Rough Times

Well needless to say the topic on everyones lips is "How about that rough".  I want to address the concerns and facts about the rough on our course.

First we do cut the rough.  In fact we spend nearly 160 hours a week mowing the rough.  It takes us 2.5 days to mow the entire course and we do this twice a week every week when it is growing.  We also have an array of push mowers, string trimmers, and hill climbing mowers to accomplish all the other rough tasks necessary to prepare for play.

If we lose time to rain, member events, shotguns etc, we are losing that needed time to get through all the mowing tasks.  Noise ordinances make it difficult to mow on the weekends, as well as trying to keep the one quiet time to play intact.  The amount of mowing that could be performed if allowed would not make much of an impact.

Secondly, we have 6 different types of grass growing at any one time in the rough sections of the course.  Within these types there are many varieties of different texture and density that have been introduced over the years.  This makes the nature of a uniform and consistent rough almost impossible during the spring flush.

That last statement is whats happening right now, a spring flush.  We were unusually dry all spring and the warm weather and soil, combined with a few heavy rain events has made the soil active for growth.  This natural effect is evident by heavy, lush grass found across all varieties.  Some areas the ball sits up and other down all depending on the type of grass; Tall Fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass, Perennial Ryegrass, Poa annua, or Bermuda that different  areas support, and we have a lot of different areas and sun-shade interactions.

The height the rough is cut at never varies during the year.  A uniform 2.5 inches is set across a all the mowers, and as you can tell, when the flush slows down in June and all summer long the rough is never an issue on a normal basis.  This flush that always occurs at this time of year also coincides with the first great weather in the spring.  If we did not get this flush, I would be worried that something is wrong and a long year with sparse grass is ahead.

Many courses in the area have rebuilt over the years and now contain a uniform rough grass of one or two species.  This is not a comparable circumstance to ours, and unless there is a strong push to tear up the entire course in search of better rough grass, this issue will resurface every year, for a few weeks in the spring.  The rough has gotten better and more dense over the years, which leads to better conditions over the entire season, and that is the idea I would like to stress.  We are always looking at an entire season and planning for the next.  Variations will always occur on older properties like ours over time and thats what makes the game so challenging.  It's a natural environment that must be adjusted for every day, otherwise it would be like tennis.