All golf courses, no matter the location, benefit from applying as little water as possible to meet turf requirements. The superintendent’s goal is to provide healthy, resilient turf and firm playing conditions – while keeping inputs as low as possible. This is especially true in the western United States, where water can be scarce, water costs may be extremely high and water quality may be questionable. In California, many courses were built with perennial ryegrass fairways. After years of drought and heightened scrutiny of water use, a lot of these courses have been converting perennial ryegrass to hybrid bermudagrass.
When it comes to fighting for survival with limited soil moisture, bermudagrass is expected to win in a competition with perennial ryegrass. But for board members, club members and the general golfing public, there is often a level of skepticism around the benefits of upgrading to a better grass. While research data clearly supports lower water requirements with bermudagrass, sometimes convincing golfers to make a change requires showing them the benefits. Seeing is believing.
To demonstrate the potential value in a conversion, a golf course in Northern California with ryegrass fairways planted a hybrid bermudagrass trial in part of one fairway. The agronomy team decreased the irrigation in the trial area and maintained soil volumetric water content of only 12% to 13% on both the bermudagrass and adjacent ryegrass. A soil moisture meter used minutes before the title photo for this update was captured verified that volumetric water content was the same in both areas. The stark difference in turf quality and cover at this low soil moisture was striking! This trial showed the club leadership the impact of upgrading to a grass that requires less water – in a powerful way. Note that the healthy perennial ryegrass in the background is maintained at 30% average soil moisture, more than twice the bermudagrass requirement.
For anyone looking to find the right grasses for your facility, conduct trials and evaluate their performance for several years before making any changes. Adjust water and fertilizer inputs to showcase the benefits of the new varieties and invite golfers and other stakeholders to see the results firsthand. If you would like to talk about finding the best grasses for your course, reach out to your regional USGA agronomist.
West Region Agronomists:
Brian Whitlark, regional director – bwhitlark@usga.org
Cory Isom, senior consulting agronomist – cisom@usga.org