When Dan Brooks arrived at Bay Colony Golf Club in Naples, Florida, in 2006, eager to work in the Sunshine State after a decade on courses in his native New York, he had never sprayed fairways. Why would he have? Fairways were fairways. They would always be a little thin, a little weedy. Best to spend time and resources elsewhere.
Except the fairways at Pelican Marsh Golf Club across the street were pretty nice. Turns out superintendent Dave Smith sprayed them regularly. Brooks remembered that detail.
Three years later, Brooks landed at Pelican Marsh himself and, working under a different superintendent, recommended relaunching a fairway spray program. “But we were doing it monthly,” Brooks says. “So they would be nice for a week, then they would peter out, then they would be crappy again.”
Brooks increased his frequency after landing the North Course superintendent position at Shadow Wood Country Club in nearby Estero, spraying fairways about every three weeks. But they paled next to the fairways on the South Course. “They were awesome,” Brooks says. So he talked with South Course superintendent Steve Stortz — “he’s the best superintendent I know, and I asked him, ‘What are you doing differently over there than I’m doing?’
“‘Dan,’” Brooks remembers Stortz telling him, “‘I spray them every week, just like you would spray your greens.’
“‘You’re spraying your fairways every single week?!’” Brooks asked, shocked.
“‘Think about it,’” Stortz replied. “‘What do they teach you in school about nutrition on greens? Spoon feeding. Why would it be any different for any of the rest of the grass on the golf course?’
“‘But you’re spraying them every week!’
“‘Yeah,’” Stortz said. “‘That’s why they’re awesome.’
Brooks left Shadow Wood in 2019 for the top spot at Panther Run Golf Course in Ave Maria, where he has neither the time nor the budget to spray his fairways every week. He just sprays them every other week. “Still at very low rates,” he says, “and these fairways are amazing. There’s tons of grass on them, the ball sits up, you get good run on them, and they hold up to the traffic.”
Brooks has tweaked and tuned his fairways program over almost two decades since that first conversation with Smith, and he never struggles with them.
“I put out about a tenth of a pound of nitrogen a month through the fertigation system,” he says. “And then I spray my fairways every other week with a mix of quick-release and slow-release nitrogen at a tenth of a pound. I go out with potassium source at a tenth of a pound. And I go out with a full package of micronutrients every spray application and wetting agent.”
The plan is sketched in pencil, not ink. Brooks still experiments, “just to see how a new product works, see if I can maybe save some money and still get the same quality. But I think what I’m doing now is really good and it’s working.”
Brooks credits Smith and Stortz for inspiration. He also credits the basics. One of the first and more important things he did after starting at Panther Run was figuring out soil pH. “We have really high bicarbonate water,” he says. “Super-high pH. When I got the water sent out and tested like I do every year, it came back and said it’s not suitable for plant growth.” The soil wants to measure around 8.5 pH. Brooks aims for 7.
“If you can get the soil right and then get on a regular program where you’re just constantly giving it a little bit of nutrition all the time, whether it’s through fertigation or through spraying, … it starts to take care of itself,” he says. With a hint of caution in his voice, he adds, “Make sure it’s a complete package, and you’re not just spraying nitrogen or potassium or microbes. A lot of guys will just go out and spray iron. That’s not going to get you where you need to go. You have to have a complete package on those fairways.”
Fairways are fairways. They don’t have to be a little thin, a little weedy. Best to spend at least some time and resources on their vast expanses.
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