Striping on Greens

As I'm sure many have noticed, there is some pretty substantial 'tiger striping' on the greens.  I'll explain this best I can.  I've called many courses in the area and all are seeing the same thing.  When the greens were covered, the covers were wrinkled in many areas, mostly from the high winds.  Then the covers were frozen with ice and snow.  The dark lines on the greens display where the covers were not in contact with the turf, as there was a pocket of air between the covers and the turf.  This pocket of air warmed up much quicker, which explains why these lines on the greens are greening up faster than other areas.  The other areas are greening up, but at a much slower pace.  As we did with the fairways, we will go out early next week and apply iron to the greens.  This will help darken the turf which in turn will attract more heat and hopefully, as it continues to be warm, the greening-up will even out.  Below are a couple of examples of green #15:



I have also heard concerns about the fairways.  I believe a local radio golf show stated that, with the long period of freezing temperatures, golf courses across the area would see dead fairways this spring.  I certainly do not feel that is correct.  While the very cold temperatures may slow down the spring green-up, I don't believe we will have 'dead' fairways.  If the freezing temperatures were not associated with quite a bit of moisture, I may be concerned.  But all the ice, snow and freezing rain only helped to insulate the soil.  You can go to any spot on the course, dig through the dormant material and see green material.  As I mentioned, I would just anticipate the spring green-up to be delayed and much slower.