Overseeding Tees and Shady Surrounds

On Monday September 23, 2024 and throughout this week we will be overseeding the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda tees and the winter shady putting surface surrounds of #'s 2,3,6,13,14 & 16. The hybrid bermuda tee tops need to be overseeded with ryegrass so we have green and  durable  tee surfaces to play off of this coming winter as the hybrid bermuda slows down and stops growing. 

The hybrid bermuda in the above mentioned shady putting surface surrounds stops growing as well. But the added factor of winter shade with the sun traveling lower in the northeastern horizon behind trees, causes this hybrid bermuda in these selected green surrounds to go completely dormant and can be soft and remain wet when it starts to rain. 

The Santa Anna Hybrid bermuda fairways and putting surface surrounds in the full sun will be treated with pigment and iron as we have done in past seasons which has been successful in keeping them green. For those who are interested, enjoy the below pictures of the process.

Step #1 - Scarify. Scarifying thins out the dense bermuda stand creating avenues for seed and sand to infiltrate, stay moist and germinate.

Step #2 - Cleanup. All of those bermuda sprigs and debris that were removed during the scarification process need to be removed before seeding. We use a variety of blowers and sweepers to complete this process. Here we are using the large tow behind turbine blower to pileup sprigs and debris.

Smaller tee levels that are difficult to get to with sweepers and tow behind blowers are cleaned up with backpack blowers, rakes & shovels.

Where possible we use the big mechanical sweeper  to remove the debris.

Step #3 - Mow. After the cleanup we mow / scalp the surface preparing the surface for overseeding and golf play on Tuesday 9/24/24.

Step #5 - Spread Seed. This brings us to the main event, overseeding with cool season ryegrass seed. Because the heat tolerant warm season  Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda that compose the base of our tees  start's to slow down as we transition to the cooler part of the year, we overseed these tees with cool season ryegrass seed. This gives the tees full grass coverage all winter. We'll mow this ryegrass a little higher all winter then we mow the Hybrid Bermuda in the summer so when the bermuda wakes up and starts to grow again in 2025 and we lower the cut to accommodate the bermuda's  growth preferences, the ryegrass will transition out as it can't compete with the aggressive Hybrid Bermuda. 

Maybe a little hard to see but this represents about 400 lb.'s per acre of ryegrass seed.

Step #6 - Add sand topdressing. The amount of topdressing we add in this process is just enough to cover the seed and protect it from the elements while it germinates

Step #6 - Water in in the seed and sand. We use irrigation to push the seed and sand into the thinned bermuda canopy where it will stay moist while germinating.

Above represents the  finished product you will be playing on for about a week ahead of ryegrass germination. 

Pigmenting Fairways and Sunny Green Surrounds

This picture of #9 was taken last year on Thursday 1/11/23. This is the color of our non-overseeded fairways by just treating them with pigment and iron. The color is pretty good and we plan starting the same process later in October to keep them green all winter. Playability on the dormant Hybrid bermuda is good as long as we dont get a super wet winter.

 

Here we are applying the pigment / iron mix to the fairways. Turfgrass pigment is different then paint which is widely used in desert golf courses. Pigment works differently by helping plants that still have some chlorophyll, or green color within the tissue maintain it and stay green. Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda is known for holding onto its color longer into the season and coming out of dormancy sooner than other varieties of hybrid bermuda. This is why the pigment works especially well on the Santa Anna in our opinion.  

Overseeding Tee's

Our teeing surfaces have a base of Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda on them,  just like the fairways, including the driving range tee. The Hybrid Bermuda growth habits have already started to slow down with the advent of fall and will continue to do so as we transition into winter. Our plan is to never  overseed the fairways as dormant bermuda can be a very good playing surface. We have some things we can do to keep the fairways aesthetically green, however at some point the recovery of divots and growth in general will cease altogether until the hybrid wakes up again in the spring.

The decision to not overseed fairways  is becoming very common on warm season golf courses for a multitude of reasons. But for our tees at Granite Bay, its not really an option, because of the overall size of our teeing areas and the activity they get all winter long. 

The new tees on the golf course were overseeded last year but we did not overseed the driving range tee because of its youth at the time. Last week we overseeded the golf course tees on Monday 10/24/22 which is a little late in the season. However we did not overseed the driving range tee because of Jones Cup the following week on 11/3 through 11/4.

Even though it is even later for the driving range tee, we plan to overseed it this coming week of November 7. Unfortunately, or  fortunately depending how you look at it, we have rain forecasted for  Monday 11/7/22 when we are closed, so will likely not be able to do the work then. Next forecasted clear day is Thursday 11/10 so we will tenitively plan to overseed the tee that morning.

 Bottom line, timing of the driving range tee overseeding will be weather dependent and we will do it at the very next opportunity as time is of the essence. We will communicate through the golf shop morning e-mail the precise morning we plan on doing the overseeding. Range will be closed the morning of overseeding and we will be using mats until the new seed establishes properly which will take a bit longer then if we were to have overseeded in early October. 

Driving range tee picture taken in the morning on 11/3/22. Color is still good but the turf is not recovering from use as the days of fall are much shorter and temperature's are much cooler.

Close-up of the divot patterns which are not recovering. If we have any hope of using the tee this winter we have not choice but to overseed it. And because we are doing the overseeding process late. we likely wont get on it to use  the grass until sometime in December.