Iconic Courses
Turf Talk
Golf Course Grass: The Basics BY RICK HAMILTON
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SkyCity Nine Eagles features wall-to-wall Paspalum
ave you ever wondered why some courses look and play better than others at certain times of the year? While it would be easy to suggest it was all down to maintenance procedures, the overriding reason is that different courses use different types of grasses—and different types of grasses react differently according to their environment. Take Augusta National, for instance. In the spring, when the course hosts the Masters tournament, it looks fabulous. Its towering pines and beautiful azaleas aside, the playing surfaces are perfect. There can’t be a golfer on the planet who wouldn’t want to play on the club’s carpet-like fairways and silky smooth greens. But visit Augusta in the summer and you’d most likely be disappointed. The course is closed during this time, and for good reason: the Georgia heat is too much for the course’s bentgrass greens to handle. If kept at the same tournament heights and speeds, the grass would soon die. The same logic explains why bentgrass, a fine leaf variety considered the “Rolls Royce” of putting surfaces, is so rarely used in southern China. Put simply, our tropical climate—the heat, humidity and heavy rainfall—is wholly unsuitable for growing quality bentgrass. Bent thrives in cooler, drier climes, which is why it is used extensively in places like Kunming and northern China.
Generally speaking, courses in our region use one or two types of grass: Bermuda and, increasingly, Paspalum. Broader-leafed than Bent, these two grass types, which are classified as warm season grasses, are more resistant to the extreme conditions that prevail throughout the year in southern China. Water quality, the type of soil, the amount of on-course traffic and, of course, maintenance practices also play their part in determining which grass, or grasses, a particular course chooses. It is interesting to see that the majority of new courses in the region are going for one or two options: wall-to-wall Paspalum or Paspalum fairways, tees and roughs combined with Bermuda TifEagle greens. (TifEagle is a new strain of Bermuda, and when maintained well, can rival Bentgrass for smooth and slick putting surfaces at certain times of the year). Despite what you might have read elsewhere, there is no such thing as “Wondergrass.” No one grass type suits all conditions. Each type of grass has its advantages and disadvantages, which I have summarized in the table below. Please note, however, that this is only a general guide. There are a number of other factors that affect the quality of playing surfaces, which I will touch upon in future issues.
WARM SEASON GRASSES Use on Course
Rick Hamilton is managing director of Asia Turf Solutions, a turf management consultancy company based in Hong Kong. COOL SEASON GRASSES
Bermuda
Paspalum
Zoysia
Bent
Kentucky Blue
Rye
Throughout
Throughout
Fairways, tees, roughs (occasionaly greens)
Throughout
Fairways, tees, roughs
Primarily overseeding (adds colour to dormant grass)
Fine, wiry leaf. Slow growth
Fine leaf, high density. Shallow root system
Broad leaf; suitable for medium traffic
Bunch type (used to add colour to dormant grass)
Striking colour, recovers well
Deep green colour
Characteristics Medium broad leaf; Broad leaf, high new strains are very density. Vigorous fine. Good growth growth Pros
Robust grass, recovers well. TifEagle provides excellent greens
Aesthetically Native to SE pleasing; handles lack Asia,Hardy, requires of sunlight and poor low maintenance quality water well
Deep green colour, low growing habit means it can be cut very short
Cons
Needs sunlight. Loses colour in winter when semi-dormant
Green speeds tend to be low. Requires a lot of preparation to increase speed
Slow recovery from damage. Not as pleasing to the eye as others
Not as hardy Becomes fragile when over-watered. as others Requires regular maintenance
Susceptible to disease
Where Used
SE Asia
SE Asia (newer courses)
SE Asia + Japan (older courses)
Kunming, N. China
N. China
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N. China
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Sensational Sawgrass As host of THE PLAYERS Championship and headquarters of the PGA Tour, the TPC Sawgrass is one of the most revered places in all of golf. We travel to Florida to see for ourselves.
