re: Baton Rouge Golf

My last response from BREC’s director of golf:
Here’s an update on the putting greens at Webb GC.

The putting greens at Webb golf course are overseeded with rye grass during the winter months when the underlying Bermuda grass goes dormant. This year the transition from the rye grass back to the Bermuda grass has been rougher than recent years. The situation was made worse by invasive goosegrass that has slowly infiltrated the greens over the last couple of years. This goosegrass has become resistant to herbicides that used to kill it. Other golf courses in south Louisiana are also battling this goosegrass problem, this isn’t unique to Webb.

The Webb GC putting greens were aerified on 7/10. After the aerification we did some herbicide applications that appear to have been successful in eradicating most of the goosegrass. Unfortunately, killing the goosegrass left some considerable bare areas on a few greens. The greens on holes 8, 10, 14, and 16 are the most affected. Most of the greens still have good, but not complete, Bermuda grass coverage.

In the next few weeks, we will use a strong dose of nutrients along with verti-cutting and solid tine aerification to promote aggressive Bermuda grass growth in the hopes of filling in bare areas. Although hard to see, there is some grass alive in some of the areas that appear bare.

Hopefully we’ll see some strong improvement in the next couple of weeks. Depending on the speed of the improvement we may need to sod areas on a couple of greens. What happens in the next couple of weeks will determine if that’s needed.