It’s been cloudy, and raining, and I wasn’t in a rush to cut the grass. I decided to skip mowing for exactly 4 weeks to demonstrate the difference in growth habit that I wish everyone paid attention to.
Playability is what it is all about, isn’t it? At least for putting greens, one wants to have surfaces upon which the ball rolls at a certain pace, and which have a firmness that is appropriate for the conditions.
I spent a morning with Brad Revill at Nikanti GC last month. I wanted to see the course, get some measurements, see the clipping volume measurement, and talk about turf management with Brad.
Yesterday I wrote about tools used to measure surface hardness. I’ve used all of those tools, and I prefer the golf course firmness tester from SDI (a 500 g Clegg impact tester with a domed head) for its ease of use and reliability.
There are various tools available to measure surface firmness, or surface hardness, of turfgrass. For golf course putting greens, I’ve used four different tools, and my preferred method is the golf course firmness tester from SDI.
Yesterday I spoke with a group of turfgrass managers in the Philippines at the Nutranta Turf Science in Action seminar.
I talked about plant growth regulator (PGR) use in a tropical environment and what to expect when using PGRs—especially trinexapac-ethyl—in the Philippines.
A couple months ago I was struck by this post—“Problems with surrogate markers”—on Andrew Gelman’s blog. “Wow”, I thought, “this seems related to turfgrass management in a lot of ways.”
Last week I spent a few days in Fukuoka. I was there for the 103rd Japan Amateur Golf Championship. On the the morning of July 5, I recorded a short iron shot landing on the 16th green at the host venue, Keya Golf Club.
This question arrived recently to my inbox. I paraphrase:
“Sir my greens are hard, the ball bounces and goes beyond the hole. Please give me recommendations on the steps taken to keep green soft.
A correspondent wrote to ask about the ever popular topic of Si and green speed:
Pretty sure I already know the answer to this, but I had a conversation with our rep from […] fertilizer company about my frustration in not being able to increase our green speed […].