Noel Mackenzie: How technology – and Ronan Rafferty – can help greenkeepers

It was with some interest that I attended an evening ‘talk’ by Ronan Raffety recently.

Ronan talked very freely about how golf had changed and, as a highly skilled player, he openly questioned the nature of modern day presentation of golf courses. I confess it was a long day and it is fair to say that his talk was as much about entertainment as serious debate. Nonetheless, his talk served to re-enforce the thoughts I too hold on this subject – that the preparation of courses is being taken to standards so high that maybe we are missing a trick? Ronan stressed the technicality of layout challenging the player as much as the condition of the playing surfaces, especially greens.

Two key issues were highlighted, that of greens’ presentation and condition and that of course length. Ronan drew on his early and formative experiences as a pro golfer to demonstrate the technical nature of a hole now seems to be being forsaken to more ‘statistical’ issues, particularly length. Whilst length can be an issue, the factors of the environment of the course were discussed, headwind effects versus tailwind effects, features, out of bounds and taking a drop were flagged up and raked over in a manner that challenged the modern game and just as importantly, how the course is presented.

I was really encouraged to hear a golfer and commentator pick up on the issue of when is the standard on a course good enough? For someone like myself, involved at the sharp end, it was a pleasure to hear this being questioned. I often seem to be chanting the cry ‘why push it too the limit’ so to hear someone else question it was quite a relief!

Without a doubt golf greens now are as good as they have ever been and course presentation is better than ever. Or is it? All of this ‘perfection’ comes with a price tag based on staff and materials. Certainly course maintenance budgets are huge in some affluent areas compared to others in less economically favoured conditions. Never before has so much been spent on grass presentation and conditioning. Yet is that right? Is it always appropriate? How do greenkeepers use the advances in technology to advance their courses and do they use it in the right way?

You would think that with the technology that is now available to grass management, bare areas on greens would be relatively rare in the summer these days. Indeed they are pretty rare, but still more common than might be ideal. This type of problem can be caused by any number of pests or diseases, though we should understand that these in themselves often indicate a turf that is under stress. Why is the turf under stress with all this technology at our disposal?

Turf is put under stress by mowing and other mechanical activities, drought, heat, wetness (sometimes in summer by over-irrigation), pest presence and golfers feet. The array of chemicals and treatments out in the market place is quite staggering. There are wetting agents, fertilisers of all kinds of nutrient sources, amino acid feeds, seaweed feeds, growth retardants, biological stimulants for soil bacteria and fungi, the actual soil bacteria and fungi… I could go on. And, to boot there are also a large number of very intensively and extensively bred and trialled grass species and cultivars to aid the condition of the surface with greater disease resistance, better recovery, higher density, better colour and so on than their earlier counterparts. Suffice to say there are an enormous number of good quality products out there (and some not so useful / good ones too!) which aid the condition of grass under very intense management.

How do we use this technology? What has this technology given the greenkeeper and their golf club? I would suggest that the technology has given us the materials to keep grass healthy under stress. This would mean, perhaps, that we could keep the grass as it used to be kept, say at, five millimetres height of cut, but it would be in far better condition. This would give us more consistent playing surfaces, allow for more frequent verti-cutting and so on. I realise that hardly any courses cut greens at five millimetres now but hold this point for a moment if you will, just for the sake of the debate here.

The reality is that the current set of technology is used differently. It is used to mitigate the stress imposed by even closer cutting heights on some courses.

That is to say that the condition of the grass is the same as it was 10 to 20 years ago except that it is now cut 20 to 40 per cent of what it was. The technology is being used to allow grass to be cut even closer and yet survive. Is that wrong? Well, in my opinion, that depends on how the whole management programme is arranged and what goals and objectives are being sought agronomically.

For example, if the grass is so close cut that it could die easily from drought despite all the technical products applied, then yes it would be madness to push the turf to such limits. I am not talking here about lowering a height of cut from 4.5 to 5mm down to, say, 4mm for a competition but where mowing heights of 3mm or even less are applied every day, day in, day out.

Some grasses demand close cutting, especially creeping bents. But, and it’s a but with a pound sign attached, it is still often the case that agronomists will come across greenkeepers cutting at very low heights of cut (below 4mm) yet trying to establish traditional bent (Agrostis tenuis) and even fescue (Festuca rubra rubra or rubra litoralis) at heights of cut where their establishment is hampered to the point of making the expenditure almost pointless.

Under such conditions annual meadow grass survives quite capably, and indeed will still seed! So are modern technologies actually helping annual meadow grass (Poa annua) to survive? The answer is very likely a ‘Yes’, not least because this stress susceptible grass cannot help but benefit from amino acids, fertilisers or any material that aids nutrition, and so on.

Without wishing to descend into a difficult and muddled debate about the finer points of agronomics (some of which is based on opinions as much as scientific research) I believe the debate should reflect those issues Ronan raised in his talk; that of how good is good enough? In managing golf greens in particular we make management decisions. The decision for this summer if you are a course manager / head greenkeeper is where do we draw the line? How much time and money do we put into maintaining or presenting the greens and course as a whole?

There is much demand for greens speed to be high, usually from a minority of low handicap players within a club. It is easy now to bring green speeds on many courses to around nine feet or more in summer with the use of light greens rollers, verticutting, and careful mowing. How fast is fast enough? Most players find speeds approaching 10 feet difficult to cope with. We can alter the speed more now than ever before, so is it time to revisit what is ideal for your club, and maybe for golf as a whole? Should we aim for less than the maximum achievable, perhaps aiming for eight feet for routine play despite the fact that 11 feet might be technically possible, and enjoy the benefits of better turf condition and lower risk to the putting surface from unexpected stress. Greenkeepers too may benefit from greater job security under such regimes.

In considering these questions and seeking answers the managers of turf and their masters, be they committee or proprietors, can influence the spend on the course. Planning for summer is a means by which the goals for the course are reached. The message I think Ronan was offering for consideration is to set realistic goals. The message I would like to send out is, plan now to achieve realistic summer goals for your course and think about how technology can give your course greater buffering against extremes of weather rather than tempting your greenstaff to continue to ‘push the envelope’ where grass survival is concerned in the process of pursing perfection that might not be sustainable.