Putting on dead greens is a Cool Golf Thing

"The greens are dead."

Those four words might not strike most golfers as an endorsement of a course. But if you're a true golf sicko, they're an enticement.

Up north, great courses can have bentgrass or poa annua greens for a century or more. But in the Sun Belt, golf courses with Bermuda greens need to replace them between every 10 and 20 years.

The plant mutates, the soil that supports it deteriorates and cycles of severe heat and humidity prompt periodic refreshes. Furthermore, improvements in putting green-quality Bermuda produce new breeds with playing characteristics more and more similar to Bermuda's cooler-weather cousins.

The process of preparing greens for replacement can look startling. In most cases, this process requires spraying existing grass with chemicals before scraping it away and replacing it with new turf and other underlying material.

As a result, for a period of days before the course closes to embark on this intensive process, the greens are, for lack of a better word, dead.

This time presents something of a delicacy among golf experiences. It's not for everyone. It's emphatically not for golfers who require cushy, lush green turf on every course they visit. But for those with a little sense of adventure, it's a hoot.

Green speeds shoot skyward; if a Stimpmeter reading of 11 or 12 is considered fast by modern standards, dead Bermuda greens can be downright linoleum-like - perhaps 15 or higher on the scale. The loss of chlorophyll from the plant turns it brittle, so it offers little resistance to a rolling ball.

Dead greens also tend to be about as firm as the hood of your car. Landing a ball five to 10 yards short of the green when the pin is up front becomes crucial, and even then, the ball is going to release more than usual...typically leaving a glassy downhill putt.

Hitting into and putting on dead Bermuda greens is a fascinating opportunity I have experienced twice now. The first time was in 2016 at Harmony Golf Preserve outside of Orlando - during a tournament, no less. The second time was just a couple of weeks ago, on a spur-of-the-moment round at Meadowood Golf & Tennis Club in Fort Pierce, Fla.

Having played Meadowood a couple of times previously, I witnessed the course jolt to life under these unusual and extreme conditions. Its tiered greens were particularly fun to navigate, with several putts involving wild 90-degree turns as the ball changed levels. In typical warm, dry early-spring Florida weather, it was another example of why firm, fast golf courses are simply superior to soft, slow ones.

By the way, Meadowood is one of many courses out there with a sneaky amount of history. Originally known as Monte Carlo, later Panther Woods, it was Sam Snead's winter haunt from 1988 until his passing in 2002. A bronze statue of the 82-time winner sits near the first tee. Snead and JoAnne Carner had won a mixed team event there in 1983. For non-golf-course architecture buffs, Meadowood's distinctive diamond-shaped clubhouse was designed by John Randal McDonald, whose work was heavily influenced by that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Its expansive upstairs dining room and cantilevered outdoor deck look out over the course.

Meadowood is also the home course of LPGA Tour player Jackie Stoelting, who won Big Break: Florida in 2014. It's not a world-beater, but my recent round there renewed my appreciation for it as one of Florida golf's more authentic places for a round. I'll gladly play it when it reopens with brand-new greens this fall.

Cool Golf Things

March 22, 2019

Browse our not-too-long essays about cool things in golf.