Area golf column: Courses with bentgrass taking drastic measures

You may have noticed the final round of the 27th annual Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship was played at the TPC of Myrtle Beach on Friday rather than The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, where it was originally scheduled.

That move is yet another indication of how difficult this summer has been on courses in the Southeast region with bentgrass greens.

The effect of the extremely hot and wet summer has reached critical levels for many courses on the Grand Strand, where bent greens have been stressed to their breaking point in many instances.

Most course operators with bent have been taking unprecedented and somewhat drastic measures to protect their greens this summer, including limiting tee times to morning hours.

The Dunes Club head pro Dennis Nicholl said the course, which features A1 bent greens, began limiting tee times to between 7-10 a.m. about a month ago and another course was sought to host the 79 players in Friday's final round.

The TPC is a previous host of the championship round and features healthy Mini-Verde Bermudagrass greens, which have been thriving in the summer heat.

"We could have hosted it," Nicholl said. "There's grass on them, they would be fine, but I think with Bermudagrass being so solid right now, it was the right decision to call up a Bermuda course and see if they wanted to take the finals.

"If a guy plays four days in this tournament, plays his heart out and gets in the finals, he wants to play on the best possible conditioned course he can play on at the time, and this year it's Bermuda in the summer. We hate that we lost the finals, we like to host it, but I think it was the right call for everybody."

"The Bermuda courses down here have been so strong. It's been a great summer for them with the heat and humidity, and we've had a good bit of rain when we've needed it."

Among courses with bent: Man O'War and The Wizard had been limiting tee times to afternoons until opening up the entire tee sheet Friday; Barefoot Resort has been encouraging golfers to play at its Dye Club and Love Course to give recovery time to some struggling areas on greens on its Fazio and Norman courses; and the private DeBordieu Club is holding 8:30 a.m. shotgun starts Friday through Monday this Labor Day weekend.

"The best way to accommodate the most people and get them on the golf course at the best time of day is to do a morning shotgun," DeBordieu head pro Shawn Roper said. "It's really been preventive measures for us. Our greens have been in good shape and it's a matter of keeping them that way."

DeBordieu has been limiting tee times to between 7:30-10:30 a.m., and that will continue until the course aerates the greens on Sept. 20. The Dunes Club is aerating on Tuesday, and that process, combined with the onset of fall and cooler temperatures, should bring relief to courses and allow them to be in good shape for the fall golf season beginning in October.

"When it's 85 degrees at night, I don't care who you are, you cannot grow that type of grass at that temperature," Nicholl said.

Bent has always been popular on the Strand because of its superior putting surface. And though it struggles in the heat of summer, it doesn't have to be overseeded in the winter when Bermuda goes dormant, so you get a consistent putting surface year-round and have no transition periods in the fall and spring.

About 1990, courses with bent greens constituted 30 to 40 percent of the more than 100 courses on the Strand. But with the proliferation of fine-bladed ultradwarf Bermudas in the past decade such as TifEagle, Emerald, Champion and Mini-Verde, which all provide a putting surface comparable to bent when at their best, courses have been switching from bent to Bermuda in increasing numbers.

The extremeness of this summer is sure to lead other course owners and operators to consider conversions to ultradwarfs, possible sooner than they previously anticipated.

The grass on the chipping green near the driving range at The Dunes Club has been replaced by Mini-Verde on one half and Champion on the other, and superintendent Steve Hamilton will monitor both of them for an anticipated test period of two years.

The Dunes Club's A1 greens replaced PennLinks bent during a renovation project in 2003, in part because A1 is considered more heat-tolerant. "2013 has been our plan to change our greens, and whether we keep bent or go to Bermuda, that argument I'm sure will be discussed over the next couple years," Nicholl said.

Bentgrass will soon become scarce on the Strand, if not disappear altogether.

"Over the next 10 to 15 years most golf courses will eventually switch over to some sort of [Bermuda] ultradwarf," Nicholl said. "I think it's just inevitable. Do we like it as bentgrass people who like to putt on that surface? Probably not. There will be some people who grumble about that. But I think eventually you'll see those two grasses come closer and closer together as one, and if you get to that point it will be good for all of us."

Course operators with Bermuda greens have traditionally overseeded with the cool-weather poa trivialis for the winter and transitioned back to Bermuda in the spring. It's not entirely necessary, but it maintains green grass on putting surfaces year-round.

Courses including Whispering Pines, Crown Park, Brunswick Plantation, Pawleys Plantation and International Club of Myrtle Beach chose instead to paint green the brown dormant Bermuda last winter, like several courses in the middle of the state have done for years.

