Zoysia

These photos from an abandoned golf course in the southern part of the Tohoku region of Japan are fascinating. They show clearly how three different species perform when they are not maintained for 18 months in that climate.

The KBC Augusta tournament is notable for being a rare professional golf event played entirely on zoysia surfaces. At host Keya Golf Club, the tees, fairways, and greens are korai (Zoysia matrella), and the roughs are noshiba (Zoysia japonica).

Korai green on the 18th at Keya GC during the 2014 KBC Augusta tournament. Why would one deliberately use manilagrass (Zoysia matrella, or korai in Japan) on golf course putting greens?

I’ll retire to my usual haunt to ponder this one. Let me set the scene. Mid-July, Saitama prefecture, Japanese lawngrass (Zoysia japonica) at the back of a driving range, infrequent mowing, no recent drought, and no recent frosts.

Does adding more potassium improve drought resistance? This article by Rowland et al. takes an in-depth look at that important question. They looked at bermudagrass (Tifeagle and Tifdwarf), seashore paspalum (SeaDwarf), and zoysia (PristineFlora) grown in a USGA sand rootzone.

Abiko Golf Club won GOLF Magazine’s Best International Renovation of 2013 award. In the article about the work, I read that Brian Silva, with co-designer Kye Goalby, “transitioned the old Japanese two-green system – one bentgrass, the other local korai grass – down to one.

Yoshinobu Tsukada shared this photo of the par three 8th, at Wack Wack’s East Course during the 2014 Philippine Open. This is one of the classic short holes in Asia.

The par 3 twelfth hole at Keya GC in the summer of 2013. I’ve written about perceived divot problems on manilagrass (Zoysia matrella) tees. To summarize, I’ve heard many objections (in theory) to the use of manilagrass on tees in Southeast Asia, the thought being that manilagrass grows slowly and divot recovery may be too slow for this grass to be suitable on tees.

In 2013, I volunteered at Keya Golf Club during the KBC Augusta Golf Tournament. I collected data on putting green performance, and I mowed fairways. With all the korai greens (this is Zoysia matrella, common English name is manilagrass) in Japan and in other parts of Asia, this is the only tournament on the Japanese men’s tour played on korai greens each year.

This isn’t the usual everyday maintenance, unless one is in Japan, in which case these things are routine. On an early autumn visit to Ryugasaki Country Club, I had a chance to observe some of the maintenance work, and I thought it would be interesting to share a few things I saw that are common on Japanese golf courses and less common elsewhere.