If you think the weather of the last couple of weeks has engendered a close working relationship between yourself and your lawn mower, consider the plight of the golf course superintendent.

        Golfers take excellent course conditioning as a given these days. They expect it in April, and they'll expect it in August.

        So mowing turf isn't enough right now.

        “It starts on Day1,” said Karl Danneberger, a professor of turfgrass science at Ohio State University who advises superintendents through a web-based service called Superintendents' Korner. “The minute a course opens in the spring, golfers want perfect conditions. Sometimes, to do that, you end up on the short end of the stick.”

        Guaranteeing the best turf for the summer usually doesn't mean keeping conditions optimal in the spring. This is the time of year when superintendents have to make their largest gamble, trying to predict what the summer may bring.

        Last year was a brutal example. The spring was inordinately dry. Then, as June hit, the rains came and stayed the rest of the summer.

        “A lot of guys were losing turf because of fungal problems,” said Joe Kaczmarek, superintendent at Hyde Park Golf and Country Club and president of the Greater Cincinnati Golf Course Superintendents Association.

        The science of maintaining turf has improved in the last 25 years, creating better conditions than ever before. But that doesn't mean it's something that can be taken for granted.

        “Generally, all superintendents right now, if I had to sum up one thing, are all trying to grow roots,” Danneberger said. “The goal is to get as healthy a plant as possible going into the summer stress time.”

        A golf course is not the same as a backyard. Superintendents are dealing with specialized grasses that will be cut to fractions of an inch, stomped on all day by golfers, run over by golf carts and subjected to other unnatural stresses.

        “This time of year, you may find greens are slower, as they are mowing them higher,” Danneberger said. “If you can stress the turf just a little, which is hard with all the rain this spring, that will help the roots grow deeper. That's why when we have a real wet spring, you know the plant is not going to be in really good shape.”

        The annual spring soil aeration, which many courses are currently engaged in, is an unpopular practice among golfers that is vital to the summer health of turf.

        “When it's 70 degrees at night and there's high humidity, it's breeding season for disease. Superintendents don't sleep,” said Brian Lambdin, the pro at Flagg Springs. “They come back the next morning and find that two fairways have changed color.”

        Added Danneberger: “Saturated soils in hot weather can cause rapid root death for the plant.”

        Last summer in Cincinnati, he saw a disease called basal crown anthracnose, a common problem in bluegrass, make an unusual crossover to bent grass, causing problems for superintendents.

        Science has helped by developing new grasses. The impact on greens can be dramatic, Kaczmarek said.

        “The newer strains of bent can be mowed down to one-tenth of an inch. That makes a big difference in ball speed and roll,” he said.

Guide to Tristate courses and complete local golf coverage

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