Greens Committee Meeting April 22, 2014

We had our second Greens Committee meeting on Tuesday April 22, 2014. The meeting consisted of a very important topic = contamination in the putting surfaces. The greens at Brookstone Golf & Country Club were converted from bentgrass to bermudagrass in 2009. They were regrassed in 2010 (due to extreme winter conditions). My employment began in 2011 and noticed some off-types in the putting surfaces. There has been much discussion in the golf course industry regarding off-types evolving from contaminated sprigs or the ultradwarfs mutating. No one can designate where these off-types are originating. This is becoming a major issue in the Transition and South Zone with the ultradwarfs varieties. We developed a plan to remove the off-types instead of a full scale renovation. This was discussed in depth at the Greens Committee meeting. We have removed 70% of the off-types. Our goal this year is to remove as much as possible by the end of the growing season. Will we ever get the off-types out of the putting surfaces? No, nothing is guaranteed. We want to be able to develop a maintenance plan where we remove small amounts next year. Something similar to changing cups. Our goal is to have our setup co-worker remove small amounts of off-types at an early stage. We also discussed the renovation of the bunkers and the process necessary. Other topics included the tree removal and cart path renovation.