Bermuda Fairways During Winter

Well, it's winter time.  The coots are here doing what they do, the trees have finished dropping their leaves, and the bermuda is as sleepy as it will get.  The weather is not too bad, but it's far from what we expect in San Diego, 80 degrees and sunny day in and day out.  This time of year is the least hospitable to the game of golf in our location.  Isn't it crazy to think how Bernardo Heights used to spend well over  $50,000 to achieve the best conditions of the year in the middle of winter?  In addition to the expense, overseeding would practically ruin the month of October with soft, wet fairways and strict cart restrictions.  To top it off, that overseed would punish any existing bermudagrass, resulting in thin and bare fairways by August.  The month of September would be spent dreaming of another seeding followed by another wasted October.  It didn't make sense then, and it certainly doesn't now.

Here we are, three years out of overseeding and most of the fairways are 100% bermudagrass.  Even better, the grass is still green.  Here are a couple of photos of the fairway on #2:

The photo on the left was taken on December 29th, days before a cold system moved into San Diego.  The grass was still green and growing.  Above, this photo was taken on January 14th after five straight days of frost.  The green patches are some hybrid bermuda varieties that faired very well during the cold snap.  Most of #2 is common bermuda and more susceptible to frost induced dormancy.  Below is a pic of #2 that I took today.  The green is making a comeback, just a week since the white leaves greatly outnumbered the green ones.  My point is, bermuda does not remain dormant for very long in San Diego.  We can have our green grass nearly year round without wasting a bunch of money, sacrificing playability in the fall, and running out of turf in the dead of summer.

The grass you see in the photo is all bermudagrass and when the summer heat arrives this grass excels.  There is no high temperature that is too high.  It does not mind the sodium in our water and the tight soils are not much of a problem.  Tomorrow will be 1 minute and 30 seconds longer than today and I'd bet we are done with frost.  So this turf is just going to get better.  Also, next year we will have a thicker stand going into the winter, better lies, and more green.

The transition to all bermuda has been a multi-year campaign which we have promoted as much as possible.  We had to eliminate the other grasses and improve the health and population of existing bermudagrass.  We did that with additional fertilizer, herbicides, and a very effective pre-emergent that would keep our new stand of bermuda free from invading winter annuals.

When bermuda grows free from competition, it doesn't take long to fill in thin spots and improve density.  Historically, the grass will really green up by the end of February, measurable growth begins towards the end of March, and we are off and rolling by late April, requiring a couple of mowings a week.  By mid summer we won't be able to put the fairway mower away and all fairways, include #13, #15, and the par 3's will be converted to bermudagrass.

To sum up the winter fairway analysis in one sentence: The fairways at Bernardo Heights Country Club have never been in better shape for the future.