Water, Water (Not) Everywhere

Superintendents throughout the U.S. are being put to test this summer—but the problems, and answers, are quite different from region to region.

by Joe Barks (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
August 2005
 

If there was ever a year when golf course superintendents will be ready for an end-of-season party to blow off a lot of pent-up stress, this would be it. Although it’s likely that not everyone who attended would want to drink the same thing. Superintendents from severely parched areas like Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, for example, would treat a glass of water like fine wine at such an affair. But those in charge of Mid-Atlantic courses from Virginia to New York will be yearning for something very, very dry.

The summer of 2005 has been relentless in the variety of extremes that it has forced superintendents around the country to contend with. Some are dealing with watering bans, others with blight and wilt—and still others are enjoying some of the best course and turf conditions they’ve had in years.

U.S. Drought Map

Major Headaches

The conditions in the Mid-Atlantic were especially challenging for two courses, Merion Golf Club in suburban Philadelphia (Ardmore) and Baltusrol Golf Club in northern New Jersey (Springfield). As both were preparing for major tournaments this month—the PGA at Baltusrol and the U.S. Amateur at Merion—they had to contend with the worst threats from a double whammy of Pythium blight and bacterial wilt to hit the region in many years.

Merion finally decided to close its showcase East Course, where the Amateur will be held, three weeks before the tournament, in the face of the unrelenting heat and humidity, combined with occasional flooding downpours, that had created turf conditions that superintendent Matt Shaffer described as “like growing grass in a bathtub, but the cork won’t come out.”

Shaffer was fighting the blight with $4,000 chemical applications, but still felt he was outmanned. “There’s an old axiom that when the temperature and humidity add up to 180, you get [blight],” he said. “And I can tell you it has been well north of 180.”

Up in New Jersey, meanwhile, Baltusrol Director of Grounds wasn’t finding too much time to put his feet up in his “Taj Mahal of Maintenance” as he fought the same conditions while trying to get ready for the PGA. Despite all of the challenges, however, Kuhns, who has directed course operations for four national championships and volunteered for numerous others, said he was determined to enjoy the experience.

“Our cool-season grasses don’t take too kindly to the heat and humidity of New Jersey in mid-August,” Kuhns noted. “We had the course at championship level earlier this year and our challenge was to keep it there. To do that, no detail was too small, and nothing was left to chance.”

Nonfresh Water Only

Nothing has also been the operative word in some severely drought-ridden parts of the U.S. this summer (see map at right, reflecting conditions at the beginning of August). Nothing as in not only nothing coming down from the sky, but also nothing being allowed to be brought out of the ground to help alleviate the parched conditions.

Golf courses in Jefferson City, Mo., were prohibited by a local ordinance from watering their properties “unless nonfresh water sources” were used, after Missouri-American Water Company announced that its reserves were being depleted. Violations of the restrictions would result in up to a $500 fine, in addition to other penalties. The last time such an ordinance was passed was 1988.

In southeastern Wisconsin, things were also bone-dry after the fourth-driest spring on record, but Brian Zimmerman, Golf Operations Manager for the Milwaukee County Parks, wasn’t complaining, as he said the lack of rain was at least making it easier for people to come out and play his courses this year.

“What a difference a year makes,” Zimmerman told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, recalling that “Last year, you would have thought Noah had come through here.” That was when the Milwaukee area got nearly 17 inches of precipitation from March to mid-June, as part of the second-wettest spring in nearly 80 years, which left many of the County’s courses under water.

This year, Zimmerman said, he started to irrigate four weeks early, and some grass off the fairways that didn’t get watered had already gone dormant by late June.

Zimmerman did cite another benefit of the dry spring and summer: “I have not put bug spray on once, and taken only one mosquito bite—in my backyard.”

Another group of municipal courses benefiting from the lack of rain was Cleveland Metroparks, where by the start of August the six courses had seen increased revenues of nearly $200,000 compared to the same period a year earlier.

The report from Illinois, meanwhile, was that rainfall for the March-June period was just over 8 inches—53% of normal and the third-driest spring total on record, beaten only by 1988 and the Dustbowl year of 1936. June alone brought only two and a quarter inches, about 55% of normal and the 10th driest month since 1895.

Checking in in late July with a bad case of the “Pythium Blues,” the USGA’s North-Central Region correspondent, Senior Agronomist Bob Vavrek, reminded superintendents that the most vulnerable areas for an outbreak are poorly drained fairways or tees located in a shaded site where air circulation is poor.

Vavrek also reported that several courses found active Pythium thinning out turf across fairways beneath clumps of clippings left behind by mowing operations—a reminder that dew and clipping dispersal is especially critical during hot weather periods. C&RB