Seeing Red on the Green

One of the largest decisions that had to be made during the renovation was what variety of bermuda grass was going to be used for everything except the greens.  The decision was made to use a variety called Celebration.  This grass has excellent wear tolerance, good cold weather color, and is very aggressive in growth habit.  All of these are exceptional qualities that are highly desirable for the golf course.  Out of all of these great qualities there is only one that creates an issue for us, the aggressive growth habit.  The only place that the Celebration's aggressiveness isn't desirable is the putting surface / collar interface.  The reason being is that the Celebration is so aggressive in growth that it will grow right into the putting surface if left unchecked.  This is called encroachment.

To combat the problem of Celebration encroaching into the MiniVerde putting surface my staff edges the perimeter of the greens bi-weekly.  This is done just like you would edge a sidewalk and is a very time consuming ordeal.  To complete the edging process can take 40 man hours for this one task.  Ultimately though, this is just a measure to slow the encroachment.  The Celebration eventually will send out a below ground stem called a rhizome that will eventually surface and start a new patch of Celebration.  Once that Celebration has made it past our first line of defense of edging, we have to physically remove it by plugging the putting surface.  To help my staff identify where the Celebration is that needs to be removed I dot the putting surface with turf paint for easy location.

Celebration bermuda grass in MiniVerde putting surface

 Once the putting surface has been dotted, a staff member can go to our nursery green and remove plugs that can be inserted into the putting surface to replace the area where Celebration is found.  In this picture you can see that a little bit of Celebration was left behind and is starting to grow again.



 You might even find a piece of Celebration a long way from the perimeter of the green.  I attribute this to the aerification process as we always start outside of the green's perimeter in the Celebration, just in case something happens when the machine is set on the ground.  During the process of lowering and lifting the aerifier is typically when something goes wrong if it is going to happen.  My guess is that a tiny sprig of Celebration is transplanted somehow during the core cleanup, sanding and brushing process. 

To date we have been able to stem the tide of encroachment by being very diligent with our combination program of edging and plugging.  So don't be alarmed if you see some red while on the green.  It's just me trying to maintain a pure MiniVerde stand of grass on the putting surface.