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As a seasoned golf course architect, Forrest Richardson gives a lot of thought to the minutiae of the game.

Among the topics he has been inclined to ponder: the proper placement of bunker rakes.

If Richardson had his druthers, there would be no need for him to wrestle with this matter, because bunker rakes would not exist. 

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they dumb down the game,” Richardson says. “But they don’t make things better for golf.”

One drawback, of course, is that they get in the way. Consider the incident Richardson witnessed last month while playing in an outing at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. It was the kind of thing he’s seen more times than he can count. On the par-3 15th hole of the Lake Course, one of Richardson’s partners hit a wayward shot that got hung up on a rake on the steep face of a green-side bunker. When the player moved the rake, as he was entitled to do by the Rules of Golf, his ball stayed where it was, leaving him with a more challenging lie than he likely would have had if the rake hadn’t been there. 

Was there somewhere else the rake should have been left instead?

As it happens, Richardson has done more than contemplate this question. He has researched it, conducting a survey that might qualify as the most exhaustive exploration of bunker rake-placement ever carried out. This was more than 16 years ago. Richardson originally published the results in a 2008 article in Golfdom Magazine. Clearly, though, the issue hasn’t gone away. And after last month’s Olympic Club outing, Richardson was inspired to recirculate the article in his online newsletter. You can read it in full here. 

Meantime, here’s a look at his methodology and findings.

For the survey, Richardson focused on the three most common options for rake placement: inside the bunker, outside the bunker and partially in (he chose not to consider more obscure alternatives such as subterranean rake compartments, or those long-out-of-fashion spike-shaped rakes that can be plunged into the ground like spears, because the vast majority of courses don’t use them).

Richardson then canvassed rules officials, course operators and other industry figures, asking them to assign letter grades — A, B, C, D and F — in eight categories of concern: interference with play; ruling complexities; access to the golfer; interference with maintenance; aesthetics; wear and tear to the rake; speed of play; and game traditions. Those grades were then averaged into an overall grade for each of the three placement options.

Not surprisingly, each option showed different strengths and weaknesses. While the inside-the-bunker option got great grades in “aesthetics” and “maintenance interference” (an A in both categories because the rakes are largely out of view and don’t have to be moved for mowing), it flunked “ruling complexities,” earning an F for all the funky things that can happen, such as balls hitting rakes in the sand and the other way around.

The outside-the-bunker option, by contrast, got an A in “ruling complexities” because it rarely creates complicated decisions. But it was assigned a D in both
“maintenance interference” (the rakes get in the way of mowing) and “game traditions,” because, as Richardson wrote in his summation, the rake “has the potential to deflect a ball toward or away from the bunker, constituting an artificial influence to the game that may change the outcome of a match.”

There’s more. Much more.

Leaving rakes outside bunkers, Richardson’s survey found, makes it easy for players to get their hands on them (a grade of B for “access to the golfer”), but it’s hard on the rakes themselves, as they often wind up lying in wet turf (a grade of D for “wear and tear to the rake”). Not that leaving rakes inside the bunker is a great solution either. “Not only wet, but also gritty,” Richardson noted. “Grade: C.”

You get the picture. The guy went deep. 

When all the individual grades were tallied, the inside and outside option both wound up with the same overall grade: C+. The third option, partially in, referred to in the survey as the “propped position,” fared best across most categories, earning an overall grade of B+.

Along with that grade, Richardson offered guidance. “In this position,” he wrote, “the rake is placed in the bunker with the tines down and the handle propped on the lip. Ideally, the handle will be a foot or less beyond the lip so it can be grabbed, yet does not place the tines too far up on steeper slopes.” In this way, he noted, the rake has little contact with the ground (good for longevity), is largely out of view (good for aesthetics) and only scant chance of interfering with a ball in play.

“There, you have a pragmatic assessment of bunker-rake positions,” Richardson wrote. “Part scientific, part physics, and part as if Olympic gymnastics judges were in charge of the scores.”

Or a strict high school teacher. 

Though Richardson didn’t say it, he might as well have. Getting rid of rakes altogether would likely be the only way to get an A. 

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The post The right way to repair a ball mark (and the wrong way), according to a superintendent appeared first on Golf.

The post The right way to repair a ball mark (and the wrong way), according to a superintendent appeared first on Golf.

If you’re like a lot of golfers, you don’t hit all your greens in regulation.

Your maintenance stats are probably spotty, too.

Odds are you don’t always repair your pitch marks on the putting surface.

And even when you do, there’s a chance you go about it in the wrong way.

Mark Patterson, a longtime member of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, is the top man in turf care at Legacy Golf Club at Lakewood Ranch and Serenoa Golf Club, both in Florida.

The way he and many superintendents see it, any effort is better than no effort.

“If a golfer is going to attempt to repair a pitch mark, I deeply appreciate that,” Patterson says. “And if they’re using the wrong technique, that’s just a sign that we need to do a better job of educating them.”

In the spirit, here’s an overview of Patterson’s pitch mark do’s and don’ts, along with a supplemental video tutorial (above), starring Patterson himself.

Tool of the trade

It’s called a divot-repair tool for a reason. Those pronged things are designed to fix pitch marks, and they make the job easier. Bu they’re not the only implement you can use. A tee, Patterson says, fits the bill just fine. Same with a pencil or a car key. If you happen to be carrying a fork or a chopstick, feel free to employ those, too. 

“What matters most isn’t what you use but your technique,” Patterson says.

Lifestyle

The proper approach

Resist the urge to dig your tool into the turf and pull straight up. That’s a common tendency, repeated all too often by Tour pros on TV, and it’s counterproductive, as it tears the grass roots, which can kill the turf.

The right technique is to work around the pitch mark, starting on the high side, where the turf has been pushed up higher by the angle of the shot, and move in a circle around the depression, pulling the surrounding turf toward the center until that mini-crater is filled. Think of it at a “twist-and-up” motion. When you’re finished, tamp down gently on the turf with your putter to smooth over any lingering tufts.

Repair more than one

The golden rule of golf course maintenance is to always leave the grounds in better condition than you found them. By definition, that means you need to do more than repair your own pitch mark. This isn’t hard. While your playing partners are plum-bobbing or otherwise wasting time, fix another pitch. And then maybe a third.

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The post What’s a sneaky way to trash a golf course? A superintendent tees off appeared first on Golf.

