Probably a silly question but when a golf course is built do they use turf or grass seed.

I’d expect turf as it would be the easiest, but that is a crap load of grass and damn expensive i’d expect too.

Turf in rolls is really expensive. Most courses use it for patching, or laying on new tees or green surrounds … if you laid a whole fairway with it, it would cost a fortune.

My course has put in new greens, and all the bent grass was sown from seed. The surrounds were sown with a different mix again. Before we ripped up the old greens, the grass was sliced and rolled using a machine and sent to another country course (if you ever play a round at Strathbogie, some of the greens came from Trentham).

If a course wants to set up couch fairways, they normally start it from sprigs or runners.

Thanks for that Publish.

Going by how much it is to turf 100sqm of back yard doing a fairway would be expensive though I thought courses would do that as seed is alot more involved and a longer process but oh so cheap.

Where does on get the seed for a green?

Where does one get the seed for a green?

A turf grass supplier like Novagreen , Advanced Seed or Anco. The normal grass for southern Australia is Creeping Bentgrass, quite commonly available.

You can grow couch from seed.

Where does one get the seed for a green?

A turf grass supplier like Novagreen , Advanced Seed or Anco. The normal grass for southern Australia is Creeping Bentgrass, quite commonly available.

You can grow couch from seed.

Trentham Golf Club
http://www.trenthamgolf.com

I used to work for a turf company in Melbourne and had to warn people about this. Just be warned if you are buying couch seed, it will generally be something like bermuda couch. Couches like Santa Ana, conquest, etc, can only be grown from sprigs.
Generally golf courses will either seed or sprig a course, depending on the variety of grass they wish to use. Sprigging or line planting tends to work the best as it is more cost effective than laying rolls.

i know bugger all about turf, but our course has kiykiu (spelling?) fairways as well as virtually every backyard in the area. to me it looks like very agrressive grass and hard to get rid of. just out of interest, how would you go about changing to something else?

Move. kyk lays more seeds than well, err anything it seems. Once in always in. Clubs spend fortunes not ridding themselves of kyk but just controlling it.

There are some very effective chemicals that have been developed over the last decade that kill Kikuyu, but not Couch. They are really only useful for courses that are mostly Couch with some small spots of Kikuyu to kill. I was lunching with John Odell, the super at Royal Sydney, & he was talking about how effective they are, but he also has more money & staff at his disposal than most.

Changing all fairways & surrounds from Kikuyu to Couch is a total re-turfing job. It is expensive & disruptive to the members, & you would want to guarantee that the staff can keep it pure for many years to come. Many clubs attempt it when going through a major re-design, but few would attempt it otherwise. Avondale in Sydney did it successfully, but then went through a re-design only a few years later. St Michael’s are attempting it at the moment & will be doing it over a few years. Hopefully, it will work well for them, because St Michael’s is a course that will truly benefit from it.

The other option that some courses take is to replace the surrounds only with Couch, leaving the fairways Kikuyu. The Lakes had this in place before the re-design they are going through at the moment. Castle Hill has done this as well. It looks a little unusual, as the Kikuyu ends in a straight line where the Couch begins about 50m short of the green, but it plays exceptionally well & offers many more options with the approach shots than Kikuyu would. They still have to deal with Kikuyu invasion into the Couch surrounds, but it’s a much smaller area to protect than the entire course.

If a course was originally couch and then got taken over by Kikuyu in some cases the couch is still underneath, spray out the Kikuyu and the couch reappears. Can definitley be done with selective chemical application.

If you want to keep Kikuyu, mow it low (8-10mm), keep the thatch levels down and use Primo from October to March and you can get a pretty good surface

thanks for responses.
i dont have too much of an issue wit the kiyk. it seems to get a bad rap with a lot of people, what is the reason for that?

Kikuyu can be good turf if kept mown to a good height. I understand some courses are moving towards it because it requires less water, perhaps much less water ,than some turf grasses.
I think the cooler climate courses would have less problems with kike getting too aggressive.

my thoughts are that the biggest issue on a golf course is that Kikuyu grabs hold of your ball and stops it very quickly. My course is Kik and you just don’t try and run the ball onto the green. You could hit a 40m pitch and if it lands in the Kik surrounds it will more than likely bounce back towards you. The hardest time is when the greens are quick. You land on the green with a chip and it runs away. you land short and it stops. Thats when you need a good loft on your lob wedge.

You’re right green surrounds can be tough.
I think it is possible for the Course staff to begin a regime of reducing the height of of the kike on the fringes and over time make things a bit more reasonable.
Most games are played by average guys not pros and we are not wanting to be humiliated by US Open type course preparation.
Your Greens Committee might listen if you think it is getting too difficult.

Jane mac Bermuda is the american name for couch, not some different species. We call it couch they call it bermuda. Also there are some good seeded varieties of couch (bermuda) around these days.

No doubt there are but ..the next question is how long do you need warmer temps for to get germination from seeded couch ..and can you constantly expect those weather conditions in southern oz…

Sprigging on the other hand will survive and grow in much faster once it gets through the first 2 weeks ..according to vga studies done on this in the mid 90’s.

Sprigging or sodding or plugging is the go for sure, seeded couch in my experience takes a couple of weeks and needs moisture all the way thru.As far as temps you’d want to sow in November to February, they come up brilliant ,the cost is prohibitive for large areas though.My main point was to correct the statement about Bermuda being some species of Couch, which is incorrect, same as what they call a fanny in America is different to what we know it as !!!

Not being critical but if i was to seed an area with couch and had 2 days of 30’s followed by a cold snap how much of the seed would survive ?

My home course has Kikuyu fairways and other than less roll on drives (a part of the course’s defence) doesn’t really bother me anywhere else.

The course super does have it cut extremely low however so you are pretty much guaranteed a good lie on the fairway. We also stopped using sand to fill in divots about 18 months ago and chop in the sides instead.

Not being critical but if i was to seed an area with couch and had 2 days of 30’s followed by a cold snap how much of the seed would survive ?

If someone tells you you are a swinger and then proceeds to try and make you a hitter … run Quickly…

Craig, from my experience if you kept the seed bed watered it would make no difference to survival just like any other turf seed, all seed needs when germinating is constant moisture, of course you would only sow couch seed in the warmer months, as soil temp is vitally important as well.