Why do Golf Courses in Spain turn brown in the Winter?
Last winter I stood with a client overlooking the course at Lo Romero which was wearing the yellow/ brown overcoat and he asked me why I had taken him to a course with dead grass and I has to explain to him about the Bermuda grass used on local courses which ‘hibernate’ when the average night time temperatures fall below 7 degrees. Interestingly enough one week later I stood in the same spot but with higher temperatures and the course had turned green almost over night.
Clearly there is a lack of understanding of the reasons for the use of Bermuda grass on the local courses and this article will hopefully clarify some of the key points and concerns.
Bermuda grass is the toughest grass used for turf in desert and dry regions,unmatched by any other type of grass and has the following benefits:
· excellent resistance to heat and drought
· low water use rate
· relatively rapid growth rate and crowds out weeds
· tolerance of a wide range of soil pH ranges
· good tolerance to salty water and conditions
· good traffic tolerance
· relative ease of establishment
· grows on hard soil surfaces and shallow soils, better than most other grasses
Bermuda grass is believed to have developed from contaminated hay used by slaves as ‘bedding’ arriving in America from Africa and was used in the southern United States in the early 1900’s as a golf course turf, and was used as an “alternative” for sand greens, which were exactly that – a putting surface comprised of sand, with no grass!
Over time (many decades), scientists and golf course greenkeepers have developed many different ‘strains’ and ‘types’ of Bermuda grass to meet the needs in a variety of conditions and to avoid ‘scalping’ when cutting grass in hot weather after heavy rain.
The alternative to the use of Bermuda grass is to over seed in the Spring and Autumn with grasses that remain green but this is a costly exercise and disrupts the golf courses as fairways are protected over the period of weeks.
So there you have it,you will never complain about why the courses look brown in the winter again and there is a whole history and industry in the development of the grass on which we enjoy playing our golf.