The post What’s a sneaky way to trash a golf course? A superintendent tees off appeared first on Golf.

Consider the golf tee: handy gizmo for millions of golfers, and frequent headache for guys like Matt Guilfoil, the superintendent at Desert Canyon Golf Club, in Fountain Hills, Ariz.

Like all greenskeepers, Guilfoil deals routinely with stuff that golfers leave behind. Pitch marks and divots. Tire tracks and trash, including tees, broken and whole. 

As the opinionated co-host of From the Jingweeds, a podcast devoted to the turf-care trade, Guilfoil is inclined toward sounding off on all kinds of workplace irritants, discarded tees among them. Here’s why they bug him, and what the rest of us can do to put him at ease.

1. They’re unsightly

On a busy day at Desert Canyon, golfers will tee up balls roughly 225 times. “If you figure half of them leave leave a tee behind — and that’s being generous — you can do the numbers,” Guilfoil says. Some of those tees are broken. Some are whole. Whether scattered on the tee box, or tossed into the surrounding trees or native grasses, they add up to a lot of shrapnel. Make that litter, in Guilfoil’s eyes. “That tee is no different than that Snickers wrapper you were too lazy to throw in the trash,” he says.

2. They do damage

Mowers are designed to cut grass, not tees. And while some tees are softer than others, all are capable of causing nicks and dings, or knocking mower blades out of alignment. As if maintenance costs weren’t already high enough.

3. They take time and labor

Cutting cups. Raking bunkers. Cleaning ball washers. To the lengthy list of daily maintenance tasks, add “cleaning up tees.” It requires a human being, who commands a salary and who could be more productive doing something else. At some courses, Guilfoil says, workers suck up tees with the same handheld vacuums they use for leaves. But in Guilfoil’s experience, tees get caught in the propellers of those machines. At Desert Canyon, his staff bites the bullet and does the time-consuming work by hand.

4. Mind the plastic

Of all the pegs golfers leave behind, the plastic ones bug Guilfoil the most, because they’re hard on mowers and “they never biodegrade.” And don’t even get him started on gimmicky designs. Why anyone would pay extra for a plastic tee shaped like a martini glass or a bikini-clad woman is beyond him. Same goes for plastic tees that promise greater accuracy or distance. (“Here’s my promise,” he says. “You’re going to be just as bad no matter what tee you use”). From where he sits, biodegradable tees, made of everything from wheat and corn to gelatin, are better, “but some of them are just as hard as plastic.” If Guilfoil had his druthers, more golfers would use wooden tees, because they’re softer on his machines, “and if you’re looking to channel your inner-hippie, you know that at some point they’re at least going to go back to the earth from which they came.”

Lifestyle

5. Pick it up, or put it away

Just as you wouldn’t leave an empty beer can on the tee box (wait, maybe you would), you shouldn’t leave a tee in the ground, either. Guilfoil knows it sounds like a Herculean effort, but “bend over and pick it up.” While you’re down there, pick up an extra, just as you’d repair an extra pitch mark on the green. You can stash it in your pocket or your golf bag, or look for a receptacle in which to place it. Some courses put cups or open-topped crates on tee boxes for that purpose. Though you won’t find them at Desert Canyon. “It’s just another something else to clutter up the course,” Guilfoil says.

6. Recycle, reuse

Before you grab a fresh tee from your bag or pocket, look around. Odds are there’s an old tee on the box, ready for re-use. If you’re hitting iron or hybrid, a broken tee will probably do just fine.

7. Be like Laura

The first patent for a golf tee in this country was issued on Dec. 12, 1899, to a dentist (and golf addict) named George Grant. Before that, according to historians at the USGA Golf Museum, “courses would supply each hole with boxes of wet sand,” which golfers would pile into a makeshift tee, using either their hands or a cone-shaped mold. That sounds like a lot of work. As a comprise, Guilfoil suggests “the Laura Davies method,” referring to the LPGA great and World Golf Hall of Famer, who would taps the ground with her wedge to bring up a tuft of turf on which she props her ball.

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The post What does it cost to maintain a Top 100-caliber links course? This one told us appeared first on Golf.

The post What does it cost to maintain a Top 100-caliber links course? This one told us appeared first on Golf.

There’s something decidedly different about the color palette you see on Scottish links courses.

Instead of lush greens, which you often find on tees, fairways and putting surfaces at top courses in the United States, you’ll see a paler green likely with some brown and gold mixed in. You may have noticed this coloring when the Open Championship visited St. Andrews this summer.

The brownish blend isn’t because these courses aren’t treated with the same care as their American counterparts — quite the contrary.

It’s largely a result of Mother Nature.

“I would probably say 90 percent of it is the weather,” Eion Riddell, the course manager at Royal Dornoch Golf Club, in northeast Scotland, said the other day by phone. “Obviously we are dry and windy most of the time during the season and certainly have been this season. And, you know, we’re not into the lush, green, stripy look that a lot of American courses strive for.”

Travel

The Scots also aren’t into spongey surfaces. Firmer, drier turf helps brings alive the ground game, the essence of links golf.

The net result for maintenance costs? Big savings.

Neil Hampton, Royal Dornoch’s general manager, said the maintenance budget for 2022 fiscal year (April 1 to March 31, 2023) is about £1 million, or about $1.15 million. That might sound like a good chunk of change, but that’s for a 36-hole facility, which includes the Championship course, ranked No. 3 on GOLF’s Top 100 courses in UK and Ireland list and No. 12 on our World list — and which Tom Watson once described as “the most fun I’ve ever had a on a golf course.”

Comparatively, the average maintenance budget for an 18-hole private facility in the U.S. is just over $1 million annually (that figure, of course, varies regionally), according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. That includes all private golf courses, not just top-ranked ones, and is roughly the same as what Royal Dornoch pays to maintain two courses.

It’s not just the weather that helps Dornoch keep its costs down, Riddell said.

“Over in America, you have obviously a lot of problems with the kind of diseases there,” he said. “But over here, it’s not as prevalent, certainly on links courses. So our budget for fertilizers and chemicals will be probably, for the year, what you guys would probably use in a month.

“We hardly spray any fungicides, maybe once a year if we need to. We don’t spray any pesticides, but we still spray herbicides for weeds.”

