tournament

The 50th KBC Augusta golf tournament will be held at Keya Golf Club in Fukuoka next week. This is an especially interesting golf tournament because of the grass types used—korai (Zoysia matrella) on greens, fairways, and tees, with noshiba (Zoysia japonica) in the rough.

I was in Japan for two weeks to work at the KBC Augusta tournament, have meetings, and visit turfgrass sites. On this trip, I made a deliberate effort to record some videos to show a few things that I find interesting about turfgrass management in Japan.

Andrew Thomson joined me from his home in rural southwestern Japan to discuss the variety of playing surfaces one can find around the world. And you won’t find many people as well-traveled, nor as familiar with the types of playing surfaces, as Andrew.

David Bataller organized a seminar in the VIP tent behind the 18th green on Thursday morning during the Catalunya Championship. Measuring air temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the 18th green just after sunrise.

The KBC Augusta tournament (#KBCオーガスタ) is coming up, and as in past years, I find it extraordinarily interesting. There aren’t many tournaments like this one, from a grass and playing surface perspective.

I’ve sometimes explained the temperature-based turfgrass growth potential (GP) of PACE Turf in relation to the grass conditions at the Masters Tournament. The playing conditions at the Masters are superb, and the cool-season grass in that season is growing at near optimum temperatures.

Andrew Thomson is the author of Bridge to the Gods: Tales from Kyushu. That very book happens to be sitting beside my computer as I write this. I’m bringing it to read this weekend when I’ll be on a small island in the Andaman Sea.

Last week I had a couple conversations about green speed. Green speed and surface hardness My column in the June 2018 issue of Golf Course Seminar magazine discusses the relationship between effective mowing height and green speed.

I’ve been at Keya Golf Club for the KBC Augusta tournament this week. Yesterday afternoon I watched some shots during the first practice round, and took a few videos of ball reaction on the greens.

You may recall that I went shopping for golf magazines at 4 a.m. on August 23. What was that about? There was a feature article in that week’s new issue of Weekly Golf Digest about Andrew McDaniel.