Golfdom Files: Special maintenance duties of the southern greenskeeper
Some article topics that might seem pedestrian today were quite timely in Golfdom’s first year of publication. In October 1927, Jack Daray wrote an article concerning the agronomic practices of southern superintendents. It appears Daray was a greenskeeper at Olympia Fields Country Club in Chicago for a majority of the year, but spent winters at the Biloxi (Miss.) Golf Club. He went on to build courses across the country, from Michigan to Mississippi to California. To read the full article, click here.
By Jack Daray
The southern greenkeeper’s problems are not, in their broader aspects, particularly different from those of the northern greensman. Mowing, weeding, fertilizing and similar maintenance duties are performed in very much the same manner wherever the golf course is located.
There is, however, one important difference — the southern course receives its heaviest play during the winter months and (the superintendent) must accordingly keep his course in playing condition twelve months in the year, whereas play on the northern course ends about Dec. 1, and the northern greenskeeper simply puts his links to bed until spring, some four or five months later.
The principal problem of the southern course, then, is to keep the greens, and the fairways to a lesser extent, in good condition through the winter.
FALL SEEDING NECESSARY
My experience has been mainly with courses along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In such a climate I have never found any grass better than bermuda for summer greens. It gives us a fairly smooth putting surface, is reasonably resistant to weeds and is easy to keep up. But it dies out and becomes brown and dormant about the middle of December.
Accordingly, about this time of year, I sow the greens rather heavily with a 50/50 mixture of redtop and Italian rye, so that by the time the bermuda dies down, the winter seeds have formed a playing carpet.
Within a month, I have better greens than I have in summer, and they last until well into February when the bermuda comes up again. I use two kinds of seed in my winter greens because the red top is somewhat bunchy and the rye acts as a filler.
PRINCIPLE SOUTHERN WEEDS
Obviously, there are some operations to be done before the winter seed is put in, principally weeding. Along the Gulf Coast there are three important injurious weeds.
There is bull-grass, which looks like the crab-grass of the North, but coarser; carpet grass, which forms our fairways and is ideal for that purpose but very bad and hard to keep out of the greens. The third weed has a small round leaf about a third of an inch across, and spreads very rapidly like a slender vine. I do not know its name.
The bull-grass and the carpet-grass must be cut out of the greens by hand so as to get to the roots. For the third weed, vigorously raking the greens will remove the long runners very quickly.
FAIRWAYS REQUIRE LITTLE CARE
Winter care of Gulf Coast greens is not out of ordinary routine. They must be sprinkled and mowed and weeded if they are to be kept in good condition. The fairways require almost no attention; the carpet-grass hardly grows at all. Occasionally I send a mower over them to trim up the edges of the rough and to clip off the tips of the leaves of the carpet-grass, which turn brown after a frost. This browning does not affect the fairways in any way, but unless the leaf tips are clipped off the fairways look burned and dead.
Whether or not a grass will ever be developed that can be used on southern greens year round I don’t know, but if it is developed, the work of the southern greenskeeper will be very lightened.
I hope some variety of bent is developed that will withstand the scorching sun of summer and the frosts, which are sometimes most severe, of winter.
Photos: Golfdom