The driving range tee is the most heavily used turf on the golf course. It is open every day from dawn until dusk, from mid March to the end of November. The simple answer to why turf conditions decline in August is the turf is removed faster from divots than can be replaced by new grass.
An aerial view of the driving range tee. The yellow dots show the current practice line.
The front of the tee is at the bottom of the picture.
The front of the tee is at the bottom of the picture.
Each day the markers are moved back 6 feet to the next row.
The practice tee is 1.25 acres in size. Of the more than 2 million shots hit off the tee each year, an estimated 1.5 million shots result in a divot of turf removed from the surface. While divots come in all sizes, the average divot is 3" wide by 6.5" long, a total of 19.5 square inches.Over the length of the season more than 200,000 square feet of divots are removed from the tee. That's more than 4.5 acres of turf from a 1.25 acre surface. The only reason there is any turf on the tee is because of an intensive maintenance plan.
The driving range tee is wide enough to accommodate 28 hitting stations each day. The marker rotation begins at the front of the tee surface and moves back 6 feet each day. The marker location keeps moving back each day another 6 feet. After 25 days, the markers have run out of room at the back and are rotated back to the front of the tee to start the rotation process all over. This allows only 25 days to regrow new turf before it will be used again for practice. Five days a week we seed the previous days divots. Different grass types are used depending on the time of the year. We use a variety of seed mixes containing perennial rye and Kentucky bluegrass blends. As we seed, a light mixture of soil, sand and humus is spread over the seed and leveled to provide an even surface. The seed germinates within a few days. During the cooler, wetter months of April, May, June, September, October and November, the grass fills in quickly due to high fertility levels and adequate moisture. In July and August when conditions become hot and dry, the grass seed often withers quickly after germination. To keep the new seedlings from dying we would have to water them every couple of hours making the tee unavailable for use. Some years we are able to maintain acceptable turf coverage on the tee even during the hot summer months. The hotter than normal summer temperatures of 2010 made it impossible to keep a good turf stand on the practice tee.
During July and August the tee surface becomes infested with Goose Grass and Crab Grass. These 2 weedy annual grasses easily invade turf stands that are weak. There are products to prevent these invasive grasses from germinating but they can't be used on the practice tee because that would also prevent the desirable grasses we plant from germinating.
The only way to improve the existing practice tee is to remove less turf. The good news is we can hit the same number of shots off the tee while making smaller divots. How?
"Practice Like a Pro"
Most of us take random divots on the practice tee. As was mentioned earlier, this removes a divot of 19.5 square inches each shot.
After just 30 shots, more than 4 square feet of turf is removed using the normal practice routine.
When you watch the pros practice you will notice they take their divots in a pattern. They place the ball directly behind a previous divot. This results in the 2nd divot being a much smaller size of 3" by 3". Each subsequent shot results in only a 3" by 3" divot.
The pros place the ball behind the previous divot. They will repeat this for up to 10 shots.
After 30 shots, the pros only remove 2.5 square feet of turf.
When you "practice like a pro" you remove 60% less turf. This keeps the tee in better shape all year but especially during July and August when the turf is the weakest. If all of us adopted the "practice like a pro" method we would reduce the annual divots removed from 203,000 square feet to just 93,750 square feet.
The best solution in the long term is to enlarge the tee surface but until then, please "practice like a pro". You'll be amazed at how your divots shrink.
