Each spring brings a similar story to The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay, and other golf courses throughout the transition zone: Bermudagrass fairways that show signs of stress after a winter cold spell.
At this state park golf course a few miles north of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the areas in question are limited to the same three holes, and the challenges affecting them, said Paul Carter, CGCS, always center on drainage and shade. The solutions? They're always the same, too: add more drainage, aerify like crazy and resod.
"Our problems are on No. 1, the front of No. 5 and the landing area on No. 10," Carter said. "Those are the issues we've had, and you can pretty much mark it every year. This is where we are going to have those problems."
"This year, we kept traffic off the No. 10 fairway from Thanksgiving until the middle of March. It helped us out a good bit, but we still had a shade issue from a grove of trees. You can see where the damage follows a shade line where a shadow is cast from the trees each winter," Carter said. "We added surface drainage in the fairway, but the problem is this happens where everyone lands. Coming out of winter, if it doesn't look good, what do you do? You can't just shut it down to sod it. So, what are your options? A lot of aerifying in the summer, a lot of extra fertilizing trying to grow it in. Honestly, I don't know if we won't be doing it again next year, because we can never get a good healthy stand of Bermudagrass in the four-month growing period we have before it's back under stress again."
This year, Carter finally approached Mike Nixon, director of golf operations for the Tennessee State Parks, for a solution.
Carter pointed to a stand of about 50 trees mostly sweet gums towering more than 100 feet into the air as the cause of problems on the No. 10 fairway. When Carter said he'd sodded the area three straight years and likely would have to again every year as long as shade was an issue, Nixon gave the OK to remove the trees.
The impact was almost immediate.
"More grass has grown in since we dropped those trees, and we've also gotten some afternoon sun on 11 green," Carter said.
Jimbo Thomas also has faced some winter-related challenges at TPC Southwind in Memphis.
"It's all about the location," Thomas said. "Winterkill affects the same location because the problem that causes it doesn't get fixed. I can be caused by multiple problems. "It can be a place that gets too much morning shade, it can be a wet spot, or it can be a dry spot."
Those issues have mostly been solved since a recent fairway renovation project that included regrassing the Bermuda playing surfaces with Meyer zoysia, which is more tolerant to shade and cold.
"When we had Bermuda fairways, I could go out at 9:30 in the morning with a paint gun and draw a line where we had shade from pine trees," Thomas said. "I could guarantee you that was the area that was going to be dead."
Although eliminating the source of the shade is the preferred method for dealing with winterkill on Bermuda grass, eliminating trees isn't always possible. Carter is in talks with researchers at the University of Tennessee about the benefits of using topdressing sand and a lot of it to help protect the crown of the Bermudagrass plant throughout the winter.
He also has been raising the height of cut in the fairways this year in hopes that it produces a healthier Bermudagrass plant throughout the summer and into next spring.
"People are trying to hold onto lower cutting heights longer into the season. We're raising the heights in the fairways," he said. "We're not waiting until October to do it. We're keeping them higher in the summer. With growth regulators, we've gone from 0.500 inches to 0.600 inches.
"We get no Bermuda growth until the end of June or early July. By then, we only have 45 to 60 days where we can really push that grass. It comes down to how much cultural practices can you do. We slice without coring, we've done that a lot. It has a lot to do with what membership will allow you to do, but we weren't going to sod that area anymore."