GolfClubAtlas.com > Golf Course Architecture
Adding native grass areas to a course? Any experience?
Don_Mahaffey:
Brian,
My advice is two fold, first, be sure you want to do it in the first place. It sounds cool, but the first time the club pres looses a ball in an area that used to be close cut turf you can be sure he will not be happy. I would just be very sure that adding native grass areas is something the membership will support over the long haul.
Second, and this is the hard part, you have to be patient. Native grasslands didn't evolve within a few months and your native areas wont either. If you push them to hard they will be a jungle. Expect your new native areas to take two or three seasons before they begin to look and play as you imagine. My experience is most don't have the patience to let the areas transition back to wild, native areas. Native means no management! Maybe at the most a guy with a back pack sprayer spot spraying noxious weeds, other then that try and stay out as the areas evolve and keep carts out of them! If you even think golf carts will end up in your new native areas then don't even bother trying to make the change. One thing most native grasses can't handle is cart traffic. Carts knock down the desirable grasses and disrupt the soil surface encouraging weeds to germinate. Think it all the way through, nothing worse then wasting the time and money to transition to native grass only to transition back to turf in a few years.
Brian_Gracely:
Don,
Thanks for the advice, and most of your guidance matches my concerns. I believe the real reason this is being proposed is because these new minimalist courses are getting so much press and our club owner is seeking to get our course more highly ranked. I know, I know....it's not the right reasons to be doing anything.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens. I really can't see the membership liking this, as it's hard enough to find balls in bermuda rough.
Craig Sweet:
Here is a link to the USGA site on turf management. Just scroll down to the section on bunkers and rough and you'll find two articles about native and natural areas.
http://www.usga.org/turf/articles/management/golf_course_management.html
It could be your club owner is looking at reducing his maintinence costs?
Steve Lang:
8)
Here's an example that can be cited as a disaster,..
The Woodlands CC & Resort Panther Trails (aka, original WCC front 9+, North Course, Pines) 2002 renovation by Roy Case. Ostensibly done to improve drainage, redo the green complexes, reconfigure some holes, reduce maintenance costs... IMHO the native grasses part was a real fiasco.. i.e.,
1) you don't take a manicured looking course and turn it rustic, it doesn't fit and the neighbors went ballistic with what they found in their back yards
2) you can't cover it up (weeds etc) with 20,000 lbs of wild flower seed,
3) the lost balls (and ball hunters) slowed play horribly,
4) the new animal habitat brought the good, the bad and the ugly i.e., birds, bunnies, other 4-legged ones and preditors like snakes etc..
5) the first thing folks would ask is how many ball you lost or found versus your score!
6) the horrible look and airborne stuff resulting from when you chop it down due to overgrowth or going back to simple grassed rough areas..
I HOPE YOU DON"T GO THERE!!!
Jeff_Mingay:
The addition of "native grass areas" has been very successful at a course I'm working at currently. Actually, the superintendent introduced these areas before we became involved with a renovation project.
These areas really cut down on mowing time, for one. Previously, this particular course was mown wall-to-wall. I'm not sure how many acres of "native areas" have been introduced, but mowing has been substantially reduced as a result.
These areas are generally well-placed (in other words, there hasn't been a lot of complaining about lost balls), and they add some nice texture to an otherwise "green" landscape.
Moreover, the local conservation authority looks highly upon them.
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