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One Season Ends and
Another Begins
By John Foy, Florida
Green Section Director |
 Traditionally
in South Florida, the winter golf season comes to an end shortly
after Easter and subsequently there is a fairly rapid decline in
play. Once the winter play season has come to an end the
summertime course maintenance season begins.
With a very early Easter this year, moderate to heavy play
continued through April, but it is also being reported that
total winter season rounds were reduced relative to previous
years. The current state of the economy is definitely having an
impact, and when combined with significant increases in
fertilizer and other basic material costs, course managers will
be challenged to continue to provide a level of overall
conditioning and quality in keeping with golfer expectations and
demands.
As discussed in previous web updates, the prolonged drought that
has been plaguing the state continues to be a major concern at
all golf courses, except those fortunate enough to have an
unrestricted irrigation source. Although, with each passing
month, there have been incremental increases in the amount of
water available for course irrigation, which has naturally
helped. Also, as a result of timely winter rainfall, on April
18th, the South Florida Water Management District went back to a
Phase 11 (30% reduction) restriction from the earlier Phase 111
(45% reduction). Yet, Turf Advisory Service (TAS) visits have
been made to several courses where a lack of sufficient water
has already caused significant problems and a pronounced
deterioration in turf health and quality.
With the occurrence of mild to warm temperatures throughout the
winter, there has been no real slow down in plant parasitic
nematode activity. This has exacerbated drought stress problems
and caused additional turf loss. With fairways and roughs,
producing a recovery from drought stress and nematode damage
will be extremely difficult without regular and adequate
rainfall. Thus, the start of the summer rainy season cannot come
soon enough.
With the winter play season finally winding down, most courses
in Central and South Florida are implementing routine summer
cultural management such as core aeration and aggressive
verticutting of putting greens, tees, fairways, and roughs.
These practices will always be unpopular with golfers because of
the disruptions and inconveniences caused, but accomplishing
them on a timely basis is critical for promoting the resumption
of active turf growth and recovering from the cumulative
negative impacts of the winter season. There are inevitably
requests and demands that cultural management programs be
delayed because during the month of May, the start of reciprocal
play and annual summer membership programs can help increase
play and, in turn, revenues. The importance of timely initiation
of cultural management programs cannot be over emphasized and
the old adage of "pay me now or pay me later" certainly applies
in this situation. Furthermore, with reduced availability and/or
increasing costs of pesticides, fertilizers, and other
materials, there is even greater importance and need for
agronomically-sound, basic practices and programs to maintain a
healthy turf and good quality conditioning the majority of the
time.
Source: John Foy, jfoy@usga.org or 772-546-2620 |
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