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(myrtlebeachonline.com)
Whether they’ve realized it or not, visiting golfers playing Grand Strand courses in the past several months have been putting on grasses they maybe haven’t putted on in year’s past during spring golf vacations.
Golf course operators and superintendents have been increasingly forgoing the process of overseeding Bermudagrass with winter grasses, and the numbers took another jump this year.
Where overseeding greens with poa trivialis and tees, fairways and even rough with ryegrass was expected and commonplace through the mid-2000s to keep courses a lush green year-round, courses overseeding wall-to-wall are now easily the minority.
Particularly because of the proliferation of fine-bladed ultradwarf Bermudas on greens including TifEagle, Mini-Verde and Champion.
“I think you’ll see a lot more people, especially with the ultradwarfs, doing it because it’s so much easier to keep green speeds and conditions up,” said True Blue superintendent Kevin Thompkins, who is also the president of the Palmetto Golf Course Superintendent’s Association that encompasses Grand Strand courses in Horry, Georgetown and Brunswick counties.
“It’s a lot more beneficial – less water usage, less chemical usage and less fertilizer usage – and results in firm and fast conditions,” Thompkins added. “They are able to keep consistent conditions throughout the year. I think the golfers are really seeing the benefit of it.”
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