This is one of the warmest, most sultry summers Matt Mulvany remembers in Ventura, Calif., and for that, he feels blessed.
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Mulvany, golf course superintendent at Olivas Golf Course, is regrassing most of the course, sprigging all fairways, roughs and tees with seashore paspalum.
“We have reclaimed water high in salt, and we wanted something that was durable,” he says. “About 85,000 rounds have been played here per year in the past. We wanted something that could stand up to that traffic and deal with salt as well.”
Mulvany looked into other paspalum varieties but decided to use Sea Isle 1.
“The paspalum has a finer leaf texture than kikuyugrass or some of the Bermuda varieties,” he says. “It’s an impressive-looking grass.”
Mulvany, who has been a superintendent since 1991, has grow-in experience. He took a position at Buenaventura Golf Course in 2000. He oversaw the construction, complete renovation and grow-in of the course, which reopened in March 2005.
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In 2001, he took the superintendent’s position at Olivas as well, running both properties at the same time, which amounted to 36 holes. As the construction on Olivas approached at the end of 2005, he decided to manage Olivas only so he could focus all his efforts on the construction and grow-in. Ed Easley, construction manager at Eagl Golf, is managing the project. Eagl Golf, who employs Mulvany, operates the course.
“It’s a collective effort between Ed, myself, Nick Dunn, director of agronomy for Eagl, and Greg Gilner (golf operations manager for the city of Ventura),” Mulvany says.
“The golf course has, to some degree, a links-style design, and we wanted a turf that would follow that theme,” he adds. “Paspalum is a turf that’s lean and mean and doesn’t need the maintenance and pesticides. It’s a pretty environmentally-friendly turf, and that kind of goes along with the golf course.”
There are 35 acres of native area on the course, including sensitive areas that meander through the golf course, Mulvany says.
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The crew has been working on the task of grassing 90 acres for about two months. By the end of this week, there will be one hole left to sprig. All the fairways, roughs and tees were prepped, rocked and picked. Then the sprigging machine dropped sprigs at a rate of 260 bushels per acre. The tractor-drawn culti-packer unit was then run over the sprigged areas to push the sprigs into the soil. The newly sprigged areas then were watered as soon as possible. Sprigs were planted by hand in the small spaces where the machine didn’t fit to ensure accuracy, Mulvany says.
All of the fairways, roughs and tees are being sprigged except for about two to five acres of paspalum sod around the bentgrass greens, to blend the greens into the green surrounds. Bunker slopes are being sodded as well.
The humidity, which is uncharacteristic of Ventura’s climate, has helped the stolons grow.
“It’s amazing that the paspalum sprigs hold pretty well – there’s no erosion,” Mulvany says. “Sprigging the slopes gets difficult. You’ve got to be careful.”
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Mulvany noticed many of the seedhead sprouts above the 1.5-inch mowing height, which leads to interesting contours around the greens.
“It’s not that we don’t like it, we’re just kind of surprised,” he says. “We weren’t expecting it. It’s just that turf at this time of year really shoots up.”
Mulvany expects to use about two pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet annually to fertilize the course.
Mulvany says Olivas is one of a few courses in the region to use paspalum to this extent. The grass is used mostly in Florida, but not much in California. One course that grows it is nearby Fairbanks Ranch Country Club in Santa Fe. The club has had the grass on its fairways, roughs and tees since 1985. But it has been only during the past five or seven years that Mulvany has been seeing a considerable amount written about paspalum.
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So far, the results have exceeded Mulvany’s expectations, which makes him wonder why he doesn’t see the grass used more prevalently in the region.
“You’d think more people by now would have used it,” he says. “I’m not sure why, but I would bet it would open people’s eyes seeing this course.”
Mulvany is waiting to see how the warm-season grass will do during the winter months. The question is how much of it will go dormant.
“Maybe that’s one of reasons why more golf courses don’t use paspalum – people don’t want the brown, splotchy look along coast,” he says.
Olivas has been closed during the regrassing. Right now, four or five holes are at a playable height, but Mulvany says it will take several months before the entire course is ready to reopen.
“It won’t be the same golf course that we closed,” he says.
Mulvany anticipates that the number of rounds played will increase when the course reopens because curious golfers will want to play the course and check out the paspalum.
“That happens with a lot of new courses,” he says. “We’ll probably see 350 golfers a day for the first few months.” GCN