Riddell’s work experience has primarily been limited to Royal Dornoch — he’s been on the job there for nearly four decades — but he has compared notes with many U.S. superintendents and said a maintenance budget as low as Dornoch’s simply isn’t possible at a comparable U.S. property, even at an American links-style facility like Bandon Dunes.

“It’s all to do with weather and growth,” Riddell said.

Or lackthereof.

While a top U.S. private club might need to cut its greens, fairways and tees every day, Riddell said Dornoch cuts only its greens daily. His team cuts the fairways, fringes and tee boxes just twice, maybe even once, a week. And the rough only once every two weeks.

The climate also helps them cut back on other daily items such as turf repair.

“When we’re dry and firm, we don’t tend to take many divots so we obviously save a bit there,” Riddell said. “Our day-to-day routine is probably similar to [U.S. courses], but we’re taking off less grass. So the job is done a lot quicker. You’re saving on fuel. You’re saving on all different things.”

Relative to U.S. courses, Dornoch and other U.K. links courses of its ilk also save money on water usage.

“We don’t use mains water,” Riddell said. “We have our own water sources.”

That’s a huge boon for Royal Dornoch, especially during what was an historically dry summer in east Scotland. (The club does have a license with the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency for their water rights, but Riddell said the cost is fairly minimal.)

“You’re talking probably hundreds of pounds and not tens of thousands of pounds [per year],” he said.

News

Riddell said the only impact additional water use has on the club is additional energy costs from running the water pumps more often.

But even in the midst of a dry summer, Riddell said the water system had not been used in close to two weeks when we spoke in mid-August.

In the U.K., even lusher parkland-style courses enjoy smaller maintenance budgets due to another factor: staff size.

Hampton said Dornoch has about only 20 maintenance crew members for its two courses. At another top-shelf U.K. course, Sunningdale Golf Club, in London, managing director Tristan Hall said keeping a smaller staff is also something his club does to help manage cost.

“I would guess that most Top 100 golf clubs in the USA would have an average of 30-50 green staff for 18 holes verses an average of 15-20 per 18 holes (top 100) in the U.K.,” Hall said.

He declined to reveal Sunningdale’s maintenance budget, but said the costs saved in maintenance can be passed on to members.

“If we want to maintain a relatively low subscription (annual dues), then we cannot have as many staff, for example, as a U.S.-style club,” Hall said. “The expectations remain high, but we have to manage in a different way.”

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The post Your golf course could be putting rainwater to better use — here’s how appeared first on Golf.

The post Your golf course could be putting rainwater to better use — here’s how appeared first on Golf.

Cody Semmelrock is a former mini-tour pro with an MBA in Sustainable Innovation from the University of Vermont. He is also founder of Acer Sustainability, LLC, a sustainable business strategy consultancy firm. This is the first in a series on golf and sustainability.

I’ve had a golf club in my hand since I could walk. The game — and my ability and desire to play it — was central to my identity for years. I competed in high school, in college and even in a short stint on the mini-tours in 2014 and 2015. But in recent years, as I’ve dived into the world of sustainability consulting, I’ve learned to see the game I care so much about through an entirely different lens.

Three lessons reshaped my view of golf right away.

The first? Golf course management is incredibly complex. Sure, I could tell you what club to hit from every nook and cranny of my home course. But playing there (or even working in the shop) is a far cry from making the decisions that determine its success.

That’s related to the second thing I learned, which is that I’m no greenskeeper. There’s a reason effective superintendents are water and soil experts who have earned degrees in turf grass management. They have an intimate understanding of what is required to grow and maintain quality golf courses.

The third thing I learned is that golf courses use a ton of resources, land and water chief among them. But some courses are realizing they can manage those resources more effectively. That’s where I really got intrigued.

This wasn’t something I was going to master overnight, but as I dived further down the rabbit hole, I got more and more eager to bring all of you with me. We might learn a thing or two together. But first, one big question:

Why should you care about sustainability? 

In short, because the future of your golf course depends on it. We don’t have to look far to see the sustainability challenges in front of us. And although most of us hit the links as a means to escape (or at the very least press pause on) the challenges of our daily lives, it’s important to think about golf with a critical eye, too.

So what is sustainability, anyway? If you ditch all the jargon, all sustainability really means is the ability of a system or process (or, in this case, a golf course) to continue in perpetuity. Sustainability can sound like an obligation, but it’s more helpful to see it as an chance to help out. It means creating healthier golf courses so they can flourish now and into the future.

So, let’s not think of these sustainability challenges as a burden. Let’s think of them as golf’s opportunity to be a leader. There are some fascinating strategies that are already commonplace among superintendents and golf course operators. Others are far less commonplace, but by thinking outside the box we can solve some problems and explore potential technologies and pathways for improvement.

But let’s start big-picture. Let’s talk about rain.

What does rain mean for golf?

As golfers, we don’t typically jump for joy when a storm interferes with our weekend tee times. Nor do course operators always root for showers — warmer, drier conditions are directly correlated with increased play. A recent study by Golf Datatech suggested that a 0.76% increase in rounds played for every 1 degree increase in temperature and a 2.2% decrease in rounds played for every 1” increase in rainfall.

But rain is nonetheless an integral element of traditional golf course operations. It’s cheap, high-quality water that is provided to the course free of charge. 

In some ways this is very simple: golf courses are large, open spaces and when it rains, the grass soaks up the rain and keeps growing. But there’s a lot more going on.

How much water do golf courses use?

Let’s think about the basic equation of a golf course from a superintendent’s perspective. (By way of disclaimer: this is a highly customized equation per course that varies widely based on region, soil type, elevation, desired maintenance quality, etc.) The super has to know how much water the course uses on an annual basis and also where that water comes from. In other words: How much water is coming in and how much water is going out?

For this article’s sake, let’s look at a region requiring significant water usage: The Southwest. A study by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America found that, throughout the Southwest region in 2013, the water usage for the region was 532,149 acre-feet. (Imagine a pond one acre in area and one foot deep — that’s an acre-foot.) Each acre-foot is 325,851 gallons of water.  Simplified, the median water use per course (398.4 acre-feet) was roughly 130 million gallons of water. The majority of that water is creatively sourced, but 17 million gallons was potable drinking water supplied from municipalities.