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u gusta National aside, the Stadium Course at the TPC Sawgrass is arguably the most recognizable course in t he Un ited States —if not the world. As host of THE PLAYERS Championship, images of the course’s beautifully manicured fairways and railroad tie-supported greens have been beamed to all corners of the globe for over twenty-five years. Not everyone will remember then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman being pushed into the lake fronting the eighteenth green by Jerry Pate after the latter won the course’s debut event in 1982, but any self-respecting golf fan can’t fail to forget the tournament’s highlight reel over the last decade. There was Tiger’s “Better than Most” 60-foot rollercoaster putt WWW.HKGA.COM
at the seventeenth for birdie in 2001; Davis Love III’s sublime 6-iron from the trees at sixteen which set up an eagle in 2003; and Adam Scott’s gutsy bogeysave on eighteen to win the event in 2004, to name but a few. Augusta might have “Amen Corner,” but holes sixteen thru eighteen at the Stadium Course are as easily identifiable as any stretch on the planet. And what’s more, unlike the home of the Masters tournament, you can actually play them. “We are open to the public. Guests are encouraged to come, even if you’re not playing golf,” says Billy Dettlaff, the PGA Tour’s national director of golf as we sit in his spacious office inside the club’s magnificent clubhouse. “We encourage people to come, see the clubhouse, see all the memorabilia, the history.” This is something that you quickly learn about Sawgrass: they welcome visitors with open arms. Let’s face it, apart from a handful of public courses in the British Isles and the United States, the majority courses on the top-100 list, of which Sawgrass is firmly entrenched, are strictly private. If you are permitted on their hallowed turf, they certainly don’t go out of their way to advertise the fact. Sawgrass is as inclusive as they come. OK, at US$350 for a round on Stadium Course, it’s pricey. But this isn’t just any old round—this is a round in which you’ll be following in the footsteps of champions. HK GOLFER・SEPT/OCT 2008
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Course File Stadium Course, TPC Sawgrass Par: 72. Yardage: 7,215 Course/Slope Rating: 75.0/149 Architect: Pete Dye Greens Fee: $350
Floridian Wonder (clockwise from top): the par-five eleventh features distinctive bunkering; the thirteenth features water down the entire left side; the riskreward sixteenth, candidate for best hole on the course; a grandstand finish at the eighteenth with the club’s new clubhouse in the background.
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The Playing Experience
T he excitement of play i ng a course of such status begins long before you reach the first tee. The driveway off PGA Tour Boulevard is lined with lampposts, each bearing a banner featuring the image of a former champion. You realize that you’ll soon be treading the same fairways as the very best players of the modern era. This is when the butterflies start to kick in. Arrival is seamless. Cars pause in front of the clubhouse and bags are whisked away in a heartbeat. Check-in is strategically-placed inside what could be the biggest pro shop in the world. After meandering through seemingly endless displays of top-notch merchandise—and (hopefully) ignoring the obvious temptation to add several thousands dollars worth of equipment to your collection—you reach the counter and pay, before heading to the locker rooms. Like everything else here, these are superbly appointed. A quick word about the staff: genuinely warm and unfalteringly polite, this is southern hospitality at its most welcoming. After warming up at the club’s all-turf range and short game area (as you might expect from a club that counts a number of PGA Tour players, including Vijay Singh, among its clientele,
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the practice facilities at Sawgrass are seriously impressive), it’s time to play. The starter—over a tanoy system—announces that you’re to make your way to the first tee. Gulp. You realize two things upon reaching the teebox of this medium length opener. Firstly, the course is immaculate. Sawgrass claims to be always “tournament ready”, and you can see why. It might be a little clichéd to suggest that the fairways are in better shape that most courses’ greens, but it’s absolutely true. The second, more daunting, realization is that the first hole is a darn sight more tricky than years of playing it on PlayStation will have you believe. In computer golf it’s easy to rip a 3-wood
