Turf Reports: Greens maintenance presented by SYNGENTA

Greens: We Have a Solution for That

Thank you to Golf Course Industry for the opportunity to sponsor this Turf Report on maintaining greens. The superintendents surveyed provided valuable insights about their management and challenges on greens, many of which Syngenta is proud to offer solutions for.

The Importance of Greens

As you know, greens are the most important surface on the course. This research shows superintendents allocate almost 40% of their labor hours to maintaining these vital playing surfaces. And for good reason - golfers spend roughly 35% of their time during a round on putting greens.

Aerification Recovery

On average, superintendents reported they aerify their greens 2.8 times per year to relieve compaction and promote healthy turf, but this critical practice can conflict with golfers’ expectations for fast, consistent ball roll. However, the Action™ brand fungicides can provide quicker recovery from aerification:

"[In our trials] with the combination of Appear® II and Action brands, we saw turf recover 2 to 3 days faster from aerification." - Jim Kerns, Ph.D. , North Carolina State University

Respondents also mentioned the following concerns for their greens’ health:

• Drought stress 48%
• Heat stress 46%
• Resistance 22%
• Shade stress 29%

Visit GreenCastOnline.com/ActionBrands to learn how the Action brand fungicides can help alleviate these concerns.

DATA-DRIVEN GREENS MANAGEMENT

The research also shows how superintendents use data to provide added insights into their greens, with 76% measuring soil moisture . Spiio™ soil sensors automatically provide hyperlocal soil data, including moisture, temperature, salinity and light, without manual collection or uploading, and make the data easily accessible. Syngenta also offers a full suite of agronomic alerts to help track Growing Degree Days, the Smith-Kerns Dollar Spot model and much more.

Disease & Insect Pressures

Dollar spot is the #1 disease concern on greens for 63% of superintendents. The Posterity® fungicide brands have become leading solutions for this disease, delivering up to 28 days of control. For help determining which brand is right for you, visit GreenCastOnline.com/PosterityBrands.

Additionally, the top 5 problematic insects reported – ants, cutworms, white grubs, annual bluegrass weevil and armyworms – can all be reliably controlled with Ference® and Acelepryn® brand insecticides. Purchasing these products during GreenTrust® 365 from Oct. 1 – Dec. 10, means superintendents can save up to 46% on Acelepryn brands and 50% on Ference.

Syngenta is proud to provide comprehensive solutions, agronomic programs, a leading team of 36 agronomists as well as research like this to help superintendents maintain exceptional greens. We hope you benefit from these insights gathered by the Golf Course Industry team.

— Stephanie Schwenke, Turf Market Manager, Syngenta

Tine-tuning

Calling St. John’s Golf Club a busy place is an understatement. Located in St. Augustine, Florida, the club hosted 69,000 rounds last year, with its peak season falling in the window from Thanksgiving through May.

The club opened for play in 1989, then closed in early 2022 for a renovation guided by architect Erik Larsen that included the installation of TifEagle Bermudagrass greens and collars. It reopened in November of that year, following the Thanksgiving holiday.

Where is your course located?

Superintendent Anthony Baur has been at the club for a decade. Protecting his greens while dealing with a high volume of play is an ongoing priority.

“We had to do a lot of spiking, needle tining and Ninja tining the greens this year to keep them as healthy as we could,” he says. “In the past, we only needle tined monthly, but now we’re biweekly or every three weeks. This is the first year I’ve had to use this many hexagon plugs for repair. We have been consistent on using fungicides to prevent disease and wetting agents to hold the water.”

When it comes to weather conditions, Baur has seen changes in his time at the club — changes that have led to his doing some things differently.

“Conditions have changed,” he says. “I’ve used more full aerifications throughout the whole property to improve water drainage. This year was a lot warmer. We only had two frosts, which were very light, not even to the point where we had to water them off. The year before that we had at least three, and five before that, so this year was really warm compared to years past.”

One weather-related issue that particularly concerns Baur is the increased cloud cover he’s dealt with over the last year.

Dominant turfgrass species on your greens

“You’re not growing healthy grass,” Baur says. “(Cloudy weather) is not killing anything, but disease chance is there. Full sun is what the grass wants. I’m watching my water, watching aerification, trying to make sure it can breathe and trying to keep it as healthy as I can.”

Baur’s disease problems are minimal, in part due to his preventative efforts.

“There are sometimes one or two entry/exit points (adjacent to a green),” he says, “so we’re trying to rope off one of the areas to push them to another area of the green to reduce the wear in that area. When you put a bunker on the cart path side, you tend to get a funneling of traffic. We tend to put ropes around those areas to funnel them to the other side.”

— Rick Woelfel

South Carolina speed

Summertime is a slow time for Alex Tolbert when it comes to volume of play. Tolbert maintains the turf at South Carolina’s Orangeburg Country Club, a single-owner private club that allows some outside play. His rounds peak in the spring and fall, and level off around the holidays.

But during the summer months he is as vigilant as ever when it comes to protecting the club’s Champion Bermudagrass greens.

