Against the grain

We've all heard Johnny Miller talk about "gain" and how it is going to affect a putt. Honestly, Johnny is full of horse hockey since today's greens are mowed down to less than 1/10 of an inch for tournaments...trust me, there's no grain in a putting green you see on tv. However, the higher the heights of cut you have (like fairways and tees), the more tendency for grain you have.

For those who don't know what grain is when referring when talking about grass, grain is referring to the tendency of the leaves of the grass to grow in a specific direction. The grain is what gives golf courses striping, or different color patterns in the grass.  There are old wive's tales about grass growing towards water or the setting sun, but that's all not true. The truth is, there's no known reason why a grass tends to grow / or lean a certain direction. What is known is that grain is a natural phenomenon and it has to be managed. 

Here is a picture of some grain on our Celebration Bermuda grass fairways. 

All of the grass in the above picture is Celebration, it has just developed some severe grain. The way we manage the grain during the active growing season is through heavy vertical mowings and frequent grooming. Now that the weather is warming up and will continue to warm up, I can begin to work on managing the grain. Excessive grain control through the cold winter months can lead to thinning turf and bare ground so I do not do a lot of grain control through the winter months. 

So rest assured that the golf course isn't being plagued with the return of all the different types of Bermuda grass we had prior to the renovation. What you are seeing is just the Celebration grass growing strong and doing its thing. The Celebration's strong growth habit is the exact reason why it was chosen for the renovation. 

A Superintendent's nightmare

You know what they say, "the worst thing about a golf course is that you have to leave it outside!" Well the second worst thing a Supt has to potentially go through  happened yesterday  (waking up to a course covered in disease is the first). I'm referring to the fast moving storm with very powerful winds ripping through the pristine golf course my team had prepared for this weekend's invitational event. Wednesday morning around 10 o'clock I was riding the course just so proud of my team for what they had accomplished this year with course and how impeccable it was that day, just perfect for the invitational. 

Well it's 5:12 a.m. and I've been at the course since 4:10 this morning with my staff trying like hell to clean up the wrath of the storm.  There is debris everywhere and we can't begin to clean it up with the blowers and machines until closer to 7, but by starting that late we won't be able to accomplish much before the shotgun start. Nonetheless we are going to give it a go and do what we can do. The only good news is that the 3/4 inch of rain we received seems to have been handled very well by the course I can't find any wet spots. Of course is completely pitch black right now but hey....I'm hopeful!