63 WATER REDUCTION the course couldn’t be watered too much, because the cap on the landfill meant there was nowhere for the water to go,” says Bill Coore. Kasey Kauff, Trinity Forest’s director of grounds, says that the first challenge is to pick the right grass. “First off it’s important to select a turf that is right for your location,” he says. “We picked a zoysia that was created at Texas A&M, so literally right down the road. By choosing a turf that is used to our extreme weather, we can keep our water usage low during our months that the temperatures are over 100F on a regular basis. We water based off evapotranspiration (ET) every night during the growing season. Every head on our course is specifically adjusted to put out the correct amount of water for the area it’s in. Then we set up the irrigation to water 60-70 per cent of the daily ET: basically we are watering on a 30-40 per cent deficit daily. That’s just what is right with our soil conditions and environment here. We do hand water dry areas during the day to try to keep moisture levels consistent, but in reality, over 100-plus acres, that’s impossible.” Kauff isn’t in favour of planting older turfgrasses, just because their behaviour is well known. “If you put in something like 419 bermuda, it’s like buying a 1990 Honda for the same price as a 2023 Mercedes,” he says. “Why not just buy the Mercedes? Millions of dollars are spent researching turf grasses, use the people smarter than you. If you plant a turfgrass that is supposed to grow somewhere, you can stress it and water less. It’s my opinion that water management is the biggest issue when it comes to maintaining turfgrass. Last year we went more than 70 days with no rain and over 100F. The biggest key is plant turf that is supposed to grow where you are and push it. It’s all site/ soil specific.” At the Tiger Point course in Gulf Breeze, Florida, a former host of the Pensacola Open, architect Nathan Crace has recently completed a project to transform more than thirty acres of hybrid bermuda grass in out of play areas into naturalised areas to give more of an authentic Florida feel. “In that 30 acres, the superintendent can now stop watering regularly,” says Crace. The architect also completed a full course bunker renovation, in which he used TifTuf turf that uses 30 per cent less water on the bunker faces. “Additionally, a number of large bunkers were turned into waste areas and they cut back on watering around them to keep them looking more native and less manicured. This frees up water and manpower to reallocate to greens, fairways and tees. In fact, I’ve been using the TifTuf sod on all my bunker renovations because it uses so much less water,” he says. GCA Photo: Hanse Golf Design “ Millions of dollars are spent researching turf grasses, use the people smarter than you” Los Angeles Country Club has converted to more water-efficient grasses over recent years
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