The keys to great greens

            The decision to change the Players Club greens to MiniVerde was the right one, but not completely without challenges.  If you’ve played the Players Club over the last two years you know the greens, overall, have been good, although a few problem areas of thin turf remain.

            Troon’s agronomist, along with staff experts from NC State University and Modern 

Turf (MiniVerde grower) believe the thinning turf is caused from a combination of shade and nematode pressure. I will attempt explain the two and our plan going forward.    

            There are many things we do to keep the greens looking and rolling great.  There are too many management strategies and cultural practices to name that can be debated for days.  The basics, on the other hand, are constant.  Light, air, and water—the fundamental keys to any good turf grass.  Light (or shade, depending on how you look at it) is a consistent factor on almost every problem area at the Players Club. Using a sun path application we charted 27 points on all 19 greens and measured the hours of sunlight for each quarter of the year.  By doing this we were able to see the amount of sunlight the good greens are getting, and then we set a baseline to try to reach on the other greens. After that, we were able to pinpoint which trees were causing the problem so they can be selectively removed or pruned. Removing trees is something no one likes, including us.  Trees are labor intensive and time consuming to take down, clean up, and haul away.  As they grow taller and leafier each year, a tree management program will be a must to keep good healthy grass.

            The one that caught us a little by surprise is nematodes.  Turf damaging nematodes are microscopic roundworms that feed on the roots of turfgrass. They’ve always been a nuisance in our area due to the sandy soil. The problem has grown over the last few years as the only products that really kill nematodes have left the market for various reasons.  Recently, we have been using organic products aimed at suppressing nematode activity.  We thought we were keeping the nematodes adequately suppressed until the cooler fall weather hit and the areas under stress quickly thinned.  That left us with thin turf and no growing season left to recover.  Needless to say it put us in a bad situation.

  On a positive note, widespread struggles with nematodes have pushed many new products to the market.  At The Members Club, we experimented with a new product this year and had great success.  The general consensus with these new products is that they only suppress certain strains of nematodes (there are many) under certain conditions (soil temperatures).  The plan for 2014 is to layer multiple products into the program at specific times for the greatest possible suppression. 

            The immediate plan is to get the worst areas covered with grass as soon as possible.  This will be accomplished by using sod and plugs from our nursery green.  This is another labor intensive and time consuming process.  Getting full coverage as early as possible will give it a full growing season to become dense and healthy as early as possible.  The next few months will be a lot of work for us as we work to put the greens in position for a great summer and many great years going forward. 

Grayson Grainger