59 John Genovesi, director of grounds at the Maidstone Club on Long Island in New York, manages one of America’s oldest and most storied clubs, founded originally in 1894. But that great age is only a part of what makes Maidstone exceptional. “The course has not been regrassed since Willie Park was here in the early 1920s,” says Genovesi. “There are no records of any efforts to regrass the golf course in any meaningful way that I know of.” Until 2015, Maidstone was one of a tiny number of courses in the United States with no fairway irrigation. The only water the fairways received was what came from the sky. Consequently, natural selection means that the turf is incredibly well adapted to its environment. “Our grass is very low maintenance. Fairways and roughs are extremely low input,” says Genovesi. “Sometimes with fairway irrigation, you get lush, rich grasses. Because we didn’t have it, we have mostly fescue that is tough and wispy.” Design firm Coore & Crenshaw was hired to renovate Maidstone in 2012, principally to return the fairways to their historic widths in preparation for the installation of Maidstone’s first fairway irrigation system. Normally, when American courses undertake significant renovations, they regrass almost as a matter of course, and certainly when making significant changes to grassing lines. Not at Maidstone. “It wasn’t a question of mowing down native grasses, there was already turf in those areas, it had just been converted to maintained rough,” says architect Bill Coore. “It had got quite a long way away from where it was, but the turf was still the same, essentially natural mix that it had been since it was seeded more than a century ago.” “The course has good bones, and they just tried to uncover it,” says Genovesi. “Fairway expansion took place by cutting down what was there and grooming it. After the renovation, we installed fairway irrigation, but we wanted to expand the fairways first so that we could ensure the heads were where they should be. The motivation behind installation of irrigation was to be able to manage inputs such as herbicides or grub control products that need watering in. Previously we’d have had to rely on rain. We needed a little more control. But the members were very clear: they didn’t want a green golf course. During the growing season, my plan is to water about once a month, around applications. If the fairways are in need of a feed, I will put down a bit of nitrogen and water it in. Most years in July and August, the fairways will go dormant and I Photo: Larry Lambrecht Golf is at a crossroads, says Adam Lawrence. It needs to find new ways to reduce its water usage, and perhaps some of the new innovations in turfgrass can help
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