Tips and Turf Talk

Lynn Childress ignored the sage advice of former presidential advisor Bert Lance.

The Champions Tour golfers who play Childress' course, The Club at Savannah Harbor, later this month will appreciate his not heeding Lance's pet phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

The greens of the Club at Savannah Harbor, where Childress works as the course superintendent, weren't broken. The world's top senior golfers attested to that. Few complaints were heard in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf's first seven years.

That didn't stop Childress from fixing the putting surfaces, or at least tweaking them, for this year's tournament. With some encouragement from PGA Tour officials and agronomists, he and the club decided to forego overseeding the greens this winter in an attempt to produce firmer and more consistent surfaces.

Overseeding is a common practice at courses that employ seasonal grasses, such as Bermuda, that can go dormant in cold, dry weather. Around here, superintendents spread a hearty strain of rye grass each October so that if the Bermuda goes dormant, the rye grass takes over and allows for year-round play.

Overseeding has a drawback, however. Overseeded greens must be transitioned back to Bermuda grass once warm temperatures return, and each green transitions at is own pace. The change typically takes place locally in mid to late April, the same time as the Legends.

The greens are typically "80 percent Bermuda" during tournament week, Childress said.

"By managing one grass instead of trying to meet the needs of two opposing plants, it gives them a chance to focus," said Paul Vermeulen, a PGA Tour agronomist who worked closely with Childress. "It means consistency will improve for the player."

If he and his staff could nurture the Bermuda through the winter and get it vibrant again by April, the greens would be firmer and more uniform. Bermuda requires less water than rye, and firmer greens result in less backspin on approach shots.

"Most players prefer that - they don't have to worry about accurate shots hitting and spinning off the green or a mile from the hole," said Gene Smith, the PGA Tour official charged with setting up Savannah Harbor for tournament play.

Golfers don't prefer dead greens, however. Had the Bermuda gone dormant and not recovered, Bernhard Langer and Tom Lehman would have been defending their title on greens that played like billiards tables.

"It was a significant risk given the stakes," Childress said. "I polled some other superintendents in the area who had decided to quit overseeding, and everybody told me it takes three years to get it right. I didn't have three years. I had one."

Childress and his staff got it right the first time. With less than a week remaining before the tourney begins, Savannah Harbor's greens are as true as they've ever been, Childress said.

Greens on opposite ends of the sprawling course play the same way. Getting them to roll to a consistent speed during tournament week - 11 on the stimpmeter, which is about halfway between the speed of the

greens at a local muni and those at a major championship course like Augusta National - will be easier than in past years.

The one-grass greens also give Smith the option to make them roll faster, although he has no intention of doing so. Even though scores have been absurdly low since the Legends went to a team format two years ago, the Champions Tour has little interest in making the course more challenging.

"We're not really concerned with the kind of scores shot," Smith said. "Players are so good they are going to make birdies. And the speeds are appropriate for these greens