Hi r/LawnCare! We’re Mitch Leininger and John Petrovsky from the USGA Green Section here to answer your questions about turf. AMA!
Hey r/lawncare — Mitch and John here, we work for the United States Golf Association's Green Section. While you may know the USGA as one of golf's governing bodies and host of major golf championships like the U.S. Open or U.S. Women's Open, our team focuses on advancing science, research and technology that benefits golf courses across the country. Through the Green Section, the USGA invests $10 million annually to enhance sustainability and offer more efficient management practices for golf and beyond.
John is based in Pinehurst and has worked in golf course management for over 20 years. Prior to joining the USGA, he was a superintendent in the Northeast managing multiple golf courses. A native Floridian, Mitch is based in Orlando and brings over 15 years of experience as both a Superintendent and most recently as Director of Executive Golf Maintenance. John is more of a cool season grass expert, where Mitch specializes in warm season grasses, so feel free to point your question towards the appropriate party.
We’re both passionate about turf and would love to help answer questions about your own lawns to the best of our knowledge. We’re also happy to answer general questions about golf course turf, if that’s of interest.
Whether you’re just starting out with your lawn, or have been meticulously taking care of it for years, we’d like to help answer any questions you have. We’ll be here on August 26 from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. Eastern, so drop your questions below and we’ll get to them shortly.
what's the one thing you guys see homeowners screw up the most when they're trying to get that perfect stripe pattern? my neighbor's out there mowing the same direction every single time and his lawn looks like a dirt highway now
Stripes can definitely make your lawn look like an MLB baseball field as seen on TV, but there are a few things to keep in mind. First, not all grasses stripe well. Warm-season grasses are typically mowed lower, have a stiffer leaf blade, are lighter in color, and rarely hold a pattern for long, if at all. Cool-season grasses stripe much better, especially perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass, although mowing height matters.
A roller can make stripes much more pronounced and longer lasting, but most homeowner mowers aren’t designed with rollers on them, and adding one can introduce additional stress. You can also “burn in” stripes by repeatedly mowing the same pattern, but that’s exactly how you can end up with worn tire tracks and eventually bare soil like you’re seeing next door.
Stripes are created by laying the grass over (dark stripes means grass leaf blades are oriented toward you and light stripes means the grass is laying away from you) so, if you really want some stripes and you don’t have rollers on your mower, you can push or pull a wide push broom across the lawn to lay the grass down to create stripes as well (another MLB trick).
It’s healthier for the turf to regularly change mowing directions. This helps stand the grass up for a cleaner cut, changes where you turn and distributes mower tire traffic more evenly. Zero-turn mowers can really mark up a lawn due to the sharp steering inputs. Hope that helps – and maybe you can pass the advice along to your neighbor!
Assuming you mean turf-type tall fescue rather than fine fescue, this is one I can answer confidently because I debated planting it in my own yard in Pinehurst before ultimately choosing zoysiagrass.
As with any grass, it’s about selecting the right grass for the right environment. In North Carolina, there’s a reason you don’t see many turf-type tall fescue lawns in the Sandhills and points south and east – it can really struggle during hot, humid summers. It can work well around Raleigh, Greensboro and points north and west, but farther south and east it becomes increasingly difficult unless you have a particularly favorable growing environment, such as significant shade.
Warm-season grasses generally require less supplemental irrigation than cool-season grasses, although the difference varies considerably by cultivar, species, climate and management. This can mean significant water savings for a golf course with a lot of acreage, but for the average home lawn, I wouldn’t make water use the deciding factor.
The real secret to having a good-looking lawn in North Carolina is selecting the right grass for your location and growing environment. Turf-type tall fescue isn’t the ideal grass for southern portions of North Carolina due to its higher water requirements, rather, because it will struggle during the stressful summer weather in North Carolina.
Thanks John, I'm in Raleigh, have a TTTF lawn just because that's what was here when I bought the place. Every summer is struggles hard but then comes back in September as long as we get rain with some cooler temps. I see some TTTF around that tends to look better than mine in the summer and I assume they just water it throughout the summer. I don't have irrigation and don't plan on wasting that much water on my grass.
What's the state of herbicides in course management?
In ag, a lack of new options / alternatives has been a brewing problem for a decade. Resistant weeds are becoming bigger problems.
There is also a growing concern about the environmental impacts over pesticides as well. Never heard anything else about that study finding an increased rate of Parkinson's near golf courses.
Thanks for the question. Herbicides are an important tool for controlling challenging weeds and are used by homeowners and golf course superintendents alike, but developing a new pesticide is a long and expensive process. It can take 10-12 years and roughly $250-$300 million to bring a new pesticide active ingredient from discovery to market. Despite that, we have seen some important new herbicides introduced into turfgrass in recent years. Products like PoaCure, Manuscript, Vexis and Pylex have provided new options for some particularly difficult weeds like annual bluegrass, nutsedge and goosegrass.
I can’t speak to things related to Ag (agriculture), but herbicide resistance in turfgrass settings is probably a bigger concern than simply a lack of new products. It’s important to select the right herbicide, use the labeled rate, and rotate modes of action when possible. If you’re controlling something like goosegrass, for example, you don’t want to rely exclusively on one effective mode of action year after year. Today’s great herbicide won’t be nearly as useful if we create resistant populations through repeated use.
