Turf tourism

I’ve noticed that traffic—just enough traffic—can transform some grasses into an amazing type of surface. I’ve seen this with Cynodon in China, with Festuca in Iceland, and in other places as well, but those are a couple that come to mind.

Last year I wrote about manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) sod on highway medians in Thailand. I showed photos of a recently planted median, and explained why zoysia doesn’t persist in this environment when maintained without supplemental irrigation and regular mowing.

You won’t find these at every golf course in Japan, but it is common to see a green condition (グリーンコンディション) information board prominently displayed at the clubhouse. The Facebook page for Monthly Golf Management magazine (月刊ゴルフマネジメント) shared a beautiful photo gallery with representative examples of these green condition boards.

The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) has a new series of videos about each of their facilities. I watched this one about the Manila American Cemetery with special interest. I think you’ll be impressed when you see this.

This is usually where I show a map with all my flights, mention that they took me some hundred thousands of kilometers, and then share some of my favorite turf photos from all the places I went.

I’ve seen a lot of highways in Thailand. Highway medians are sodded with manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) as a matter of course (more about the cost of that below). I’ve seen some impressive vistas of this work in past years, but for safety reasons haven’t been able to get any photos.

When I play golf, I much prefer to walk, so the choice between walking and riding is usually an easy one. These all-terrain vehicles are staged near the first tee, ready for action.

Last November I saw a creeping bentgrass nursery in Japan. The nursery had been fumigated to kill seeds in the soil before the bentgrass seeds were planted. I was surprised to see, scattered across the nursery, plants with big leaves that clearly were not creeping bentgrass.

The median blog post on this site in 2019 got 244 views. And there were a few up around 1,000 to 2,000 views. There were these top 10 that everyone read.

At the end of every year, I like to look at my flight map and at some of my favorite turf photos. In 2019 I was on 56 flights over 161,473 km (100,335 miles).