Zoysia

There are four interesting things I would like to point out in this short video from a par 5 hole on a golf course in Central Japan. 1. The cart has no driver.

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.

This is a report of one week in Japan, during which I taught a seminar about turfgrass nutrient requirements, visited five golf clubs in four different prefectures—only one of which had less than 36 holes—and saw lots of interesting course maintenance equipment and grasses.

Some of the issues related to golf course maintenance and the Japanese golf industry are so interesting, and so challenging, that a few updates about course maintenance here will surely be interesting.

There are four grasses in the image above (click on it to get a larger view). We are looking at Tifeagle and Novotek (both are Cynodon hybrids), Sea Isle Supreme (Paspalum vaginatum), and a fine-bladed zoysia, probably Zoysia pacifica.

Golf course putting greens in Southeast Asia are usually planted to either hybrid bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon x C. transvaalensis), seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum), or zoysia (Z. matrella or Z. pacifica). I saw these test plots at a golf course in Southeast Asia.

The state of Oregon on the West Coast of the United States is well-known for cool-season grass seed production. From ryegrass to kentucky bluegrass, bentgrass to fine fescue, there are vast fields of grass seed in Oregon.

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.

The two green system on a par 4 hole in Tochigi prefecture, Japan. On a July day in 2011, I visited four eighteen hole golf courses around the Tokyo area.

In 2006, ATC conducted a survey of the grass types on golf courses in Thailand. Surveys were sent to the more than 200 courses in Thailand, and 41 of the surveys were completed and returned.