Red-hot heat turning Georgia golf greens brown

By Michelle Hiskey

For the AJC

Across Georgia, the delicate art of growing bentgrass golf greens this summer has turned into a battle for survival.

Greens are turning brown, developing diseases and even dying in this siege of sweltering heat. At stake are millions of dollars in golf landscaping, an industry that the bad economy already had weakened.

Golf superintendents, the experts who keep the course in optimum condition, are trying everything to save greens. Each can cost $50,000 or more to build. When they die, revenue is lost because golfers will find somewhere else to play.

“No question this is the hottest extended period, the most challenging time to grow bentgrass that I’ve ever seen,” said Mike Crawford, superintendent of TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth for 15 years and an Atlantan for two decades.

Crawford makes maintenance decisions based on a nearby weather station telling him each day the number of hours the temperature is above 90 degrees.

Most summers: 2 1/2 hours.

This summer: 10 1/2 hours.

“We are seeing soil temperatures, [measured] two inches deep, at 100 degrees or more,” he said. “It is the perfect recipe for death of bentgrass.”

To save his greens, Crawford has relied on golf fans – not spectators, but the big ones that force air movement across the grass. Eight permanent fans are running 24 hours at Sugarloaf and Crawford met this week with a contractor to install more as an “insurance policy against the worst weather,” Crawford said.

At Capital City Club in Brookhaven, superintendent Kyle Marshall got help protecting his turf when tee times were cut by 20 percent.

That measure hurts revenue, though. Brutal summer weather is exactly what the economically pressed leisure sport did not need.

“The economic pressure to achieve more with less makes this heat wave much more impactful on the bottom line,” said Stone Mountain Golf Club superintendent Anthony Williams. “Programs and practices that are needed to combat the record heat were not budgeted, and these [new] expenses are making a difficult economic situation exponentially more difficult.”

Unlike the typical lawn, golf’s creeping bentgrass is mowed to the 16th of an inch. That fosters a shallow root system. When greenskeepers give the grass a break by mowing higher, golfers complain.

“The rough was so high that it was difficult to play at our normal pace,” said LaJean Gould, one of a group of 18 “Divot Divas” and spouses who played at Stone Mountain Golf Club this week. “The rough was so thick and you just don’t have the energy to move fast in that heat.”

Mike Hughes, a 7-handicap player from Roswell, doesn’t like roped-off areas of fragile turf.

“I can see where you want to keep off the dry area because a spark from the golf cart might cause a fire or whatever,” he said. “But I just want a course to let me drive my cart, hit the ball and move on.”

At the state’s biggest annual summer tournaments, golfers accept heat-related conditions because no courses can escape the difficult conditions, said Georgia State Golf Association executive director Mike Waldron.

Noting the consecutive days in the 90s -- 11 straight and 25 of the last 26 -- Waldron called 2010 “the hottest year in a generation.”

Fortunately for the PGA Tour, the final major of 2010 is being played this week in Wisconsin.

“Those greens should look good because that course [Whistling Straits] is right on Lake Michigan and it gets a break from the temperature,” said Clark Throssell, director of research for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

“If you start to move away from that lake, they are having the same sort of struggles as the rest of the country from the duration of heat and worrying about recovery. Right now, golf courses are in survival strategy. They’re playing defense.”

Water alone cannot erase heat stress. Recovery can only be expected when night-time temperatures begin to drop below 70 consistently, he said.

Golf is an estimated $3 billion industry in Georgia, according to a 2003 GSGA report. Its most famous course, however, has been spared the brunt of the weather.

Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, “is closed during this summer season,” said club spokesman Steve Ethun. “Therefore, we’re not a good apples-to-apples comparison to the stresses other courses are enduring.”