Let’s slosh that number around in our heads for a minute. 130 million gallons is enough to fill 197 Olympic-sized swimming pools, per the GCSAA. To put that in perspective, the average American uses 17 gallons of water for every shower they take. So extrapolating a bit, a course’s potable water alone is the equivalent of one million people taking a shower. That’s enough for you to shower every day for the next 2,739 years. You get the point. It’s a ton of water. 

That bit of water usage data is from 2013, which means it’s not completely up to date, but it does underscore an important point: This is not a brand-new issue. The industry and its stakeholders have known about water usage, the game’s stakeholders have been compiling data and courses are in the process of implementing solutions — which means it’s time to keep pressing forward.

How do golf courses maximize the water they have?

So, there are two ways to reduce the amount of water a course has to provide: Use less water or collect more water. Rain can help with the latter. (We’ll address the former in future articles.)

In order to collect optimal levels of water on a golf course, designers and supers don’t have to look far for successful models — nature itself provides plenty of inspiration. Natural systems require healthy soil, proper drainage and efficient collection. Unhealthy soil that lacks proper root structures of inhabiting vegetation will not exhibit optimal levels of moisture retention. Golf courses are the same way.

Think of rich, healthy soil as a new sponge, soaking up tons of water. These root systems are a course’s first line of defense from stormwater run-off damage and provide more resilience in times of drought. Again, this is all stuff a superintendent knows and works toward in growing healthy turf.

But it’s not enough to merely soak up water; you need proper drainage to go along with that moisture retention. Drainage is critical for courses, not just because it is annoying to take drops from “casual water,” but because over-saturation and flooding can negatively impact the health of the turf you’ll be playing from all throughout the course. Ideal drainage systems will capture excess water and run that water to strategically located collection ponds. It’s nice knowing some of the water hazards where you donate five-dollar golf balls have a greater purpose than stealing strokes from your score. 

The concept of irrigation ponds have been utilized for generations and is nothing new to golf course management. What is new, however, is the level of sophistication and complexity that constitutes some of these collection systems. The cost of sourcing water from both an environmental and financial perspective is rising and courses are responding to this with some impressive solutions.

What are some creative solutions for retaining water?

In 2015, Pelican Hill Golf Resort in Newport Coast, Calif., boasted impressive stats from their rainwater-capturing systems and “smart” sprinkler system; their processes save them nearly 50 million gallons of water annually. Their drainage system encourages water flow from buildings, pavement, cart paths and other elements of the course into giant cisterns that have been installed underground and are capable of capturing and storing millions of gallons of runoff water. Since the installation of this infrastructure, they claim that zero stormwater has left the property. This type of water capture should be the absolute gold standard for each and every course.

Other courses around the world are beginning to implement sustainability features within their built environment, like their clubhouse and maintenance buildings, that also contribute to capturing rainwater. Troia Golf in Portugal, one of the featured courses on GEO Foundation’s OnCourse webpage, has installed rainwater capture systems around their clubhouse. Capturing the water from a relatively small footprint like a building when compared to the overall footprint of a golf course may seem like a raindrop in the bucket, but it’s a reminder that every little bit counts in balancing the equation of water use on property.

Captured water doesn’t just have to be used for irrigation, either. Facilities can install treatment technologies like this Ultra Violet water treatment system, which allows water to be utilized for drinking (pending a consult with local public health regulations). Yes, the majority of golf-related water-use issues involve the need for non-potable water, but the more flexibility, the better — and initiatives in the built space like this one can also help facilities earn points within certain certifications like LEED, which will help raise awareness and improve the marketability of the operation. 

Then there’s composting. It’s not just a practice for tree-hugging Vermonters any more; this is a super-easy initiative that can be implemented directly on site with any course that offers food and beverage operations.

What does composting have to do with water usage and rainwater harvesting? This practice, when implemented successfully, can take what would be waste (leftover food from a restaurant) and convert it into a rich soil amendment byproduct that can be applied to gardens or — you guessed it! — areas of a golf course in need of healthier soil. Remember, we want healthy soil to be like a sponge, soaking up excess water. Composting can help with that.

Dan Dinelli of Northshore Country Club illustrates in the below YouTube video how his course’s vermicomposting operation works and the benefits that it brings to soil and turfgrass health on the property. Essentially, there are benefits everywhere: The course reduces costs of trucking garbage, replaces costly, more traditional soil amendments and fertilizers and helps retain water in the process, taking a very easy first step in the journey toward sustainable course maintenance practices.

So the next time you see those sprinklers go off at your course — or wonder about a few brown patches on the fairways — you might think about them slightly differently.

We don’t recommend badgering your hard-working superintendent, but the more you know, the better. Maybe your local club would benefit from some creative water-capturing infrastructure. Proactive and long-term investments around water use are essential steps for those in the golf industry to find cost-saving measures, increasing course resiliency and reducing their environmental footprint, securing their future for generations of golfers to come.

Cody Semmelrock is the founder of Acer Sustainability. Feedback? Questions? You can reach him here.

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The post Meet the geese-policing pups that are trained to clean up golf courses appeared first on Golf.

The post Meet the geese-policing pups that are trained to clean up golf courses appeared first on Golf.

In the early 1990s, David Marcks was working as the assistant superintendent at Fairview Country Club, a private course in Connecticut that was not exclusive enough to keep 600 Canada geese off its grounds.

The birds did many things that bad guests do. They tore up turf, ate like gluttons and ― this was the clincher ― relieved themselves abundantly in indiscreet locations.

Ornithological fun fact: The average adult goose produces one-and-a-half pounds of droppings per day.

“It was like playing golf in a litter box,” Marcks says.

Along with his brother, Richard, Fairview’s lead superintendent, Marcks tried all the standard goose-deterrent tricks ― decoys, whistles, air cannons, flares ― to no avail. Then, one day, while browsing in a bookstore, he came across a photograph of a dog, a handsome pup, with black and white markings.

Marcks didn’t know the breed, but he knew that he’d seen its spitting image years before. At a farm in New Jersey, where he and his brother had worked as kids, they’d used a dog just like it to round up cattle.

An idea struck him.

“I figured, If that dog could move a 1,200-pound bull, it could definitely move a 14-pound bird,” Marcks says.

The dog was a Border collie. He and his brother started calling breeders.

“The first 10 or 11 people I talked to told me I was crazy,” Marcks says. “You want a dog to do what?”

