Environmental Guidebook for Golf Courses

20 Facts You Didn't Know About Golf.

1. 125,000 golf balls a year are hit into the water at the famous 17th hole of the Stadium Course at Sawgrass

2. The longest drive ever is 515 yards. The longest putt ever is a monstrous 375 feet

3. Phil Mickelson, who plays left-handed, is actually right handed. He learned to play golf by mirroring his father’s golf swing, and he has used left handed golf clubs ever since.

4. The chances of making two holes-in-one in a round of golf are one in 67 million.

5. Tiger Woods snagged his first ace at the tender age of eight years old.

6. Balls travel significantly further on hot days. A golfer swinging a club at around 100 mph will carry the driver up to eight yards longer for each increase in air temperature of 25°F.

7. The longest golf course in the world is the par 77 International Golf Club in Massachusetts which measures a fearsome 8325 yards

8. The highest golf course in the world is the Tactu Golf Club in Morococha, Peru, which sits 14,335 feet above sea level at its lowest point.

9. The longest golf hole in the world is the 7th hole (par 7) of the Sano Course at the Satsuki Golf Club in Japan. It measures an incredible 909 yards.

10. The largest bunker in the world is Hell's Half Acre on the 585-yard 7th hole of the Pine Valley Course in New Jersey.

11. The largest golfing green is that of the 695-yard, 5th hole, a par 6 at the International Golf Club in Massachusetts, with an area in excess of 28,000 square feet.

12. The driver swing speed of an average lady golfer is 62mph; 96mph for an average LPGA professional; 84mph for an average male golfer; 108mph for an average PGA Tour player; 130mph for Tiger Woods; 148-152mph for a national long drive champion.

13. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.

14. The first golf balls were made of thin leather stuffed with feathers. Tightly-packed feathers made balls that flew the farthest. Feather balls were used until 1848.

15. The youngest golfer to shoot a hole-in-one was Coby Orr, who was five years old at the time. It happened in Littleton, Colorado, in 1975.

16. 22.8% of golfers are women.

17. Golf was banned in Scotland from 1457 to 1502 to ensure citizens wouldn't waste time when preparing for an English invasion

18. The term birdie comes from an American named Ab Smith. While playing 1899, he played what he described as a "bird of a shot", which became "birdie" over time.

19. The word golf does not mean "Gentleman Only, Ladies Forbidden". This is an internet myth.

20. Don't feel bad about your high handicap -80% of all golfers will never achieve a handicap of less than 18 .

"If you wish to hide your character, do not play golf."

Robotic Mowers... Is this going to be the future ?

Dusting Greens...

Dusting is a practice of applying a thin layer of growing medium to turf. It is an important management operation, especially for heavily used turf. Dusting was first carried out at St Andrews, Scotland some 300 years ago! The benefits of dusting are: creates a smooth surface, biological control of thatch, improved infiltration rate, through improved texture at the top of the root zone, creates a tighter turf sward and finer leaf texture and firms the surface especially during wet periods.


During summer we do it quite heavily every 2 weeks but now in mid winter the growth slows down tremendously so we still do it only at a very low rate every 3 weeks depending on soil temperatures. Player hardly notice the sand and enjoy a smooth rolling green surface through winter.s

Moles, Moles, Moles...

Moles must be one of the most annoying things for any golf course superintendent, they certainly are for me ! Moles have the tendency to push up mole heaps in the worst places and can really spoil the look of any great looking golf course.

The have there young in March to the end of April so there young are now strong and are running around feeding and pushing up mole heaps everywhere. Moles have a hairless, pointed snout and small eyes. These animals are insectivores and feed primarily on grubs and earthworms. For the most part, moles live in seclusion and underground burrows and rarely come to the surface. These mammals are solitary and rarely do more than 2 or 3 moles occupy the same burrow system. Moles have a very high metabolic rate and, therefore, have to consume large amounts of food. Studies of moles on golf courses have shown that an infested area will contain about one mole per acre. Because of the extensive tunneling and length of the tunnels, it may appear that many moles occupy an area. Moles dig elaborate tunnel systems and have feeding runways barely beneath the grass. That is why a mole on a golf course can stick out like a sore thumb. The ridge is elevated and easily visible. The tunnel system will have many meters of traveling tunnels within several centimeters of the ground surface. As the weather cools, moles will retreat into their deeper tunnels, up to 5 feet beneath the surface.

