Almost 60 years ago, the greens at Pinehurst were originally seeded with bentgrass. Over time poa has crept in from various sources, adapted to the environment and aggressively has taken over as the dominant species of the putting surfaces. This is common with most older golf courses across the nation in the north.
Why, you ask? The ability to irrigate light and frequent through automated irrigation systems, poor competitive varieties of bentgrass; continual stress of low mowing heights cut day after day, disease, insects and lack of soil moisture management are just some of the reasons bentgrass has declined over many years and poa has prevailed.
What you see above is the process of plants "waking up" from dormancy. The darker green is the bentgrass and the lighter color is poa. You can clearly see the drain system in the greens as the bentgrass has taken nicely to the drain lines. Why? (you ask again) because those drain lines are working and allow the soil to dry down and provide a far more competitive environment for bentgrass.
You will notice the color discrepancies during the spring and fall as plants are going in and out of dormancy. While actively growing through the growing season the variety of different plants match closer in color. As nice as it is to have a consistent green color to the putting surfaces, color should be the last aspect that we consider when grading putting greens. Performance is the ultimate factor of great greens.
Over the past year, we have noticed a positive movement toward increasing our populations of bentgrass on the putting surfaces. This practice continues to be our goal moving forward to consistently provide better playing conditions.
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