Playing for patriots

Patriot Golf Day is actually four days (Friday through Monday) this Labor Day weekend and raises funds for the Folds of Honor Foundation, an organization that provides secondary education scholarships to the families of military heroes wounded or killed in the line of duty.

In the Carolinas, a total of 423 facilities are hosting special Patriots Golf Day events and fundraisers, up from 404 facilities in 2009.

Major Dan Rooney, now program leader for the foundation, started Patriot Golf Day after he'd finished his second tour of duty in Iraq, recognizing the need to support the families of his comrades killed or injured.

Patriot Golf Day events range in organization from a $1 addition to greens fees to tournaments and clinics. Nearly $200,000 was raised by Carolinas courses in 2009, which accounted for roughly 10 percent of the total donations nationwide.

Burroughs & Chapin Golf raised $27,000 at the 10 courses it operates, and all 10 will donate $5 from every round this holiday weekend to the cause, with the goal of raising $30,000. Additionally, seven of the company's golf pros will participate in a 100-hole golf marathon Monday at the Members Club at Grande Dunes from 6 a.m. until sunset if necessary to raise money. Pro can be hosted by calling their home courses.

Numerous Strand properties are participating in Patriot Golf Day events, and a full list is available at www.playgolfamerica.com.

Tidewater hosting heroes

The committee for the Tidewater Charity Tournament, being held Monday, has its own series of events this weekend to show appreciation for wounded troops, and Staff Sgt. Ramon Padilla and Major Ed Pulido are participating.

Padilla, of the Washington, D.C. area, was featured in the August issue of Golf Digest. He lost his arm in Afghanistan but took part in a state-of-the-art amputee rehabilitation program and he can now record scores in the 90s with a powerful swing capable of 250-yard drives.

Pulido, the executive director for the Folds of Honor Foundation from Oklahoma, lost a leg during his third tour in Iraq when a bomb exploded under the SUV he was driving. He is credited with saving the lives of his fellow soldiers by keeping the vehicle from flipping over in spite of his injuries.

Though the sixth annual tournament, which was changed from a Sunbelt Senior Tour Pro-Am to an entirely amateur event, is sold out, the public is invited to attend the opening ceremonies on the first tee at 8:30 a.m. Monday. A Color Guard, choir singing God Bless America, more than 150 American Flags, and more than 200 people are planned to send a Wounded Warriors team off with gratitude.

An "Honor America's Heroes Reception" is also being held at 6:30 tonight at the Tidewater Grille and is open to the public. A $5 cover and all donations raised in an auction of golf rounds and stay-and-play packages will go to the Folds of Honor Foundation.

NJGT champ to be crowned

The Carolinas-based National Junior Golf Tour is holding its 2010 championship at Myrtle Beach National this weekend, and it is expected to have a field of more than 110 players from North and South Carolina.

The tournament is hosted by the local chapter of NJGT, known as the South Carolina Beach Tour, and this will be its final event of the summer.

The S.C. Beach Tour held six one-day events on Wednesdays at Myrtle Beach National this summer, as well as two-day events at Prestwick Country Club in July and The Dunes Club in August, when a season-high 56 players participated.

A Parent-Child event begins at 1 p.m. today and the junior tournament begins at 8 a.m. both Sunday and Monday.

James Mishoe, the S.C. Beach Tour director, is attempting to find courses in the Myrtle Beach area for fall events, though it's difficult to secure courses during the fall golf season. Other NJGT events are being held elsewhere in the Carolinas just about every weekend this fall.

Mishoe plans to at least have winter events to complement U.S. Kids Golf events in the area, which are for players up to age 14. The S.C. Beach Tour events are open to players through high school. "We'll have some over the winter, and if we don't in the spring we'll start up again in the summer," Mishoe said.

Roof makes state team

Conway native Brent Roof is one of three players representing the South Carolina Golf Association in the United States Golf Association's State Team Championship Sept. 14-16 at Mayacama Golf Club in Santa Rosa, Calif.

He's being joined by SCGA Player of the Year points leader Todd White of Spartanburg, who won the South Carolina Match Play Championship at Grande Dunes in June, and 2009 SCGA Amateur runner up Steve Liebler. Roof is No. 2 in Player of the Year points.

S.C. Amateur champion Drew Ernst can't participate because of college golf commitments at Coastal Carolina.

The Palmetto State trio takes some experience into the ninth USGA State Team competition, which is held every two years. This will be Liebler's fourth appearance while White and Roof have participated once before. The stroke-play format counts two out of the three scores each day for the team score.

To view Blondin's blog "Green Reading," or Q&A Forum "Ask Al," go to TheSunNews.com.