., where Lohmann Golf Designs worked for many years on a series of renovation projects. Kershasky now works for Reinders Inc., the Sussex, Wis.-based golf course distributor/supply firm. He was kind enough to authorize the sharing of this info/template not only because he’s a good guy, but also because standards development is something he continues to emphasize in his consultations with superintendents.
 

Fairway standard

Uniform in texture and density, with height being 3⁄8 inch to 7⁄16 inch. Firm, fast and rolling with great winter and summer survival characteristics, good drought avoidance and good disease resistance.

We have not achieved this standard due to the following conditions. The Poa annua and ryegrass component of the grass stand we have on fairways (20 to 40 percent depending on the fairway) has poor winter survival traits. Poa annua also has survival problems in hot humid summers, requires more water more frequently than bent or rye grass, and a mixed stand of the three provides less than ideal ball lies when compared to a pure stand of any one of the three. The water-retaining clay loam soils on all fairways, and tree shade and tree roots on a few fairways, make growing conditions more conducive for Poa annua rather the desired bentgrass. The clay loam fairway soil after a rain or multiple irrigation cycles renders soft, non-rolling, earthworm-cast playing conditions along with providing a good environment for turf disease. Consistent, excellent playing conditions are not the rule for our fairways due to the aforementioned water retaining clay-loam soil, tree shade and tree root competition, and the Poa annua, ryegrass component of the fairway turf.
 

Solutions

1. Sand topdress to improve drainage, ball roll, firm lies, reduce earthworm casting, reduce disease and improve conditions to sustain a bentgrass dominant fairway turf.
2. Seed memorial bentgrass to improve uniform texture and density for good ball lies, firm ball lies, ball roll, drought tolerance and disease resistance.
3. Tree removal to improve growing conditions for bentgrass, improve ball lies, ball roll and reduce earthworm casting.
4. Replace 160 inefficient irrigation sprinklers to improve distribution of water.
5. Install surface drainage catch basins in water collecting areas to increase ball roll, improve both ball lies and growing conditions for bentgrass and reduce earthworm casting.
   
    

• Sand topdress fairways: The minimum amount of sand needed to reap a significant benefit for playing conditions and an environment that favors bentgrass is 2 inches but an overall goal of 4 inches is the target. Once a 4-inch depth is achieved a program using less sand could be adopted for maintenance purposes. The maximum amount that can be applied in one application is ¼ inch and an ideal plan would have us putting down three applications per year (April, September, November). The cost of ¼ inch of sand on 26.4 acres of fairways is $14,026 and we have a budget that will allow us two applications (1/2 inch of sand) this year. The initial cost of sand is high, but the long-term benefits will reduce costs in fungicides, watering and provide the use of golf cars earlier in the season and sooner after heavier rains. Most importantly, it will render superior, sustainable, consistent playing conditions.
   
• Interseed fairways with memorial bentgrass at the September and November sand topdressing dates. Cost is $7,063 per seeding. Funds have been allocated for seed this year and once we achieve a full stand we can reduce interseeding to once per year during the November sand topdressing. Memorial bent grass is drought resistant and disease resistant, meaning we will have drier fairways and save money on watering costs and fungicides.
   
• Remove trees, where possible, within 40 feet of a fairway to reduce shade, tree root problems, earthworm casting and to allow wind drying of fairways, all of which favor bentgrass, improve ball lies and ball roll, and reduces turf disease and watering.
   
• Replace 160 fairway irrigation sprinklers. Budget allows us to replace 48 sprinklers this year leaving 122 to be replaced in the future at a cost of $262 per sprinkler or a total of $31,964. We are replacing model year 1980 sprinklers that are not capable of producing the exacting precipitation rates that the current model year sprinklers do. Plus, the 1980 models, at times, do not rotate and do not turn off which causes even wetter fairways than there general inefficiencies do.
   
• Install surface catch basins and drain tile. This will hasten the removal of rain and snow melting water, making for better playing and growing conditions. This type of drainage was done in all renovation areas in the 2008 project. The work proposed will be done in areas not part of that project. Total material costs for all areas except No. 15 is $16,805. No. 15 has more dramatic drainage issues dealing with spring seepage and high ground water in two areas. Materials for No. 15 are $13,805. No funds are in the current budget for fairway drainage.
  
   

You got all that? It’s pretty detailed, but a superintendent could knock out one of these reports in a week. By the time winter comes, you’re done — and you have a template document you can refer to and update continually for years to come — to track progress, argue for funding and make sure funding is being directed to areas most in need. The document also illustrates to members or public commissioners your awareness and attention to their concerns, which is a vital piece of communication, especially in the “instant response” world we live in these days.

The standards also provide context. The value of a more dedicated aerification and top-dressing schedule, for example, can be argued for and justified in terms of expected performance. And the methods can be compared to a rival course down the street. This drives home to members and management the benefits the club derives from that sort of investment.

Working with courses on these standards, over time, led us – as architects and contractors – to think differently about the way our clients handle renovation. There simply isn’t the money these days to put together a traditional master plan and spend millions to execute it all at once. Ultimately, we developed an approach we call the Asset Management Plan (AMP), where we divide a master plan into smaller, affordable chunks and help clubs tackle them on a year-to-year basis.

You can see how the development of standards can dovetail with this approach to renovation. The issues are already divided up into project-size chunks, with priorities and costs affixed.

Bob Lohmann is founder, president and principal architect of Lohmann Golf Designs and a frequent GCI contributor. Check out his blog at lohmanncompanies.blogspot.com.