Green Maintenance

       Mowing and rolling are the two aspects of a golf course that a competitive golfer looks at when playing a round. They need to know each day if the course mows and rolls so they can estimate green speed. Putting-greens management is the key to being a successful golf course superintendent. The putting greens are your business card and resume. But focusing on greens speed alone can kill your greens and your job. Here are some of the tips that the golf course superintendent has shared with me about maintaining the fantastic greens throughout the year at the Mark Bostick Golf Course. Below is a before and after of a the practice putting green at the UF Course during a normal mowing session.

Should the greens be cut low?

         It is completely normal for any golf fan to watch a major championship and see the incredible surfaces that the professional golfers play on. It often makes them wonder, "Why cant my golf course be like that?". Well it turns out the major championship greens are normally cut well under thier optimum mowing height. This means that the course is willing to take the risk due to the fact that they are making so much money in revenue from the tournament. Any damage done from this technique would be easily fixable. At the Mark Bostick, the greens are cut on average at about .125 inches or 1/8th of an inch. This varies if the course has recently been cut or rolled, as well as the weather. 

Rolling

        Rolling will improve putting surface smoothness and firmness. The turf is much healthier when mowed higher and rolled compared to being mowed lower. Research shows that frequent rolling (even five times per week), will not cause compaction or other turf health problems. This is by far the most important aspect of keeping a golf course in competitive shape during a tournament. Heavy traffic on putting greens is something that happens each and every day, and greens get damaged due to the spikes on golf shoes. Rolling solves this problem without mowing or risking any damage to the surface. It is a great way to get fast, smooth greens and still maintain healthy turfgrass. 

Cultivation 

        Putting greens produce the highest quality putting surface when you cultivate them frequently. The best quality putting surfaces develop on greens where you aerify or deeply vertical mow at least 20 percent of the putting surface area each year. Vertical mowing and sand topdressing in conjunction with aeration produces the best quality putting surfaces, resulting in firm, smooth, well-drained and fast putting surfaces. Golf courses throughout Florida and the southeast with high standards may aerify, vertical mow, and topdress bi-weekly during high growth periods. Putting greens with adequate routine cultivation maintenance have an unlimited life expectancy, which is extremely important in the golfing industry. The reason why the industry in general struggles in making a profit is due to not maintaining greens and surfaces. They are a huge cost and inconvenience to customers. It is important to mow, roll, and cultivate properly to keep the course in great shape. 

Irrigation

       Living in Florida, it is a lot easier to save resources such as water due to the abundance that we get in the summer, however that doesn't mean that Golf Course Superintendents don't pay attention to it. Other than watering each surface every night unless it pours throughout the day, there are some practices in making sure the soil and grass are remaining healthy. We can enhance irrigation practices by reducing putting surface irrigation and implementing deep, infrequent irrigation supplements by hand-watering of hot spots and making sure that areas surrounding the green are watered separately from putting surfaces. These procedures conserve water, increase surface firmness, reduce plant succulence and improve turf health.

Mark Bostick Golf Course Fertilization

          Fertilization does more to improve poor-quality turfgrass or to maintain good-quality turfgrass than any other management practice. Proper fertilization practices produce a dense, medium- to dark-green turf that resists pests and environmental stresses. Careless application techniques or excessive amounts of fertilizer applied at the wrong time of year can result in serious turf damage and contamination of water resources. Successful turf maintenance fertilization requires that you assess your turf’s nutritional requirements, understand fertilizers, know how much to apply and when, and use proper application techniques. These are all important factors in how the Mark Bostick golf course maintains their greens. Knowing what each type of Bermuda needs in order to stay healthy is important. We cannot focus our attention on the greens and fairways alone, we must keep a close eye on every aspect of the course. People like to find what is wrong about a golf course rather than what is good about a golf course. If any grass becomes unhealthy, it does not go over well with good paying customers. 