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over the water and waste bunker that flanks the right side of the fairway. In reality, only the professionals would contemplate such a line. For holiday golfers, these hazards are well and truly in play. First-timers think they ‘know’ the course, having watched the pros navigate their way around on countless occasions. But unless you can drive it 280-plus yards and dead straight, the hazards will make their presence felt. Take the waste bunkers. Watching THE PLAYERS Championship from the safety of your armchair, they look to be fairly gentle; the kind of trap that you might occasionally risk firing a hybrid or fairway wood out of. In actual fact, they are menacingly deep and steep-sided—TV’s twodimensional view really doesn’t do them justice at all. Try and take on more than you can handle and you’ll find yourself in there for some considerable time. Swallow your pride and grab your sand-wedge. One interesting feature of the routing of the course is that no consecutive holes run in the same direction. While the par-five second seems to be just an elongated version of the first, the change is wind direction means the holes play much differently to each other. You find this time and time again on the Stadium Course. Gauging the shifting breezes correctly can be the difference between a respectable round and a train wreck, at least for a good player: the continual presence of water and devilish greenside hummocks and pot bunkers means any mistimed shot, even one only slightly miscued, is punished. That it’s a brilliant test of golf in beyond question, but it also has to be one of the most mentally trying courses around. Which brings us nicely to the infamous seventeenth and its island green, a design characteristic that has been copied on dozens if not hundreds of courses the world over. Much has been made of this tiny par-three over the years—and for good reason. At 137 yards it’s comfortably the shortest hole on the course, but that hasn’t prevented many a seasoned pro from WWW.HKGA.COM
40,000 120,000 66
Number of rounds played each year on the Stadium Course Number of balls recovered each year from the lake on seventeen
The number of strokes it took Angelo Spagnolo, a 31-year-old grocery store manager, to complete the seventeenth in “America’s Worst Avid Golfer” contest in 1985. Spagnolo hit 27 balls in the water from the teebox and drop area. Rules officials finally directed him to putt around the hazard and down the narrow path that leads to the green.
seeing their championship chances destroyed by finding the aqua. Such is the potential for disaster that broadcaster NBC devotes ten cameras to the hole during the tournament. But here’s the thing: for the pros at the climax of one of the biggest events in golf the hole represents a supreme psychological challenge; for the amateur, whose round has more than likely already been wrecked by the previous sixteen, the seventeenth offers some light relief. We’re not saying it’s easy, necessarily, but as far as birdie opportunities go, this is certainly one of the better chances out there. HK GOLFER・SEPT/OCT 2008
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Interview
Tour Insider: Rick Anderson Controversial anti-doping policies, expansion into China, a fifth major—to the PGA Tour’s chief legal officer it all goes with the job. We caught up with Anderson as he prepares to leave for a trip to Beijing. INTERVIEW BY CHARLES MCLAUGHLIN
SOS – Strategy on Seventeen One of the unique things about the TPC Sawgrass is that the property is populated by volunteer “docents” (storytellers) from the community who are trained to provide assistance or information to anyone who wants it—including impromptu guided tours of the course and clubhouse. Our storyteller was Gerald W. (Doc) Stokes, a 78-year-old former professor of history and philosophy who gave us a local’s perspective on the course’s most famous hole. The Tee Shot: “This is the thing [about seventeen], you can spin it back into the water, or if you hit it hot it’ll go over. It’s a real soft, high, floating shot that’s required to stay on the green. There’s usually a wind in the face and you can hit a bit more aggressively, but if you get it way up in the air you’re messing with the wind because it’s invariably swirling here. It’s swirling, but it more comes from the left to the right. If the wind isn’t howling, I tell people make sure that you aim to the left of centre of the green well enough to allow for the wind, because the wind is going to take it twenty yards. I’ve just seen it happen too many times, and I’ve played out here too many times myself. The Green: “Now you can see the slope [of the green] here. You can see how undulating it is, but they took about thirteen inches off the top of it. When Tiger made that “Better than Most” putt, coming down that hill, it was so dramatic because it was going to roll right off. That year there were ninetynine balls in the water from the pros and that’s outlandish. That’s why they shaved it off. The Bunker: “The small bunker there isn’t the bailout people might think it is. It doesn’t work. From here you can barely see it, it’s so deep. It’s like a pot bunker at St Andrews; it’s deep, real deep and it’s very difficult to come out of there soft. It’s such a difficult shot to come out of there and keep it on the green. The 2008 PLAYERS: “Sergio, one of his shots was there on the cart path [walkway]. He putted from the cart path. I felt for Paul Goydos, he played so well and had such a great personality. Such great quotes. He was relatively unknown but I had followed him as he moved up from the Nationwide Tour. He won before some ten years ago. I loved his attitude; I just loved the way he took it. It was sad that he lost by hitting into the water.
