Bermuda

Over the past year, I’ve been doing a lot of research about climate and turfgrass performance, especially as it relates to how much light is available for photosynthesis. You may have seen the climate charts that show the large differences in sunshine hours between cities in Asia and cities in North America and in southern Europe, even when the average temperature is quite similar.

This is a two part mystery, the first part of which I’ll speculate as to the answer, and the second part for which I’ll ask for expert advice (or guesses!

I’ve been invited to give a lecture about turfgrass selection and management in Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands. This Ocean Expo Research Center Special Lecture will be held on 24 August from 13:30 to 15:00 at the Ocean Expo Park.

We can look at temperature data for Seoul and Philadelphia and we find that the average temperatures throughout the year have almost complete overlap. So we might expect that with such similar temperatures on a month by month basis, the grasses used in those cities would be similar.

I was a golf course superintendent in Japan from September 2000 until August 2001. Now, ten years later, it is interesting to see some of the photos from that year and to remember what it was like.

After last week’s Asian Amateur Championship at Kasumigaseki CC, I came to Okinawa for a meeting of the Okinawa Greenkeeper’s Association. The meeting was held at Unimat Okinawa Golf Club and I spoke about optimizing playing conditions for warm-season turf, the challenges of overseeding bermudagrass greens in the climate of Okinawa, and on my experiences working at the Masters, US Open, and Open Championship this year.