We have found 2-3 different species on the course.. They cost golf courses thousands every year by superintendents spending money on mole poison, traps, gas and mole catchers... At Durban country club we have an employee called Chili a border collie (sheep dog) ... he together with the other staff members are being incentivized when catching a mole and the mole heap numbers have dropped tremendously in the last year he has been with us. We also have found that as you see them pushing soil they are easely caught ... just ask chili !

Well done my boy !!!

Rotavating Bunker

Due to the good summer and spring rain our bunkers have settled and started to get a bit compacted. We are currently busy with a compacting process by rotavating them , fixing any levels in bunkers and topping up of bunkers where necessary. This should only take 2 days to complete and we will continue this process through the summer months. The main reason for having to compact them is because we don't use a USGA spec sand which is a sand that does not compact because of the particle sizes and shapes of the sand. It is also very crucial that you use the same sand in the bunkers as what your growing medium is made up of on the greens as you will get layering on the greens close to the bunker. Layering causes numerous problems.

Poa Annua "Winter grass"

Winter grass as most members would call it but known as Poa annua has been a big problem on most golf courses around the world. It is best adapted to shady, moist, or over-watered areas. Poa annua is a winter annual that germinates in the late summer/early fall once soil temperatures fall below 20 C. Seedlings mature in the fall, overwinter in a vegetative state, and produce seed in late spring and early summer. Annual bluegrass is a prolific seed producer. An individual plant is capable of producing more than 360 viable seeds. The seed may lie dormant in the soil for many years before germinating. Poa annua flowers and produces seed over several months and at any mowing height. Poa grows well under short days and cool conditions, and it will outcompete all other turf species during late fall and early spring. Poa often dies in the heat of the summer (but may survive the stress). Today there are some courses that has it as its primary surface.

At Durban Country club we ended summer by spaying a pre-emergence herbicide and did a follow up spray in early spring. This has assisted in stopping the germination process and now we have a substantial amount less poa on the golf course. Previous years with the old paspalum greens going dormant in winter we had problems with poa annua. Because the paspalum goes dormant it cant fight the poa germinating between plants so we had poa annua growing on the some of the shady , more moist greens. With poa on the greens growing and the paspalum not growing,cause the greens to have a bumpy surface.

Currently with our mini verde Bermuda greens still growing through winter we have a surface that can fight  poa seed germinating. Our greens are 100% poa free compared to last year where we had between 20-30% poa annua on them. By watering deep every 4-5 days keeping the surface dry, verti draining (aerify greens) as much as we can we are fighting the poa from taking over our course.

Shade and Traffic Problem

Trees clearly are important assets on most golf courses providing a great deal of beauty and strategic interest and serving a variety of other important functions. On the other hand, the effects of trees are a major cause of poor quality turf on parts of many courses. In some cases, trees have come to overwhelm the courses from both an agronomic and playability standpoint, causing widespread turf problems and imposing restrictions on the strategic intent of the original golf course design. They can create problems like : Shade, Poor air circulation, Tree root competition, interfering limbs and branches

The effect of shade is an important cause of turf weakness or failure on many types of areas. The
combination of shade and traffic, though, can be deadly. Turfgrass plants need light to photosynthesize
and produce food for growth and regeneration. When light levels are inadequate for too long a period,
carbohydrate reserves are depleted and the turf becomes too weak to quickly recover from traffic injury.
were the turf located in full sun. The effects of shade are especially noticeable on greens and tees, where
foot and mower traffic is concentrated on relatively small areas, and in roughs where cart traffic is quite
heavy.The lack of direct sunlight on a turf area also prolongs the drying out period after irrigation or rainfall, leading to greater disease activity and greater soil compaction.

