November 10' - Bermuda Grass
Bermudagrass
Over the past several weeks, I have heard some comments regarding patches of brown grass in the fairways,
and why is the grass on the driving range tee brown. I thought this may be a good time to offer an explanation.
These brown areas are comprised of bermudagrass, which is a warm season grass. This is the standard
grass in the southern areas of the country where there is prolific heat. Bermudagrass thrives with the heat.
We are located in the Transition Zone, which basically means that we get weather patterns that are similar to
southern climates, as well as more normal northeastern type weather. Once in awhile, we will also see
extremely cold and snowy patterns. The bottom line is that we see it all. It is this variability that makes
growing grass in our area so difficult. This area of the country is primarily cool season type grasses. When
we see extremely hot weather, our cool season turf struggles. Bermudagrass on the other hand, does very
well.
The bermudagrass areas in our fairways were reportedly planted there many, many years ago as an
experiment. It has continued to thrive, in fact it has spread in some cases. We also have bermudagrass in
various other areas of the course…..tees, green and tee surrounds, and some bunker banks. The nice thing
about this grass is that it performs very well during our summer months when golf activity is at its’ peak.
The drawback of bermudagrass is that once the cooler weather sets in, it loses it color and goes dormant,
hence the brown color. It is not dead, just gone to sleep if you will. Dormant bermudagrass offers reasonable
playability in the off-season despite the color. The grass will resume growth in the late spring.
We chose to install this type of grass (a newer variety) on a portion of the driving range this past spring due to
its’ aggressive growth rate. With the smallness of our grass teeing area, we always struggled to have decent
turf quality though the golf season. We felt that the bermudagrass, with its’ fast recovery rate, would allow us to
have higher quality turf on the range through a bigger window of the golf season. After our first season with it
in place, we were very pleased with how it performed. So much so, that we are budgeting to sod the
remaining half of the grass teeing area with it in the spring of 2011. While it does not look pretty now that it
has gone dormant, it has allowed us to provide a much higher quality surface for our members to practice on.
One other difference with the bermudagrass versus our normal cool season turf, is that the texture and feel
while hitting off of it is quite a bit different. We felt that the trade-off was worth it.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at 610-872-4502 or
sprnghvn@verizon.net
Every month, Charlie Miller makes a informative letter contribution to the clubs newsletter.
