Paul Jonas, golf course superintendent of Flint Hills National Golf Club, hopes the bermudagrass is soon gone.

One of the biggest adjustments Paul Jonas had to make when he became golf course superintendent at Flint Hills National Golf Club was dealing with a turf monoculture on his fairways. Brought on board during grow-in of the Wichita, Kan.-based private facility in 1996, Jonas made the joint decision with owner Tom Devlin to plant zoysiagrass instead of the traditional ryegrass.

"I hadn't worked with zoysia on my previous two courses, but I'd heard great things about it," says Jonas, formerly superintendent at Wichita's Crestview Country Club and a graduate of Kansas State University's turfgrass management program. "I like the contrast of colors in spring and fall between the golden brown of dormant zoysia and the deep green of the cool-season bluegrass rough."

Playing conditions on dormant zoysiagrass are "awesome," says Jonas, and he doesn't have to worry about maintenance during winter months. In addition, zoysiagrass weathers the hot, humid Kansas summers better than cool-season grasses, with fewer disease-related problems.

Flint Hills National, a Tom Fazio-designed course, opened in 1997 and rose through the ranks to become No. 43 in the 2005 Top 100 Golf Courses, ranked by Golf Digest. With 300 members, mostly from the Wichita area, Flint Hills features 45 acres of native grasses as well as 40 acres of bluegrass primary rough. In addition to the 38 acres of zoysiagrass fairways and tees, the course has five acres of Cato/Crenshaw bentgrass greens.

The 18-hole golf course measures 6,921 yards with a course rating of 75.4 and a slope rating of 152. Bentgrass greens average 7,000 square feet and the natural look of the course is augmented by 6,000 trees planted since 1996.

"Tom Devlin set out to build a world-class golf course in Kansas, and he has definitely succeeded," Jonas says. "He is a true outdoorsman, who loves to hunt and fish, as well as golf. Most importantly, he has always been fully supportive of all my maintenance practices and projects."

When bermudagrass started showing up in the zoysia fairways in 1998, Jonas began a long battle with the warm-season turfgrass. "It's native in the soils around here, though some of it came from the sod we originally planted on the course," he explains. "We diligently cleaned up bermudagrass and replaced it during the grow-in, but it still found its way into the zoysia."

Jonas began spraying Roundup and Fusilade during the summer to take bermudagrass out of the zoysia. He then resodded the bare areas. "We sprayed out a few holes each year," he notes. "It was quite expensive and very labor intensive. But the worst part was taking the holes out of play during resodding. Our members weren't too keen on that, but understood we needed to do it."

In 2004, Jonas learned that Bayer Environmental Science's Acclaim Extra herbicide tank mixed with Turflon herbicide from Dow AgroSciences would eliminate bermudagrass without harming the zoysiagrass. Jonas decided to give it a try on one fairway during 2004.

"We applied it on our No. 7 fairway, which is a long par 4 with a sizable bermudagrass problem," he explains. "We made three applications of the tank mix about 30 days apart. As it happened, we saw great results."

Results were so good that Jonas and Devlin decided to spot spray with Acclaim and Turflon in place of the previous spray and resodding program during 2005. Starting in July, they made three applications 30 days apart.

"The amount of bermudagrass that didn't come back was significant," Jonas says. "It was a big relief to the crew not to have to resod and it definitely helped the budget. Besides, we didn't have to take holes out of play while resodding in patches. All in all, it was a win-win situation."

Jonas expects to continue the program this year, possibly going with four applications instead of three.

"Eventually, we hope most of the bermudagrass will be gone," he adds. "We know we'll never totally eliminate it, but we plan to reduce the heck out of it. Then we'll go on a maintenance schedule where we only spray twice a year."

Clayton is an industry specialist for Tierney Communications, a Philadelphia-based agency that represents Bayer Environmental Science.