We are going around the course cutting and pruning the bush and tree's surrounding the greens to make sure that there they get a much sunlight as possible seeing our day light hours are very short in winter. The areas effected will be worked on and staked off so that they can recover as soon possible.



The Players Championship Weekend 2011

All the hard work has finally paid off... The tournament started on Thursday through to Sunday and it was a great success. The course was in spectacular condition and the players loved it. Maintenance kicked off in the mornings at 4:30am and we would have the course prepared and ready for play by 8am.

All fairways , greens , approaches , tee's , hole's were cut in the morning as well as all the bunkers hand raked. The greens were hand watered and the rest of the course was watered at night with over head irrigation.

Players could be seen on the range early in the morning getting ready for the days golf and again in the afternoon working on their game for the next day.

Play kicked off in the mornings at 7am and we had the course back in the afternoon to clean, cut and prepare for the next day of golf. Divot's needed to be filled as well as pitch marks needed to be repaired.

More then R1 million ($150 000) was spend on flowers and landscaping to make the course ever more special for The Players Tournament.

More than 2000 volunteers got to assist in marshaling the spectators on the golf course for the week as there were talks that over a 100,000 people will be attending on Saturday and Sunday.

The parking next to the stadium course could hold between 20-30 thousand cars. This area is for when they want to build a third golf course one day.

Saturday afternoon a big storm came through and the course was closed for 2 hours. A strong wind blew a few tree’s down and left the fairways , bunkers and tees full of pine needles from the trees lining the fairways and the course was unplayable. 75mm of rain fell but this was the least of our worries as when they did the R420 million ($60 million) revamp in 2006, they installed drainage and capped all the fairway and tees with sand as well as constructed the greens to USGA specifications with sub air systems that sucks all water out of the greens to firm them up. We had an hour to go out and clean the course and we just did it in time to everyone amazement that we got through before play. The time that was lost by the players had to be made up the following morning with an early tee off time and this put us under a lot of pressure to go out late Saturday evening in the dark and clean to get the course ready.

The morning after the storm came through the course was back to its pristine condition and the player head out early to finish the tournament.

Tim Clarks name is on the wall at the circle of champions and our flag was on the pole for a year because he won in 2010, let's hope it happens again soon.

Congratulations to K.J. Choi for winning The Players championship 2011 by beating David Toms on the first playoff hole no. 17.

Thanx to everyone at TPC Sawgrass - Tom , Clay , Andy , Jack , Jeff etc for having me there and thanx to DCC for giving me the opportunity to go and attend this prestige event.

Final preparations done !

The last three days has been spent preparing and putting on the final touches in for the tournament. A team of 130+ head out every morning at 4:45 cutting , cleaning and getting everything ready. We do it again in the afternoon after all the players have finished there practice rounds smoothing of greens by rolling, fixing divots and pitch marks.







The Staduim course as they call it was design by Pete Dye and has a lot of rolling mounts witch makes it hard to maintain. Most of the mowing around greens and bunkers needs to be done by hand and not just on any ride on.








Rotary mowers are the choices for this type of work and does the job well.







Millions of rands where spent on extra landscaping for the tournament. The area that was especially targeted was the 17th par 3 as it is the worlds most famous golf hole.














Here you can see on the banks surrounding the 17th and how the take annuals across to the island. This makes the place every more special.








Alligators are common around the course and this make looking for you ball close to the edge of the water very interesting...

The stages it now set... The players will tee of today and play for the biggest purse in golf and my the best South African win !!!

The Players Championship preparation week

I arrived at TPC Sawgrass on Sunday the 8th of May after a long 19 hours of flying and was once again amazed at the scale of operations for The Players championship. The stands, tents and marquee's has taken four months to be erected and after a weather friendly spring the course is in great condition.

With the tournament starting on Thursday all preparations and procedure's for the course needs to be in place to make sure the tournament runs successful. With more then 130 people being part of the agronomy team , nothing less then perfection is expected.