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The Other Course
The TPC Sawgrass is home to not one but two world-class courses. Dye’s Valley Course, younger sibling to the famous Stadium Course, is another fabulous track but one that is often overlooked by visitors who come with clubs in tow. This is a mistake, according to the locals, because not only does it feature all the ingredients of a Pete Dye classic—the liberal use of water, railroad ties and heavy mounding—but it’s also a much friendlier test. Not as long as the Stadium Course and with bigger greens, a round on Dye’s Valley is a comparatively soothing affair. As one regular told us: “It’s more favourable for regular play. You can relax on the Valley. Relax on the Stadium Course and you’re toast.” Completed in 1997, the course has hosted events such as the SENIOR PLAYERS championship and the final stage of Senior Qualifying School.
Getting a Tee Time
Both courses are accessible throughout the year; however the Stadium Course closes approximately three weeks prior to THE PLAYERS Championship, which next takes place from 4-10 May, 2009. Visit www.tpc.com/sawgrass for booking. Tee times are also available through the Marriott Sawgrass Golf Resort & Spa (www.sawgrassmarriot. com), where the majority of overseas visitors choose to stay.
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HKG: Were you a big golfer before you joined the PGA Tour? RA: Not at all. I was not a big golfer, and I’m still not a big golfer. But when I came to the Tour, I was single. I took up golf in earnest and got to almost the point where I didn’t embarrass myself. The pinnacle of that was in 1998 when I went to Scotland for a ten day trip, where I got to play some of the greatest venues in Scotland. And that was important to me. I wanted to play, but coming from outside of golf, I really wanted to immerse myself within the game, and no better way to do it than to spend some time in the birthplace of golf.
the world of professional sports today and not address the subject. When we launched the program with a player meeting in San Diego, in February, we had a few players that were very vocally opposed and that opposition grew mostly out of the clash of cultures that anti-doping in golf represents, because of the inherent nature in golf of being a game of honour. So that was understandable. Also an interesting point is that the players who are under 35, largely they are used to this because they were tested in college, and the players who are over 35 really had never been tested and had more anxiety about it. We started our testing process and the first week, I’m happy to report, went very smoothly.
HKG: What would be a normal week for you? RA: I’m travelling a lot…so this year my week is usually out Monday through Wednesday at a tournament, talking to players, attending a Players Advisory Council meeting or attending one of our Tour Policy Board meetings. I’m also out at various times, engaged in different business negotiations. Then, when I’m in the office, it’s generally a kind of revolving door, with members of my team coming in to ask about various issues, or other business units or people coming in and wanting to talk about a particular issue or reacting to things that happen and we have to address. The way I’ve described it, it’s a 100 miles an hour on 100 different subjects a day. I love that. I do love that.
HKG: You don’t want it to happen, but the proof will come with the first positive test…. RA: Absolutely. That’s absolutely right.
HKG: What has been reaction of PGA Tour players to anti-doping? RA: Overall, very positive. Our players absolutely understand why we need to have a program. They also all feel, as we do, that we don’t have a problem, but you cannot exist in WWW.HKGA.COM
HKG: It is going to be interesting…. RA: It has been! I’m happy that my personal time in it is near over! (Laughs) I’m still responsible for it, but Alison Keller, who runs the program, just does a fabulous job and she’s not going to need my time any more, I think! (Laughs)
HKG: THE PLAYERS Championship, is that your biggest week of the year? RA: Certainly here, in this physical location, it’s definitely the biggest week for us. For the PGA Tour, this is our championship; this is the Players’ Championship, aptly named. And so, in terms of the events that we run, that are really ours and we’re not just associated with, sure it’s absolutely the big week. We’ve done so much to try to elevate the tournament. This building that we’re sitting in, I think is going to wind up being a very iconic symbol, you know, the way you see the clubhouse at Augusta National. I think, over time, this event will fall into that status. HKG: You wonder how an event gets “Major” status, but it has to be a whisker away here… RA: Yeah, you would think so. Of course, there is no official criteria, no vote or anything like that, and it’s really about how the players feel about it, how they talk about it. Every year that’s gone by, you see them talking more and more; they focus like it’s a Major. Certainly moving it into its own month, so that you have a Major every month [from] April through August only helps. So it’s all these different things that we do, and then we just turn it over to the media and the players to decide when it’s a Major. HK GOLFER・SEPT/OCT 2008
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