        This is a good example of what a golf course fertilization technique looks like. Fertilization is only done a few times a year and normally in the hotter months or right after emerging from winter dormancy for warm season grasses. The fertilization happens most of the time directly after aerification in the summer. Due to the holes that are dug up by the process, it is much easier for diseases to increase in the surface. Fertilization also usually happens almost immediately after to prevent any such thing to happen. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are referred to as primary nutrients and must be supplied periodically to turf through fertilizer applications. Calcium, magnesium, and sulfur, the secondary nutrients, are needed only occasionally in the form of fertilizer or lime. One of the main problems that the superintendent at the Mark Bostick golf course talks about is runoff. Runoff is most likely to occur following sudden, heavy rainstorms on soils with poor infiltration characteristics that support little or no vegetation. The most significant runoff threat, however, is from impervious surfaces such as sidewalks, driveways, and roads. Due to the hills at the course, this has always been a problem, and it can be reflected by looking at the pond on hole #2 where this runoff goes too. Fertilization is also far easier to manage in warm season grasses than in cool season grass, which is something the superintendent has been happy about. 

Summer Schedule

         The summer is an extremely important time for a golf course in Florida. This is the time when the course can thrive, and maintain healthiness throughout the year. It is this period that can make or break a course. If precautions aren't taken in the summer months, then the winter months will take a heavy toll on the surfaces. Because we live in Florida, Bermuda is the typical grass for golf courses, and because it is a warm season grass, we need to prep the grass for the harsh months when it wont thrive. Items such as Aerification and Verticutting are necessary for the well being of the course, however it isn't aesthetically pleasing. This is what the schedule for the month of July looked like at the Mark Bostick Golf Course.

         Looking at the Schedule we can see plenty of precautions before the staff goes into aerification. The course will need to be aerated 3 times over the course of the summer. As we know, aerification relieves soil compaction, it provides a method to improve the soil mixture around the highest part of a green's roots and it reduces or prevents the accumulation of excess thatch. This is all necessary for upkeep for the greens and fairways through the winter months. The course also takes the opportunity to put down sod throughout the course in areas that need it. Some areas don't get as much sunlight, but to aesthetically please customers this item is needed. This schedule was released after the first two aerifications, so we can see that two weeks after the second aerification they verticut the surfaces. Then two weeks later they will begin the last process. They not only fertilize the greens and the fairways, but they also fertilize the bunkers to prevent weeds from growing inside them. They also put Fungicide on the greens to prevent disease, and topdress every week as stated before in the previous post. All of these precautions are used in order to maintain the course throughout the year. 

Weekly Maintenance

Every single week, the Mark Bostick undergoes some form of maintenance. Because of the unpredictable weather in Florida, the Superintendents have to be on their feet in order to come of with solutions to certain issues. In this post, we will be going through a normal week at the Mark Bostick Golf Course. This is from the week of February 1st, when the weather is cold. In an upcoming post, we will be discussing the different maintenance techniques used in the summer months.

Monday:

        The week begins by a slight mow of the greens. This mowing process is called "Walking" because the staff mowing the greens are using push mowers. After each walking session, they follow that up by rolling the greens out to maintain a smooth putting surface. This begins at around 4:45am until the course opens up around 8. While this is happening, mowing begins on the rough. They use riding mowers to mow these areas. They also TopDress the greens and fairways and apply hand maintenance to the Tee Boxes. 

Tuesday and Wednesday

      These two days are the slow days at the course. They provide the normal Tee Box service by picking any weeds that may have sprung up, and roll the greens. The do not need to cut the greens on these two days, nor mow any of the rough and fairways surfaces. In the morning they mow the driving range, and the range needs to be clean picked of range balls by the cart staff the night before. 

Thursday

       This day, they mow the fairways, however they do it throughout the morning. This process starts at 6am and goes on until noon. Being an avid golfer at the Mark Bostick, they do a great job with not getting in the way of players. They usually finish around 10am due to their organization and multiple mowers. They need to mow all of them in one day to keep consistency throughout the course. They also walk the greens once more and roll.

Friday

       The final mow and roll is done to the greens, however this is the most intensive cut of the week. 5 walkers per green cut and mow the surfaces. This is to ensure the greens stay in shape over the weekend. Tee boxes are treated as well by mowers this morning for their weekly cut. The course is ready for the weekend and the enhanced traffic from customers.