He and Richard were ready give up when they found a willing seller, a breeder in Virginia. For $2,000 of the club’s money, they bought Tac, a trained Border collie, and set him loose on Fairview’s fairways. In a matter of weeks, the geese were gone.

That was the good news. The bad news was that Tac had nothing left to do. Idleness does not sit well with Border collies. To keep him occupied, David brought Tac to a nearby course that was overrun with geese and volunteered his services. Problem solved.

Word got out. Marcks started getting inquiries from other clubs: Could they pay him to bring Tac around?

Demand grew to the point where Marcks got a second dog and embraced a second job.

“So now I’m going around on my days off with a couple of Border collies and a big pocket full of cash,” Marcks says. “And I realize, These damn dogs are making more money than I do.”

Within a year, Marcks had given up his Fairview gig and founded Geese Police, a venture that put him on the vanguard of what is now a multi-million-dollar industry.

The Canada goose issues golf faced back then were chicken feed compared to what the game is up against today. Though the big birds aren’t everywhere, they often seem to be, with nesting grounds in all 50 states and a large and growing presence on courses coast to coast.

That trend reflects a rise in their overall population. According to recent waterfowl counts, there are more than 5 million Canada geese in North America (one estimate places the number at upward of 9 million), nearly as many if not more than there have ever been on the continent, and roughly double what there were some 30 years ago, when Marcks and Tac first went to work.

The term Canada goose is a catch-all descriptor for several goose species. It is also something of a misnomer, as millions of Canada geese in this country have never set a webbed foot in the Great White North. They are what are known as “resident” geese. No long, winged migrations for them come winter. Avian homebodies, they stay mostly put year-round, feeding and breeding in environments that suit them. Many of those environments are manufactured: parks, playgrounds, corporate campuses, golf courses. If you build it with grass and water, the birds will come.

“When you think about what golf courses offer in the way of food and a place for reproduction, it’s no wonder geese feel very welcome on them,” says Peter Marra, an ornithologist at Georgetown University and emeritus senior scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. “If you let them into the clubhouse, they’d probably go for a Reuben and an Arnold Palmer, too.”

What’s good for the geese, of course, isn’t always great for golfers. Aside from the mess they leave behind, the birds, when they gather in great enough numbers, can pose public health problems with their bacteria-laden droppings.

They also get aggressive when defending their nests. And while they aren’t likely to injure golfers — mostly, they just hiss and flap their wings — golfers aren’t expected to return the favor. Hunting or harming geese can be punishable with fines or jail time. Addling eggs — a population-control method in which a product, often corn oil, is applied to the eggs to prevent them from hatching — is restricted by permit. Natural predators are few and far between on courses. Of the humane options, that leaves scaring the geese away.

Trouble is, the birds are savvy. Though a cardboard coyote cutout might fool them once, geese soon wise up to such impostors. Firecrackers and air cannons only work until the birds discover that the startling noises are not a threat.

And, besides, what course wants to be ground zero for loud booms, anyway?

Enter a special kind of canine, a breed that shares some bloodlines with the ancient game. Like golf, Border collies trace their origins to Scotland — specifically, a border region with England — where they were developed as herding dogs. Smart, agile and energetic, they proved up to that task, and more. By the early 1900s, sheep farmers in the United States and Canada had enlisted the assistance of Border collies. As ranching life expanded westward, Border collies went westward, too. There weren’t any livestock they couldn’t wrangle. Or, as David Marcks discovered, any birds they couldn’t spook.

To watch them stalk their quarry is to see what makes them so effective, moving in a low, spring-loaded crouch, eyes locked in a steely stare. Though the dogs aren’t out to harm the birds — they’re trained not to lay a paw on them — the geese don’t know that. To them, Border collies look like a grave threat.

“Any dog can chase geese, but no dog can chase geese like a Border collie,” Marcks says. “As far as the birds are concerned, you’ve basically got a predator, like a wolf, an Arctic fox or a coyote. The difference is, it’s a predator you can control.”

Those traits have been the basis of a booming business, and not just for Marcks, who, over the years, has expanded Geese Police into a franchised operation, with 17 offices in 13 states. Though a prominent player, he’s far from alone in the goose-control game.

Just ask Barbara Ray. She’s the Border collie breeder who sold Tac to Fairview Country Club way back when. In the wake of that transaction, nearly three decades ago, Ray took to selling trained dogs to other golf course operators, a trade that wound up turning her a tidy profit.

“(Tac) was like the goose that laid the golden egg for me,” she says.

While Ray has since retreated from any goose-dog dealings to focus on her passion for sheep dog trials (the herding competitions pictured in the movie Babe), one of her former trainers, Rebecca Gibson, has become a leading figure in the field as the founder and co-owner of Fly Away Geese.

From her home base on a farm in North Carolina, Gibson dispatches Border collies to an array of venues around the country ― business plazas, airports, military bases — any place where geese (or other birds) have gotten out of hand. She has earned a reputation as a golf-world go-to, and a benefactor of the game; every year, at the Golf Industry Show, she gifts one of her Border collies to a golf course superintendent.

By Gibson’s estimate, more than 40 of her Border collies are currently working courses in the U.S., and she’s always grooming more to keep up with demand. The job has little letup. As adept as the dogs are at goose-control, not all of the skills come naturally to them. Where a Border collie’s instinct is to round up stock, for instance, bringing the animals back toward its owner, the goal of golf-course work is to chase away the geese. It takes time to teach the dogs that that’s okay.

Their education begins early, during puppy-hood, around a duck-filled pond on Gibson’s farm. Gradually, as the young Border collies start to gain their footing, they are put to apprentice alongside older dogs, watching and learning as they go. By around the age of 2, most are ready for the workforce, and worthy of the price they fetch. Gibson sells them to golf courses for anywhere from $3,500 to $8,000.

Lifestyle

For that top price, Gibson says, “you’re basically getting a remote-control dog. If you want it to move three steps to the right or left, that’s exactly what it will do.” Not that the other dogs are slackers, either. “They’re all well-trained — more than up to anything a course might need.”

On average, Gibson says, it takes three to four weeks of steady harassment to rid a course of geese, at which point a Border collie morphs into combo role of course mascot and pet. Given their intense and active nature, they require an owner who is up to the task. Compatibility is key. To that end, prior to sealing any deal, Gibson sends perspective buyers a questionnaire that is every bit as thorough as any forms you’d fill out on a dating site.

