Just roll with it

When providing members with championship-like conditions, the need for speed and playability becomes a priority at 36-hole Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Florida.

Director of golf courses and grounds Gregg Caspio says he runs a different greens program than other golf courses, utilizing old school tactics to determine their speeds. The only technology the courses use are two soil moisture meters.

“I’m kind of an old-school guy, so I like to roll the ball and watch the ball,” he says.

Outside of rolling the ball, the maintenance for the course’s TifEagle Bermudagrass greens includes light weekly verticutting and topdressing. Caspio says he is looking into purchasing a USGA GS3 Ball.

Caspio and his team also spray foliar weekly, a Primo growth regulator weekly, a soil spray monthly to the greens, and practice needle tine aeration.

The importance of keeping speeds at 11 on the Stimpmeter during the peak season, which starts with “snowbirds” arriving on Nov. 1, becomes difficult with the courses’ front nine and back nine greens rolling at different speeds. The crew goes out each morning to mow the ninth and 18th greens of each course and test them with a Stimpmeter.

“If it’s more than a half a foot difference, we will add something to that slower greens’ golf course,” Caspio says. “Whether that be a roll or a double mow, and then we’ll Stimp it again after.”

With greens maintenance, factors like the Bermudagrass being more than 20 years old and having a few dry spots can present a challenge for the 36-hole private facility.

The courses use the drill-and-fill process to ensure the older greens drain water quicker.

“The drill-and-fill is helping us help our greens perform better, helping them drain a little bit better and helping us produce a better-quality product,” he says.

Over years of working in Wyoming and Montana before moving to Florida 17 years ago, Caspio, an Ohio native, learned the most important step of greens maintenance is patience and flexibility.

“Not basing it on a calendar, not basing it on a schedule, making adjustments,” he says. “What I mean by that is just because you’re supposed to verticut tomorrow doesn’t mean that you have to verticut tomorrow.”

Promoting the health of the club’s greens is one of the ways Caspio measures his success.

“The last two seasons, we’ve had really good years where we haven’t had bare spots on our greens and membership has been very happy with the speed and the playability,” he says.

With the course’s focus on speed, Caspio also measures success based on whether he and his team meet their speed goal, while striving to make the course playable for members.

“I treat it each day like it’s for not only outsiders,” he says, “but also for our membership because playing here is an important thing for our members day in and day out.”

- Adriana Gasiewski