Saturday and Sunday

        Saturday and Sunday, the greens are rolled, and the tee boxes are serviced. They are not cut or topdressed again until Monday. Sunday, most of the maintenance staff is off for the day, yet the SuperIntendent stays on call. 

      

      

Mark Bostick Golf Course Grasses

          Living in Florida, there is not much of a variety of grasses that are used on golf courses. Most courses have a variety of Bermudagrass that are first and foremost used because of the hot weather, but secondly for the easy of maintenance. Courses use different types of bermudagrass for multiple reasons as well. One of the reasons has to do with the canopy, as some are thicker and some are thinner for greens and fairways respectively. The other reason is to have different shades of green so that the player can easily distinguish from green, to fringe, to fairway, and finally to rough. Here is a picture of the three different varieties of bermudagrass at the Mark Bostick Golf Course.

Using these pictures we can distinguish and discuss each of the grasses in detail,

Rough and Fairways: Tif Sport

         Tif Sport Bermuda is a new and improved sterile hybrid from irradiated stolons of Midiron bermudagrass. Tifway is another common grass used for fairways, however according to the Superintendent, TifSport is far better for a multitude of reasons. First off, TifSport has a better cold hardiness, more density and tensile strength, more mole cricket non-preference, and superior response to lower than .75" mowing heights. 

Tee Boxes and Fringe: Celebration

         Celebration Bermuda performs well in a variety of conditions and was top rated for drought toughness, even though in Florida that normally isn't a problem. The key to celebration is that it handles cold very well, meaning that in the summer when the rough turns brown and goes dormant, regular maintenance and upkeep keeps these fairways its normal blue-green color. Because of the nature of the grass, there is no need for over-seeding in the winter months, and in the summer when Aerificaiton takes place, the fairways grow back rapidly and in good shape.

Greens: Champion UltraDwarf

        A few years back, the Mark Bostick Golf Course underwent a change in management. They hired a new superintendent, and the first task was to replace the old greens. The USGA calls UltraDwarf the standard for golf courses in Florida. They are known for there extremely low mowing heights, creating a slick putting surface like carpet, and long lifespans. The USGA even released an advertisement titled, "Time for a Change" to encourage Superintendents to switch to this grass.

Bahia grass

       Finally, Bahia was planted in certain areas of the course to increase the difficulty of the rough. This grass is extremely think, and can grow much faster than the Bermuda used in the fairways and greens. It's design for the course is used to give the Varsity golfers a harder time when hitting out of the rough. This was a welcome change due the notion that the Mark Bostick is a wide open driving course. 

       

Mark Bostick Golf Course Summer Maintenance

        Working at the Mark Bostick Golf Course, I am able to be with and work along side some of the best managers in the world of college sport athletics. In the golf industry, I get to learn about financial aspects on what makes a golf course successful, as well as how management can affect the day to day well being of our members and the course itself. However, for this class I was able to dive a little deeper.  Working with the Golf Course Superintendent, I was able to see what the monthly maintenance looks like over the summer at the UF Course. Over the summer, there are plenty of issues that arise when dealing with this warmer weather, and throughout this blog, I will show how the superintendent prevents these possible issues.

General Information Post:

The Mark Bostick Golf Course is a thriving facility and has some of the best well kept surfaces in the area. Summer maintenance is key in making sure that the course is good shape throughout the year. As covered in this blog, we will be going into top dressing, fertilization, fungicide, sod prep, verticutting and finally aerification. Some of these items are put in place throughout the year, and others are used only in the summer months. Aerification for example can only be done in the summer months due to the high amount of rain and sunlight. Each of these items will be looked into greater detail throughout this blog. To finish off the post, here are the types of grass the Mark Bostick Golf Course uses. We will dive deeper into each in the next post.

Grass Types: 

Bermudagrass Cultivars

• Celebration: Fringe and Tee Boxes
• Tif Sport: Rough and Fairways
• Champion UltraDwarf: Greens

Bahia Grass

• Few but some rough areas (left side #10 and #12)