“You can train a dog to be comfortable with downtime,” Gibson says. “But owners also need to know about Border collies. It’s in their nature — they like to have jobs to do.”

That much was apparent on a recent weekend morning at Corica Park, a municipal facility in Alameda, Calif., that is popular with golfers and geese alike. For months, the birds had been driving management batty, feasting on grass, generating droppings.

“It’s been like a smorgasbord for them,” said an exasperated Marc Logan, Corica’s chief operator and lead agronomist.

Like David Marcks at Fairview Country Club years ago, Logan had exhausted an arsenal of options. Flares had failed. The geese had all but cackled at a coyote decoy. As it happened, Logan’s wife, Dee, had a background in dog training. It was she who had reached out to Rebecca Gibson and convinced course management to buy a Border collie from Fly Away Geese: an eager 2-year-old male named Paint.

Now, with the sun up and the fairways filled with golfers, Dee climbed into a golf cart, Paint seated at her side. This was not the dog’s first tour of duty. He’d been on the job for a few days now, and plenty of geese were still hanging around.

Pressing the gas pedal, Dee motored up the 10th hole, a dogleg left par-4 with a retention pond along its outer elbow. At the water’s edge, a gaggle of geese were going about their business.

At Dee’s command, Paint sprang into action, leaping from the cart and scuttling across the fairway in a menacing crouch. A goose, clucking softly, began to squawk. Others soon joined in a panicked, honking chorus as Paint broke into an all-out sprint. He’d nearly reached them when the birds took flight, Paint circling excitedly in their shadows.

“Good boy!” Dee called out.

She shaded her eyes and watched the geese wing off, chaotically at first, then gathering themselves into a V-formation, out to find friendlier confines somewhere else.

The post Meet the geese-policing pups that are trained to clean up golf courses appeared first on Golf.

The post Should you aerate your own lawn? A golf superintendent explains. appeared first on Golf.

The post Should you aerate your own lawn? A golf superintendent explains. appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Super Secrets, a GOLF.com series in which we pick the brains of the game’s leading superintendents. By illuminating how course maintenance crews ply their trades, we’re hopeful we can not only give you a deeper appreciation for the important, innovative work they do but also provide you with maintenance tips that you can apply to your own little patch of paradise. Happy gardening!

***

The most disheartening phrase in golf is not, “You’re still away.”

It’s, “Oh, by the way, we just punched our greens.”

You hate to hear that.

But don’t blame your superintendent.

Punching, or aerating, is a short-term inconvenience carried out in the name of long-term turf health.

But how, exactly, does aerating work? What are the benefits for a golf course? And should you consider aerating your own lawn?

We asked Jim Nedrow, director of agronomy at The Club at Indian Creek, in Elkhorn, Neb., to help us bore down on the subject.

Understanding aeration lingo

First, let’s define our terms. The agronomic practice that many golfers broadly refer to as “punching” covers two main categories: solid tine aeration and core aeration. Both are nicely descriptive labels.

Solid tine aeration is exactly that. “You’re basically just stabbing a hole in the ground with a solid tine, without removing any material,” Nedrow says.

Core aeration takes things further. “You’re punching a hole, pulling out a plug and then filling that hole with sand.”

Though one measure is more aggressive than the other, both serve a similar purpose: to promote the healthy flow of air and moisture through the soil.

Solid Tine Aeration: Everything you need to know

Compared to core aeration, this is the quicker, less involved refresher for turf, but different courses do it at different times (using tines of different diameter and depth) depending on such factors as climate, maintenance budgets, grass variety and more. In Nebraska, Nedrow and his crew carry out the practice every two weeks from May through August, using quarter-inch diameter tines, which they plunge to a depth of three to four inches. The goal, Nedrow says, is to break through a layer of organic material known as the mat layer so that air and moisture can pass freely through the root zone.

“It can get damp and humid down there and this definitely aids in drying things out,” Nedrow says. “But really what we’re trying to promote is positive air flow and oxygenate those roots.”

Lifestyle

Solid tine aeration is also known as “venting,” and for good reason. Nedrow likens those roots to a person trying to breathe through a plastic bag. “We’re basically punching holes in that bag so you can breathe again,” he says.

The practice, he says, has little to no negative effect on the quality of play. The opposite, in fact. “We get out there and roll the greens right after we tine,” he says, “and those putting surfaces are running as well or better than they ever do.

Core Aeration: Everything you need to know

When it comes to solid core aeration, people in the industry take starkly opposing views. “It’s almost like Democrats and Republicans,” Nedrow says. “There are those who think you don’t need to do it, and others who think that it’s 100 percent necessary.”

Nedrow falls into the latter camp. “It’s a non-negotiable for us,” he says (though he acknowledges that it might not be as crucial for other courses “that enjoy some environmental factor that we don’t enjoy here.”) Nedrow and his crew core aerate twice a year, in May and then again just after Labor Day, pulling plugs out of the soil, clearing them away then filling the holes with sand. Sanding helps dilute thatch (organic material that builds up just below the crown of the plant). It also promotes green firmness and smoothness.

Lifestyle

But the main purpose of coring and sanding is similar to that of solid tine aeration, shifted into overdrive: creating clean channels for the exchange of air and moisture through the root zones. “If you get hot, wet, mucky saturated soil, your plant basically drowns,” Nedrow says. “You’re providing the passage for toxic gasses to be released and fresh oxygen to come in.”

Do golf courses aerate only their greens?

Depends. Aerating is good for all parts of the course, and for the same reasons. But that’s a lot of ground to cover, and it requires more time and money than many courses can afford to spend.

Nedrow and his crew solid tine their fairways, tees and run-up areas once a year, usually in June, using half-inch tines (twice the diameter of the tines they use on greens), and plunging them 6 to 8 inches deep. “That gets us through the summer,” Nedrow says.

Come fall, after overseeding, they core aerate those same areas of the course. Winter comes, spring arrives, and the cycle begins again.

So, should you aerate your own lawn?

“If I had all the time and money in the world, I absolutely would,” Nedrow says of solid tine aeration (core aerating and sanding a home lawn is, in most cases, going overboard). The fact that he doesn’t, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. It can only help your lawn — especially on lawns with heavily compacted soil from frequent use — provided that you do it right.

