Predictable Outcome

Stephen Miles is familiar with every blade of grass at The Preserve Golf Club, and for good reason. He’s been on hand since the very beginning. Miles oversaw the grow-in of the Jerry Pate-designed course in 2005 and a greens renovation in 2014 and  he has been nurturing it ever since, first as superintendent and now as the director of golf operations.

The Preserve Golf Club is a semiprivate resort facility in Biloxi, Mississippi. The golf course – which features Bermudagrass tees, fairways and rough, as well as Tiffway 419 Bermuda greens – is surrounded by nature. In fact, in May 2007 the club was designated a Certified Silver Audubon International Signature Sanctuary. In addition, the club is a popular stay-and-play destination, making it imperative that Miles, superintendent Jason Stevens and their staff of 20 provide optimum playing conditions throughout the year.

The club rebuilt its greens in 2014 and since then Miles aerates just once a year, following the Fourth of July. The golf course is closed for two weeks to take advantage of seasonal drop in rounds right before the peak hurricane season. During this time, the Bermudagrass is in a sustained growth period.

“With the renovation in 2014, we tried to stay aggressive from the beginning and hope to continue to reach our goal with displacements of the greens at one time, so we don’t have to close multiple times over the year,” Miles says.

The Preserve Golf Club hosts about 13,000 rounds each year. Its peak season is March through June, but play picks up again in October and November.

As a key component of his agronomic program, Miles relies on Koch Turf & Ornamental's line of fertility products, particularly POLYON^® controlled-release fertilizer, to give the turf the nutritional consistency required to meet members’ needs and expectations.

“For us, everything is about predictability and consistency of growth of the plant,” he says. “I need to know what my greens are going to do, what my fairways are going to do, and what my rough is going to do from a growth standpoint.

“I’ll put POLYON out first in the middle of February,” Miles says, adding he applies it at a rate of 2 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft. of turf. “That gets me all the way through the year. And since we’ve implemented the POLYON  program, our rough from one year to the next has steadily gotten more and more consistent.”

The key to POLYON’s  performance is the Reactive Layers Coating technology, which meters out nutrients via diffusion, regulated by soil temperature and coating thickness. As a result, turf managers like Miles appreciate not only the product's consistency and predictability, but also savings in time, labor and costs from fewer product applications.

In addition, Jackson County Mississippi, where The Preserve Golf Club is located, receives a substantial amount of rainfall. It’s not uncommon for the region to have six inches of rain fall in a six-day period. Miles says POLYON’s regulated release of nutrients prevents the growth flushes that often accompany a heavy rain.

“I’m all about avoiding flushes,” he says. “I want consistent, steady, predictable growth.”

Koch’s NITAMIN^® has been Miles’s choice on his greens the last few years. “It’s helped from a consistency of growth standpoint in our greens and it’s allowed us to be able to lower our nitrogen input, as well,” he says of Koch's urea-triazone foliar product.

Heading into winter, it’s important the turf has an adequate supply of potassium, which is why Miles relies on Koch’s controlled-release products for aeration and consistent year-round feeding.