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Drawing The Line on Winter Play
Marking fairways with
borderlines of dye helps define fairways for "winter rules."
by James F Moore
Reprinted from the USGA Green Section Record
1996 May/June Vol 34(3): 30
While the Rules of Golf call for everyone to play the ball as it
lies, a great many golfers play courses on which good lies are as
rare as double eagles. Bad lies are particularly frequent on southern
courses when the bermudagrass enters dormancy following the first
freeze. As a result, many golfers in the South adopt a vague set
of rules for winter play that usually involve bumping the ball to
a better place. Depending on the leniency of their playing partners
(also known as opponents), the bump may be as little as six inches
or as much as a club's length.
Since winter rules are an obvious direct violation of the Rules
of Golf, the more scrupulous golf memberships attempt to retain
some measure of compliance by stipulating the ball can only be bumped
in the fairway. However, what seems like a reasonable requirement
can become a source of hard feelings when players (especially opponents)
cannot determine whether the ball that is to be bumped lies in the
fairway or the rough. Making such a determination is often impossible
on dormant bermudagrass, particularly on those golf courses where
it is sometimes difficult to tell rough from fairway, even in the
summer.
The high-tech solution to this problem is to overseed bermudagrass
fairways with perennial ryegrass in the fall. Brown, dormant bermudagrass,
covered by a dense stand of ryegrass, provides some of the most
beautiful scenes in golf. Unfortunately, overseeding is expensive
In addition to the cost of the seed (approximately $400 per acre),
funds must be provided for year-round mowing, fertilization, and
irrigation. However, the most significant cost may be damage to
the bermudagrass. Low mowing of ryegrass fairways in the fall and
winter predisposes the bermudagrass to winter injury. Then, competition
between the ryegrass and bermudagrass in the spring limits the ability
of the bermudagrass to recover quickly.
Bentgrass greens can be seriously affected by fairway overseeding
as well. When bermudagrass fairways are overseeded, neither pre-emergence
nor post-emergence herbicides can be used to control Poa annua in
the over-seeded acreage. As Poa annua flourishes in the fairways,
some of the seed produced is invariably tracked into the greens.
Terry Stephenson, golf course superintendent of Western Oaks Country
Club in Waco, Texas, uses a simple and inexpensive method to define
winter fairways. Using his spray equipment, he outlines the fairways
with green dye. The width of the band of green dye can be adjusted
simply by turning off two or three booms. A further adjustment can
be made by capping additional nozzles on the one functioning boom,
leaving a single nozzle functional. Approximately 25 gallons of
the water and dye mixture provides enough material to outline all
18 fairways. It takes less than two hours to treat the entire course,
and the dyed areas remain well defined for two weeks or more, depending
on how much rain is received.
In addition to eliminating the confusion over winter rules, this
simple idea makes the course more enjoyable to play during the winter,
since the fairways are so much better defined for the golfers hitting
their tee shots. The dye also can be used to define target areas
on the driving range (for ranges that do not have target greens).
One caution is in order. It is tempting to dye the entire fairway
and provide green playing surfaces at a much-reduced cost when compared
to the expense of overseeding. Unfortunately, today's dyes are much
more colorfast than those used in the past, and golf shoes, early
morning dew, and dye do not go well together. The money you saved
on overseeding might well go into buying new shoes for your dewsweepers
(the early morning players). By confining the dyed area to a small
strip at the interface of the fairway and rough, damage to the player's
shoes is extremely unlikely.
Sometimes the simplest and least-expensive ideas are the best. Give
this one a try.
Jim Moore, based in Waco, Texas, is director of the USGA Green
Section's Construction Education Program.
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