The problem Nedrow sees with a lot of home aeration jobs is that the tines don’t go deep enough into the soil. People tend to use walk-behind machines with tines attached to drums that roll over the turf, poking holes that go no more than a half-inch deep. That might be good for breaking up thatch, Nedrow says, but the tines don’t penetrate down into the root zones, which means the grass doesn’t get the exchange of air and moisture that it really needs.

Lifestyle

“You really want to aerify with machines that use a vertical, up-and-down motion that gets down into the root zone,” Nedrow says. But that simply doesn’t happen with most home aeration jobs.

Timing also matters. As a general rule, it’s best to aerify when soil temperatures get above 55 degrees for four to five days in a row. You can use a meat thermometer to take your readings. “Once you reach that threshold, that’s when you know your grass is really ready to get going,” Nedrow says. Just be sure to get those tines down into the root zone.

Not that Nedrow follows his own advice at home. He says there’s a common quip in the industry that if you want to know where a superintendent lives, look for the worst lawn in the neighborhood around July or August, because by then, “the superintendent will be so tired of taking care of grass that he won’t bother with his own.

Lifestyle

Nedrow says he aims to be the exception. “I’ve got a neighbor who is pretty dialed in with his lawn, so there’s a bit of competition going on,” he says. “He doesn’t know it, but there is.”

How far Nedrow is willing to push that competition is another matter. Deciding whether or not to aerify is a calculus involving a range of factors, including time and money, how you want your lawn to look, and how you like it to be used. It is, in the end, a deeply personal matter.

“I take a ton of pride in my yard and I’ve never aerified it,” Nedrow says. “I guess my actions tell you what you need to know.”

The post Should you aerate your own lawn? A golf superintendent explains. appeared first on Golf.

The post How much sun and shade your grass *really* needs, according to a golf-course superintendent appeared first on Golf.

The post How much sun and shade your grass *really* needs, according to a golf-course superintendent appeared first on Golf.

Ed. note: Welcome to Super Secrets, a new GOLF.com series in which we’re picking the brains of the game’s leading superintendents. By illuminating how course maintenance crews ply their trades, we’re hopeful we can not only give you a deeper appreciation for the important, innovative work they do but also provide you with maintenance tips that you can apply to your own little patch of paradise. Happy gardening!

When we say that someone has it “made in the shade,” we mean they’ve got it good and easy. But for fairways, greens and tees boxes, it’s a different story: shade isn’t always an easy place to be.

Few people know this better than golf course superintendents, who are all too familiar with the potential problems that lurk in the shadows.

Matthew Guilfoil is the superintendent at Desert Canyon Golf Club, in Arizona, and co-host of the turf care-focused podcast From the Jingweeds, so he’s good for shedding light on these shady matters, and what homeowners can learn from them.

Here are four things to know when tending to your own yard:

1.  Let there be light

Different strains of grass have different strengths and weaknesses. Some need more water, others more sunlight. As a general rule, cool-climate grasses like, say, bentgrass, are more shade-tolerant than warm-climate strains such as Bermuda, which, Guilfoil says, requires a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight a day.

In Guilfoil’s experience, morning sun is best, though he concedes that “in all my years in the business, I’m still not sure why.” (One of his theories is that in the morning, the grass is just waking up and rearing to go, so it responds more energetically than it does at the end of a long day).

Bottom line: grasses like Bermuda need a lot of light, so if that’s what you’ve got planted in your yard and that yard is shaded by a tree, you could do the grass a favor by trimming and pruning the tree branches to let more sunlight in. Another option, Guilfoil says, is to swap out that Bermuda for a more suitable alternative, like St. Augustine, a shade-tolerant warm-weather grass.

2. Don’t dampen your prospects

It’s simple science: shaded areas of turf do not dry out as quickly as sun-splashed ones. The ground tends to get soggy. Diseases creep in. You’ve probably noticed this when you’re playing golf. Wet places are tough places for grass to grow. What’s true on the course is true in your yard. One obvious home remedy, Guilfoil says, is to give those shady spots in your yard less water. But that can be tricky if you’re relying on an automatic sprinkler or irrigation system.

If your yard is shaded by a tree, that tree might help by drinking up some of the excess moisture. But if the shade is created by a wall or your home, no such luck; neither of those will help siphon off moisture. Whatever the case, another way to deal with a stubbornly damp spot is to aerate the ground more regularly (Guilfoil recommends you do this at least once year).

Aerating will give that water somewhere to go, down, down, down into the soil, instead of simply puddling on the surface. As a side benefit, the roots of the grass will also be forced to extend deeper into the soil to get that water, and the deeper the root system, the healthier the grass.

3. Root out any problems

Trees don’t just throw shade. They pose problems with their roots. On golf courses, tree roots growing just below the turf are notorious for damaging mower blades (and for injuring golfers’ wrists). Because they outcompete grass for nutrients and water, tree roots are also a common cause of brown spots on tees and greens. In your yard, something similar applies. Grass with roots running through it isn’t nice to look at, or great to play on.

Lifestyle

So, what to do? When superintendents come across a troublesome underground root, they use a specialized machine to remove it. But when the root has erupted through the turf, Guilfoil says, it’s easy enough to do the job with an axe or a hatchet. “Just a couple of whacks and out it comes,” he says. “You can do the same thing in your yard.” Hacking out that meddlesome root won’t harm the tree, Guilfoil says. And it will do your yard a world of good.

4. Control the shadows of spring

In certain regions of the country, just before Bermuda grass goes dormant for the winter, superintendents overseed (most often with cool-climate ryegrass) to keep their courses looking good and playing well. Some homeowners do this in their yards, too. While there’s nothing wrong with this, problems can arise when the Bermuda begins to reawaken and finds itself in the shadow of the taller ryegrass. Yes, that’s right. Grass can throw shade, too.

“Remember, that Bermuda needs direct sunlight,” Guilfoil says. “And it’s not going to get as much with the ryegrass standing over it.”

What does that mean? It means that, as spring approaches, it’s time for that ryegrass to go. One way to rid your overseeded turf of ryegrass is to cut back on watering; ryegrass does not fare nearly as well in dry conditions as Bermuda. But a better method, Guilfoil says, is to lower your mower blade and cut everything down to the same low height, so the ryegrass is no longer shading the Bermuda.

