By Steve Eubanks
Hybrid turfgrasses offer yet another way for operators to distinguish their most valuable asset
If you'd predicted this trend a decade ago, you would've been laughed out of the boardroom. Certainly some older golfers remember the bad old days when bermudagrass was not only the grass of choice, it was the only thing course owners east of New Mexico and south of Washington, D.C., attempted to grow on their putting surfaces. The problem was the quality. Grainy and notoriously inconsistent, those old bermudagrass greens ruined many putting strokes and fostered stereotypes that Southern courses, regardless of their design merits, were inferior to their cousins to the north.
Little wonder that during the boom period of the 1980s and 1990s, countless club boards and facility owners spent small fortunes converting their greens to bentgrass wherever the smoother-rolling, greener grass would grow-and in some places where it wouldn't. Courses as far south as Panama City Beach, Florida, tried to grow bent greens, even though the grass doesn't withstand heat particularly well.
These days, it seems things have come full circle, as some of the best clubs in the South are switching back to the heartier non-bentgrass varieties. With budgets tightening and older bent greens reaching their life expectancy, many course owners have realized that the newer hybrids are not only easier and cheaper to keep, but the quality is better than bentgrass.
"For starters, you have to consider the time in which you have your major events," says Ken Mangum, superintendent of Atlanta Athletic Club (AAC) in Georgia. "What we were realizing is that, especially with the PGA Championship being in August and the major club events coming in the summer, we were fighting to keep the bentgrass fast and firm during our prime playing season and the times when we were hosting the biggest tournaments, but it was great in the fall and winter when play dropped off. That didn't make any sense."
That so-called lack of sense compelled the members of Atlanta Athletic in 2008 to convert the greens on the club's highest-profile 18, the Highlands Course, from bentgrass to a hybrid bermudagrass. Meanwhile, Highlands' sister layout, the Riverside Course, still sports bentgrass putting surfaces.
"We figured we would have one course with the hybrid greens and one with the bent greens, and the bent greens would get the most member play because they're still a deeper green, even in the summer, and they're softer," says Mangum, who'll be preparing the Highlands Course for the PGA Championship's return in 2011. "Turns out that's not the case at all. Our members love the hybrid grass because it's in better shape during the times when most people play golf."
Like many longtime superintendents in the Southeast, Mangum has witnessed the full-circle evolution of plant varieties on putting surfaces. He vividly recalls trying to keep bermudagrass greens alive at Idle Hour Country Club in Macon, Georgia, in 1984 during the craziest winter anyone can remember.
"On December 23rd of that year, the temperature was 76 degrees, and on December 24th, it was 3 degrees," he says. "That killed several of the greens, so we replanted."
Being in the middle of Georgia, where temperatures regularly break the triple-digit mark in July and August, Mangum's new bermudagrass greens thrived that first summer. The trick was keeping them verti-cut and aerated often enough to prevent the grain from rendering them virtually unputtable. Then in January 1985, temperatures plunged to minus-7 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the all-time record low by 10 degrees.
"We lost the greens for the second year in a row," Mangum recounts. "Of course, we had overseeded with rye and when it checked out, they were dead. So we decided to convert [to bentgrass]. The following July when we had 10 straight days where the temperature broke 100, all my friends were calling to see if they were dead yet."
The bentgrass surfaces at Idle Hour survived, but only because Mangum became an expert at identifying heat stress, wet wilt and the plethora of fungi that plague bentgrass in the South. That knowledge has served him well at Atlanta Athletic, but he's drawing upon it less often now that half the greens under his care are grassed with a hybrid whose quality is "so much better than it used to be." This enables Mangum to maintain greens "at their firmest and fastest during the peak play months without interrupting golf to put out fungicide or water hot spots."
Across town at East Lake Golf Club, Superintendent Ralph Kepple has likewise made the switch from bentgrass to a bermudagrass hybrid, a move he deems "a great success." It was also a bold play, considering East Lake, which has hosted the season-ending Tour Championship since 2004, was the first course in the South to convert from bermudagrass to bentgrass more than 50 years ago. No doubt, the choice was made easier after a near debacle in 2007, when the bentgrass greens withered under oppressive heat and drought, forcing the club to close for most of the summer.
"We can get the greens really firm and fast, like the [PGA] Tour wants it, without having what happened in 2007," says Kepple, praising the performance of the club's Mini-Verde putting surfaces.
The switch hasn't been completely without challenges, however. An unusually long cold stretch near the end of 2009 brought 17 straight days when the ground temperature was below freezing in Atlanta, forcing Kepple to cover his greens and close the course. Even so, he prefers this inconvenience to the alternative of having to close it in the summer when members want to play.
As for the once-popular practice of overseeding during winter? Many superintendents are abandoning that practice altogether, particularly with the advent of the newer bermudagrass varieties.
"You let it go dormant now," Mangum says. "That was what stressed the old bermuda greens, and you never knew if you'd lose them or not until the rye checked out. Now, you cover them during freezing conditions and people play on a dormant surface, which has a great putting consistency."
For all the praise Southern superintendents have heaped on the new bermudgrass hybrids, some course operators to the West have turned to other alternatives and experienced good results. Tanglewood Resort in Pottsboro, Texas, worked with Dr. Milton Engelke and his staff at Texas A&M University to convert its bentgrass greens to Diamond zoysia, which is engineered to use less chemicals and water than other grasses.
"Our maintenance costs have been cut dramatically," says General Manager Greg Dick, who estimates the facility's chemical expenses have been reduced by "at least 50 percent" and, in some cases, as much as 60 percent to 70 percent. "It's just been great on all fronts."
Tanglewood has also realized substantial savings in water consumption and expenditures with the new greens, a particularly important consideration in Texas where water restrictions are tight. "This zoysia is so tough that we've been able to dramatically cut back," says Dick, "and even if our water source isn't the purest, the leaf of the plant wicks the impurities away."
Dick even finds savings in not having to stress over bentgrass dying in the summer heat. Checking for hot spots, hand-watering and keeping the greens super-soft in the summer-all those issues have been resolved since Tanglewood made its switch.
"If we played the same number of rounds in the height of our season, the cost savings from having zoysia would improve the bottom line," Dick says. "But we actually play more rounds in season now because the condition of the greens is better than when you're keeping bentgrass soft and slow to keep it alive."
At a time when all course owners are looking for long-term savings as well as environmentally responsible ways to maintain their most valuable asset, converting to one of the new hybrids just might be the answer for clubs in certain areas of the country.
"It depends on your season," Kepple says. "At Peachtree [Golf Club in Atlanta, the city's most exclusive club], they play most of their rounds in the spring and fall, which is the prime growing season for bent, so they can keep bent and keep it firm and fast. Out here [at East Lake], we play most of our rounds in the summer, and with the Tour Championship now in September, it made perfect sense for us to convert. So, it's all about when you have the most play and what you're trying to achieve."
Steve Eubanks is an Atlanta-based freelance writer and former golf course owner.