Down With Brown

The warm weather has finally hit and it is beginning to show on the golf course. As mentioned earlier this year in both newsletters and blog postings, the color of brown will be more acceptable on the golf course.

The intent is to have the fairways to become firmer and allow for more ball roll off the tee shot, with the visual result being a more off colored golf course. The Bentgrass fairways require less water than the surrounding Bluegrass rough and as a result of this is the fairways receive too much water due to a lack of area separation of irrigation areas .

The new irrigation system design will allow for a separation of watering areas such as greens, tees, fairways and rough will all be controlled and irrigated separately. This will allow us more control over the water and keep it out of the fairways when they do not need it. Currently there is no separation of watering areas, so we have heads that water both fairway and rough areas together. The result of this is that for the rough to receive the proper amount of water the fairway then becomes too wet due to the overthrow. We will be letting the rough dry out and even turn brown, so that the fairway conditions do not become overly wet.

Outer Edges of Rough Drying Out
A higher Level of Drought Stress Taking Place