Golf courses do this. You can do it, too, gradually, in a series of mowing sessions. Come spring, the ryegrass will be gone and the re-emergent Bermuda will stand healthily in its place.

The post How much sun and shade your grass *really* needs, according to a golf-course superintendent appeared first on Golf.

The post WATCH: This oddly satisfying dew sweeping video will leave you mesmerized appeared first on Golf.

The post WATCH: This oddly satisfying dew sweeping video will leave you mesmerized appeared first on Golf.

In golf, there are night owls, there are morning people, and then, in their own class, there are dew sweepers. These enigmatic few chase the sun into the sky every morning — beginning their round long before most of us have even dreamt of our tee time and finishing while the rest of us sip our morning coffee.

In theory, it’s a great way to play golf. If you play fast enough, you’re home in time for brunch having already completed a full day’s work. It’s never too warm, or the conditions too firm, or the course overworn. It’s golf in its purest form — alone in the quiet of the morning.

But perhaps the reason why the dew sweepers are so willing to wake up before the crack of dawn has nothing to do with golf and everything to do with the course maintenance tool by the same name.

On Sunday, GOLF’s social media team unearthed a video of a maintenance crew sweeping dew off the surface of a green at dawn. It’s an activity only course maintenance folks and human dew sweepers are lucky enough ever to have seen and it’s absolutely mesmerizing. Check it out for yourself.

Typically, golf courses will use a long pole, a drag mat or a giant, windshield-wiper like accessory called a “big dew” to remove dawn from greens. But these guys seem to have it all figured out in the most oddly satisfying way imaginable.

I’d hardly consider myself a morning person, but if it means I get access to more views like this one, you can sign me up for the earliest tee time available. All I’m asking for in return are a few breakfast balls and a strong cup of coffee during my first few hours on the course.

The post WATCH: This oddly satisfying dew sweeping video will leave you mesmerized appeared first on Golf.

The post How much (and when!) to water your lawn, according to a golf-course superintendent appeared first on Golf.

The post How much (and when!) to water your lawn, according to a golf-course superintendent appeared first on Golf.

Ed. note: Welcome to Super Secrets, a new GOLF.com series in which we’re picking the brains of the game’s leading superintendents. By illuminating how course maintenance crews ply their trade, we’re hopeful we can not only give you a deeper appreciation for the important, innovative work they do but also provide you with maintenance tips that you can apply to your own little patch of paradise. Happy gardening!

***

Water, water everywhere. Your grass needs some to drink. But how much? And how often? Also, how dry can you let your lawn get?

Dan Cutler is the superintendent of Rio Verde Country Club, in Rio Verde, Ariz., and the co-host, with Matt Guilfoil, of From the Jingweeds, a podcast devoted to the superintendent’s trade. In other words, he knows something about the subject.

So, we asked him for the dos and don’ts of handling thirsty turf.

When to water your lawn

As you’ve probably heard, watering early is the way to go. Cutler recommends the window between 5 a.m and 10 a.m., and for a couple of reasons. Not only do you want to beat the heat of day, when too much H2O gets lost to evaporation, you also want to get the job done before the wind kicks up and messes with your sprinkler patterns, making it tough to water evenly. Breezy conditions = inefficiency.

Golf courses sometimes water in the dead of night, but that’s out of necessity, Cutler says (golfers don’t take kindly to getting soaked), and he doesn’t recommend it. When you water after dark, you open the door to fungus and mildew, which creep in when moisture sits for too long on the grass.

The perils of these problems are especially pronounced right after mowing, when turf is in a bruised and vulnerable state (getting sliced by a sharp blade is traumatic for plants and animals alike). So, when you cut your turf, allow it time to recover before you water (a day is a good amount of time to wait, Cutler says). And, of course, if you mowed that afternoon, it’s an especially bad idea to water that night.

How much to water your lawn

So much depends on a range of factors, including climate, soil type and grass varietal. But as a general rule, Cutler suggests giving your lawn about one to two inches of water per week. A rough way to measure this is to put a bucket out when you water, and see how high the water gets.

Another way to tell if your grass has had enough is to stick a pointed object into the soil — a knife or a screwdriver will do. If it slides in easily, your grass is likely sated. If the soil is hard and dry and tough to penetrate, your turf is probably parched. Time to wet its whistle.

Lifestyle

How frequently to water your lawn

How you parcel out the water is important, too. You might think that watering a little bit every day is a smart approach, but you’d be wrong. It’s better to water “deeply and infrequently,” Cutler says. About a third of an inch every two to three days is a good goal.

Why is this so? Turns out your lawn is not unlike your kid: pampering it in the short run doesn’t do it any long-term favors. If you water lightly every day, your grass never has to reach deep into the soil to get a healthy drink. The roots become shallow. And grass with shallow roots is susceptible to wilting and other woes.

If, instead, you wait a day or two before you water, then give the turf a little more to drink, the water will seep deeper into the soil, and the roots will stretch down deeper in pursuit of it. A deeper root system is what you want.

Lifestyle

How dry is too dry

Conserving water is a good idea. Golf courses do it. Homeowners should do it, too. But how long can you let your lawn go without?


As with so much else in turf care, it depends. A hardy grass like Bermuda is camel-like in this regard: It can survive long bouts of deprivation. Not so with bentgrass in searing summer heat.

In drought conditions, grass does what it does in colder seasons: It goes dormant as a means of self-protection, redirecting moisture and nutrients to its roots. Its leaves turn color as a result. Dormant grass can be brought back to life; just add water.

But dead grass? Well, dead grass is dead.

As with so much else in turf care, the durability of your lawn depends on many factors. But as a general rule, Cutler says, grass starts going dormant after two weeks without water. After a month, it’s apt to die.

How do you tell if your grass has crossed that line? One faithful indicator is its crown. That’s the thick, light colored part of the plant, just above the soil, right where the roots meet the shoots. Look closely. If there’s still green in the crown, there’s still life in your grass. If not, you might be out of luck.

Another way to tell is pretty simple, too: tug on the grass, Cutler says. If its roots remain intact, it’s probably still alive. If it uproots easily, it’s toast. You’ll need to reseed to get it back.

The post How much (and when!) to water your lawn, according to a golf-course superintendent appeared first on Golf.