How bad is it out there for
golf courses and the superintendents who care for them?
Bad enough that the Philadelphia Chapter of the Golf Course Superintendents Association has cancelled its last two monthly board meetings.
"Nobody can leave their golf
courses – everybody is hunkered down," said John Gosselin,
Philadelphia chapter president and superintendent at Aronimink GC, host of the
recent AT&T National.
Nowhere have the dicey
conditions – a toxic brew of oppressive heat, humidity and rain –
taken a worse toll on the turf than at Huntingdon Valley CC, where
the Toomey & Flynn Course has
been closed since July 20 and is
expected to remain so until Sept. 1.
And now comes word that
another choice William Flynn-designed
course, Lancaster CC,
has been through a similar, if briefer, shut down. At Lancaster CC,
conditions deteriorated dramatically about the same time as at Huntingdon Valley, during the final 10
days of July.
The worst of the turf damage
befell the LCC’s Old Course –
the club has the Old Course, the Highlands 9 and the Sunset Six, for a total of 33
holes -- forcing the club’s Green
Committee to shut down its premier 18 for the final week of July.
"Our view was that, under
the circumstances, the risks associated with continued play and standard
maintenance practices was not worth the potential that we could lose the course
for the rest of the year," Rory
Connaughton, a Lancaster attorney and member of the club’s Green Committee,
explained in an email. "It
was an easy decision," he added.
Thanks to a spell of cooler
nights and a lack of measurable rain during that week, the Old Course bounced back enough that LCC reopened the back nine for play last week. The front nine remained closed for
another week, reopening today.
Worst-hit at LCC, wrote Connaughton, were low-lying areas, which got a minimum of air
movement. During the shut-down,
the LCC’s superintendent employed
the measured recommended by the U.S.
Golf Association: less cutting, ventilating greens.
Although Huntingdon Valley and Lancaster CC are the only courses that
have opted to shut down, similar stories abound all over the region.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, with
10 being the worst, it’s a 10," said Darin
Bevard, senior agronomist with the USGA,
based in Glen Mills, said of the current conditions. "Not every golf course is in terrible condition, but every
course has their share of battle scars.
It’s in varying degrees."
What’s the chief culprit?
"It has been too damn hot
for too damn long," said Bevard. "We’ve had a load of hot weather and
the grass hasn’t had many breaks.
Guys are tired. It’s one
thing to start having stress in late June or July, but this started back in
early June, when it got into the 90s and never subsided."
The conditions vary from
course to course in the region, often depending on how much rain it has
gotten. Some courses received as
much as 12 inches in five days, others as little as 3 inches. Much of the real trouble begins when
saturated fairways don’t drain and the temperature climbs into the 90s and
stays there, effectively cooking the turf, resulting in "wet wilt."
"A great deal of the damage
I have seen is wet wilt," said Bevard.
Relief generally comes in
the form of lower nighttime temperatures, giving the grass a chance to breathe
and relax. If the
thermometer doesn’t drop sufficiently at night, the stress on the grass is only
heightened.
As Aronimink’s Gosselin mentioned, superintendents from New York to
Virginia and out to Pittsburgh are under the same gun. Fortunately, said Bevard, clubs and courses are reasonably understanding; he is
unaware of any superintendent being fired because of conditions at his course.
Are superintendents at
high-end clubs with big maintenance budgets in better position to react?
"They’ve got more staff,
more bodies to hand-water greens and fairways," said Bevard. "But the other
thing is, the guys at swanky clubs also have greater pressure for better
conditions, faster greens. A guy
with a smaller budget doesn’t have that, so it all evens out."
Neither Bevard and Gosselin see
any let up in the hot, humid weather for at least a couple of weeks, maybe longer.
"Looking at the forecast, I
don’t see any breaks in sight," said Bevard.
Gosselin
sounded even more ominous. "We are
still on a downward slid for another week or so," he said. "We haven’t hit rock bottom yet."