Zoysia and Practice Tee Info

The official start of Fall was yesterday.  On que, the winds picked up and the temperatures dropped from mid 80s to right around 50.  As the temperatures trend downward and the daylight hours shrink you will see big changes in the way the course looks and plays.  The first thing you will notice is the color of the zoysia grass.  Zoysia loves hot weather and thrives from May until early September when the days are long and hot.  From mid September through early May zoysia is very lazy.  In the shoulder seasons like now and early Spring it may have some green color, but doesn't grow much.  Our practice tee is zoysia so from now until May there will be virtually no growth occurring and subsequently no divot recovery.  We get about 20 days worth of rotation with the grass hitting area on the practice tee.  In the summer, most of the divots are recovered just in time to have grass in the hitting area to start the next rotation.  In the fall, divots from the previous rotation are still very visible after 20 days.  Divots taken today, for example, will still be visible next spring.  The longer we leave the hitting area on the grass in the fall, the longer it will be before we have grass to hit from in the spring.  We generally leave the hitting area on the grass for a few weeks longer than we should and subsequently don't see much grass until May.  Nobody likes the mats, but they are a must if we wish to have turf in the summer.  

In the summer we use the mats every Monday and Tuesday.  Prior to this year we just used them on Monday, but with greatly increased play it was decided that another day off each week was necessary in order to have turf available all summer.  Tuesday was the most logical day to add for a number of reasons.  Of course, if we get a lot of rain we'll shift to the mats as needed on other days of the week in season.  

There have been a lot of good articles written by the USGA on this topic.  If you are really hungry for knowledge, please click any of the following links....

Give Em the Small Basket

Keep It On The Mats, Please

Practice Facility Etiquette

Practice Tees That Please