According to Tolbert, who has been at Orangeburg for 12½ years, the Ellis Maples -designed golf course was the first East of the Mississippi with Champion Bermudagrass greens. They were installed in 1997 — the course dates back to 1960 — and rebuilt 12 years later as part of a renovation by Richard Mandell .

In part due to drainage concerns, Tolbert keeps a close eye on the moisture levels in his putting surfaces.

“It’s all surface drainage,” he says. “Once they’re wet, they kind of stay wet for a little while. Once they dry out, they’re dry. We monitor how much water we put on during the day. Every day we’ll take moisture readings. We have a certain number where we like to try to keep them as moisture is concerned. That dictates how much water we put on them at night even if we have to pull a hose or do something during the day to try to kind of them through.

“We also are on a pretty aggressive fungicide program.”

Tolbert and his crew of 17 work to strike the right balance between the green speeds he’s looking for and the health of the turf.

“We’re spraying growth regulators during the week,” he says. “When it’s really hot, we go out every single week with a little bit of fertilizer to keep the amount of growth not to a minimum. We want a little bit of growth, but we don’t want so much that they slow down.

“We have to aerify and verticut during the growing season” — the summer — “so the plant does get injured, but this is the environment that it grows the best in.”

Frequency of PGR applications on greens

Tolbert strives for green heights of 1⁄10th of an inch.

“We can get the green speeds we want out of that height,” he says. “We do roll trying to help us out and get a little more speed out of them for tournaments and even just for regular play. The owner wanted fast greens. That’s what he dictated to me, so since I’ve been here, that’s kind of what we’ve done.”

Away from the summer heat, Tolbert alters his approach to mowing.

“(Mowing height) varies throughout the year,” he says. “During the summer we can definitely be more aggressive because it’s aggressively growing, but in the fall and definitely the wintertime, we’re mowing at much higher heights to kind of make sure (the plant) can survive the winter.”

— Rick Woelfel

Topdressing yields top conditions

Even by the standards of her profession, Amanda Fontaine must be vigilant. Fontaine is the superintendent at Ledges Golf Club, a municipally owned daily-fee club in South Hadley, Massachusetts, less than 15 miles north of Springfield.

The area’s climate dictates that Fontaine and her team be constantly alert.

“The course is located in the Connecticut River Valley,” she says. “All the courses that are in this little area of western Mass and northern Connecticut right on the river are a little bit lower and have their own little climate.

“The humidity is through the roof. The disease pressure is through the roof, so we get crazy conditions when it comes to humidity, rain and heat throughout the summer. So, we have to be hyper vigilant in this area. Even 20 miles away from here, east or west, it’s totally different than this little valley.”

Fontaine’s golf season typically runs from Masters Week to around Thanksgiving. To protect her greens, Fontaine, who is in her fourth season in charge, aerates prior to the opening of the season. From then on, her focus is preparing for the summer’s heat and humidity.

“Through the spring and leading up to the summer, definitely like to do heavy topdressing,” Fontaine says. “We hit them with a very heavy topdress, just to be ahead of the game. before the weather starts getting warm. And then we focus on promoting good rooting. That’s really the basis for how we get through the summer.”

Fontaine takes a proactive approach to dealing with summertime issues like heat, humidity and disease pressure by having a spray program in place. But, she points out, the human element is a factor as well.

“We have a very extensive spray program to stay on top of stuff like that,” Fontaine says. “(But) the best tool that we have to indicate something is wrong is your eyes. Seeing it is the best way to know that something is wrong. Whether that be heat stress, disease stress, or even wet, humid stress. The only way you’re going to know what’s going on is to look at it.

“What we usually do is have a very comprehensive spray program to prevent (problems). Worst case, we have curative action, but some time in August, usually when we’ve hit our peak and everything is starting to get a little tired, we’ll do a little pencil tine or needle tine depending on what we’ve got scheduled for tournaments and stuff like that, just to give (the greens) a little relief. And then usually in September, we’ll do our fall aeration and jump on them with fertilizer and stuff like that.”

After the season closes, Fontaine has the following summer and the health of her greens on her mind.

Description of your greens topdressing philosophy

“Even as late as right before Christmas we’ll do another solid tine-heavy topdress on top of that.

“But the biggest thing we do is keep driving roots down. The more topdressing we put on, the more protected the crown is and the more root density we can find.

“We do a heavy snow mold spray as well and lots of colorant to keep the grass a little bit warmer with that pigment in there. That’s all just to keep everything warm because the weather fluctuates so much and you can’t really prepare for everything.

“We don’t tarp our greens in the winter or anything like that. Usually there’s snow that acts as our topping. But if there’s no snow, the best thing we can do is have a nice heavy topdress on it to protect it.”

— Rick Woelfel

Striving for hydro consistency

David Swift takes a back-to-basics approach when it comes to protecting his greens, but he utilizes modern technology to achieve the results he wants.

Swift is the superintendent at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he’s in his 16th season. He oversees a crew of 35, half of whom are part-timers.

Over the course of a six-month golf season that begins on or shortly before May 1, Swift, a South Dakota native, will host approximately 20,000 rounds, plus a PGA Tour Champions tournament in September.

Dealing with weather extremes is part of his job description.