Monday through Wednesday are practice rounds for the pro's and for us the agronomy team the time to prepare the course for the weekends tournament. This entail the following:
Morning 4:30 am - 10 am. Cut all fairways, tees, greens, semi rough, rough, surrounds, approaches, driving range. For the first time ever we are hand raking the bunkers for the tournament, for those who don't know there are bunkers in excess of 250 m long. Divots gets done togethers with cleaning the course from litter and pine cones , blowing of all clippings, cut of new holes, moving tee markers, rolling greens, watering of the course etc...

Afternoon 4:00 pm - 8:30 pm. WE DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN !




Greens get checked twice a day for moisture and compaction to make sure the don't burn or dry out but still maintaining tournament speeds and standards.

The agronomy team gets split in half for front 9 hole and back 9. This video shows the team leaving the maintenance yard for the front 9 holes afternoon shift.

Keep checking back for more updates on behind the scenes of the 2011 Players championship.

Location:TPC Sawgrass,Jacksonville,United States

The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass

Who will forget Tim Clarks win last year at The Players championship with -16 under par. Tim Clark ended his 204 tournaments of frustration and finally won on the PGA Tour. Clark played the final 26 holes without a bogey. He set a Stadium Course record with the largest 36-hole comeback. And with an 8-foot par putt on the final hole for a 5-under 67, he no longer had the distinction as the richest player without a PGA Tour victory. With our the best South African field ever let hope we can bring it home again.

The strongest field and the biggest purse in professional golf history.

I am very fortunate to be invited to go and assist the Agronomy team of Superintendents preparing and hosting the 2011 Players Championship being held at TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville Florida USA. TPC Sawgrass redid all there greens 7 years ago and installed the same Mini Verde greens as we currently have. By going over there I will learn as much possible about this grass and come back with great knowledge and experience on how to prepare the greens for everyday play as well as tournament golf. I will be there on Sunday the 8th of May assisting the guys through the week and during the weekend in preparing the course for the tournament.

 Please follow me on this blog as i will keep it up to date on what is happening behind the scenes.

Weed eradication program part 2

Grab grass (Iron grass)

Crab grass or as we call it Iron grass because of the hardiness of this plant, is and will always be a problem on golf course. Iron grass is a perennial lawn and considered lawn pests. They are very hardy and need very little to start growing and sustain any growth. They will grow any where and are more commonly be seen where other grasses are struggling due to traffic , weather or any types if stress that they can handle.

Crabgrass seed has a long germination period, if conditions are right, it can germinate throughout the growing season. Crab grasses occur in tropical and subtropical regions.

We have done some test with certain herbicides and i found that mostly hand weeding does the job for getting rid of iron grass as we don't have big issues with it but it can only be quite labour intensive. As we are now into winter and the growth has slowed down and we can get going with all the winter projects and spend more time on attention to detail work like weeding etc.

Weed eradication program

Nutsedge.

Nutsedges are common weeds in landscapes and gardens and on golf courses especially in the coastal areas.  They thrive in waterlogged soil and that is why you will find it around some greens and tee's that gets water regularly. Once established, however, they will tolerate normal irrigation conditions or drought. Although nutsedges resemble grasses and often are referred to as “nutgrass,” they aren’t grasses but are true sedges. Their leaves are thicker and stiffer than most grasses. Nutsedges are a problem in lawns because they grow faster, have a more upright growth habit, and are a lighter green color than most grass species, resulting in a nonuniform turf.

We have applied an application of Basagran to the nutsegde in the new fringes a week ago and you can all ready see how the chemical is doing its job.

We will be following up with another application this coming week and then we will be spraying all the other general areas in the weeks following.

Bunker sand

This week we are busy topping up the bunkers and especially the green side bunkers. We go around every so often just to check the depth of the sand in the bunkers and some times it means moving sand of the faces and putting it back on the base of the bunker and vice versa. Other times we have to add sand as ever shot can remove a hand full of sand.

After we installed more sand we run a sand pro to compact the sand and firm the bunkers up so that the players don't get a plugged lie.