“We can get to 20 to 30 below zero in the winter,” Swift says. “We can get over 105 degrees in the summer. We probably get 30 days a year over 90 degrees and we can have 20 inches of rain or 35 inches of rain.”

Swift’s primary focus involves regulating the moisture levels in his bentgrass greens, which he does with the help of moisture meters.

“We’ve been using moisture meters since 2012 or so,” Swift says. “That, more or less, has taken all the questions out of our summertime programs. For us, it’s all about moisture, making sure we don’t have too much and making sure we have just enough. Ever since we’ve had a moisture meter in our hands, our summers have gotten a lot easier.”

Swift, a graduate of the two-year program at Penn State, disdains the one-size-fits-all model when it comes to greens.

“One philosophy that we’ve always had is we don’t have to do the same thing to every single hole,” Swift says. “If we were to have a problem green, we’re going to go aerify just that green. We’re just striving for consistency, so if something kind of falls out of line, we try to stop the world and bring back that green or area of the course. We pull out all stops to make sure it’s on track to be as good as everything else as soon as possible.

“We strive for consistency, but at the same time, if something’s off, we stop the world and take corrective action if possible.”

Swift’s protocol for preserving and protecting greens in the summer heat involves demonstrating mechanical restraint.

“We roll six days a week and only mow about five times a week,” he says. “Sometimes during the heat, we will only roll the greens that day. If we have a hot stretch, we will mow with solid front rollers. Sometimes we will raise the height for a week or two. The wind blows here, we get some wobble.”

Over the last decade, the greens have benefitted from a tree-removal effort.

“We’ve taken out a lot of trees, making sure that all of our shade problems have been eliminated,” Swift says. “And the last handful of years, our bentgrass populations have improved greatly, just because of the shade reductions. That was kind of the first thing that helped.

“But between removing trees and having moisture meters, we’ve done a lot of hand watering. We have a handful of guys that are trained pretty well with a hose and moisture meters. They’re the unsung heroes that should get all the credit because it usually has to do with moisture in our world — making sure we have just enough and never too much.”

— Rick Woelfel

Quality via tinkering

Though the considerable turf under his watch is situated amid a 55-and-older community, Tyler Truman isn’t one to work his grounds and greens with a “puttering around in the garage” purview.

Rather, the director of agronomy and grounds at the Coachella Valley’s bustling, 5,000-home Sun City Palm Desert and the on-site 36 holes of member/public access Mountain Vista Golf Club is always aiming to improve the product offered to golfers.

“Maintenance of the greens, it’s the most important part of the golf course. If your greens aren’t good, then everything else is gonna look horrible, whether it’s good or not,” says Truman, a past present of the Hi-Lo Desert Chapter of the GCSAA. “And we do everything we can here, looking at different areas, from clipping yields to fertility to topdressing to verticutting in an effort to get and keep those quality greens.”

Such quality often comes by way of tinkering. Three years ago, Mountain Vista was among the first Coachella Valley tracks to renovate to non-overseed MiniVerde greens, which Truman implemented upon Mountain Vista’s San Gorgonio Course. Conversely, the property’s Santa Rosa Course has stuck with Tifdwarf Bermudagrass (for now).

“They’re managed differently at different times of the year, from transition to overseeding,” Truman says of the courses’ respective greens. “And I think we’ve done very well in recent years with the switch to MiniVerde; it gives our guests and membership a different playing opportunity and a different playing surface than what they’d typically see.”

Today, nearly a dozen Coachella Valley courses have gone to MiniVerde, with more and more locales now converting each year.

“You need to really watch your water, watch your fertility, and once it gets cold, you need to also closely watch your mowing practices,” Truman says. “Our first year with MiniVerde, our green speeds shot up to 13, which is really fast for our residents and not conducive to their games. So, there are times during the winter months where we rolled ’em maybe once a week.”

Ever working with a view on the shot ahead, Truman is always eyeing rolls of the future.

Resulting from discussions with Bladerunner Farms of Poteet, Texas, Truman is now looking at a potential transition to zoysiagrass surfaces on the Santa Rosa in the next three to five years. This past season, he created a 2,000-square-foot zoysia sample space on property to begin assessment.

“And we arranged that in comparison right next to MiniVerde greens,” Truman says, “so we could see side-by-side how they looked during season, how they rolled different, what extra maintenance might be required and maintaining green speeds.”

The implement of zoysia, far more commonly seen in the Midwest and Southern regions, could prove a game-changer for desert agronomists. The slower-growing strain, if successful, could dramatically reduce water usage and, moreover, omit the desert ritual of annual course closure for overseed during the autumn season.

For the year ahead, Truman and his crew will soon expand a select hole to approximately an acre of zoysia on both fairway and rough for additional study; the effort will then enjoy further sample and study by way of zoysia grow-in on the grounds’ practice area.

“If we see things we like maintenance-wise, we might have an all-zoysia course with zoysia putting greens,” Truman concludes. “And while I probably take it to the extreme compared to some other people, I think everybody (out here) is always tinkering with some different things, tinkering with their overseed, looking at their greens and trying to make things better.”

— Judd Spicer