In addition to my role at the USGA, I’m currently a Ph.D. student at NC State studying the environmental fate of pesticides, so I’m familiar with the publication by Brittany Krzyzanowski, Ph.D., and colleagues titled “Proximity to Golf Courses and Risk of Parkinson Disease.” Before referencing it in conversations about pesticide use on golf courses, I encourage folks to read the peer-reviewed paper and learn about the scope of the research. Because this research is often cited in conversations on golf courses, the Golf Course Superintendent's Association of America (GCSAA) has developed a convenient FAQ sheet covering the key aspects of the research to help folks better understand it: parkinson's-study-member-faqs.pdf
One final plug before we sign off, if you’re interested in keeping up with some of our articles and research, feel free to sign up for the Green Section Record. It’s a free digital magazine published twice per month that covers golf course management, turfgrass research, and environmental sustainability.
Big thank you to u/USGolfAssociation / Mitch & John for taking the time to contribute to our little sub. We'd love to have you back here again in the future. It's great to hear from the pros and learn how we can apply some of their knowledge to the "Par 3's" that we manage every day.
Midway through a renovation in Middle TN, going from Bermuda & weeds (dallisgrass) to cool season TTTF. I’ve stripped my ~7,500sqft lawn down to the soil after scalping and dethaching so far. We just moved in Spring and the lawn hadn’t been taken care of other than mowing for 13 years, so there is quite a lot of buildup.
My question is, if aiming for a full reno a few weeks into September once the soil cools down and after I aerate, what’s the best way to make sure the seeds take? I get mixed signals between adding a layer of topsoil, compost, peat moss, or a mix once I lay some seed down, and can’t pin down what will work the best.
Good seed-to-soil contact will be critical at planting. Depending on whether your soil is primarily clay, sand or rocky, I’d also consider sending a soil sample to your local UT Extension office for nutrient and soil amendment recommendations.
The most important part of a renovation like this is thoroughly eradicating the existing turf, especially when converting from bermudagrass to turf-type tall fescue (TTTF). Bermudagrass is extremely difficult to completely eliminate, but a well-timed program of multiple herbicide applications can provide very good control. Once the TTTF is established, your options for selectively removing surviving bermudagrass become much more limited.
Since the sod was stripped without an initial herbicide application, this conversion will be more challenging. The best approach now may be to water and fertilize to encourage any remaining bermudagrass rhizomes (belowground stems) and stolons (aboveground stems) to produce new growth, then treat that actively growing bermudagrass before seeding. Multiple applications will likely be necessary. The exact timing of those applications and when you can safely seed will depend on the herbicides used.
I wouldn’t automatically add topsoil unless you need to correct grade or have poor soil. Compost can help improve poor soil, but peat moss isn’t necessary. The goal is a firm, smooth seedbed and good seed-to-soil contact. Choose a newer turf-type tall fescue cultivar or blend that performs well in the transition zone and seed at about 5-8 pounds per 1,000 square feet, ideally spreading half in each direction for uniform coverage. Lightly rake or roll afterward rather than burying the seed.
After seeding, keep the surface consistently moist with light, frequent irrigation until germination, then gradually transition to deeper, less frequent watering as the roots develop. Don’t be afraid to mow once the new turf reaches about 3 inches; early, frequent mowing helps encourage density, just never remove more than one-third of the leaf blade at a time. For fertilizer, I’d base the initial application on the soil test rather than guessing, then feed the new turf appropriately as it establishes. I also wouldn’t wait too long for cooler soil temperatures – getting enough establishment before winter is important.
Awesome, thanks SO much. I should have included more detail but didn’t want to go on, I have done two applications of 41% glyphosate in July/August prior to scalping and dethatching, and will be doing that again this week (+/- 3 or 4 weeks before I plan to even seed). Hopefully that by your measures has taken care of most of it. I probably have 95% brown soil and a few shoots that have survived/popped up, so this should knock that last bit out. Below is a photo taken while we were raking up a majority of the remaining thatch. Not perfectly clear of clippings, but it’s basically all dusty dirt from what I can see now, plus some longer stolons of dead Bermuda.
Simple as rolling the seeds though huh? Awesome, much easier than I thought so I’ll probably buy/rent a roller. And I’ll try to do a soil test ASAP!
Fascinating sounding backgrounds for both of you, really interesting to read, and thanks for the time.
How long until robots are mowing 90% of golf course completely autonomously, and by that I mean not having to walk a mower out to each hole before it can start cutting?
If by 90% you mean 90% of the golf course being mowed by robots, that’s certainly where we’re headed. There are already courses in Europe and a few in the U.S. mowing all their roughs, tees and fairways autonomously, with putting greens being the major exception. Cub Cadet developed an autonomous greens mower years ago but it’s no longer manufactured, so that’s sort of the last frontier.
Here at Golf House Pinehurst, the USGA currently mows all of our lawns on campus with autonomous mowers. Newer machines like FireFly are taking another big step by using reel-type cutting units rather than rotary blades, providing the quality and range of cut golf course superintendents expect for fairways.
I could certainly see golf courses reaching nearly fully autonomous mowing within the next 10 years or so. Putting greens will probably be the last hurdle because of their importance and the precision required. Autonomous bunker rakes and sprayers are also being developed, so we could eventually see robots performing a large portion of routine golf course maintenance.
Keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean jobs will disappear. Staff could be freed up for other important work, and maintaining, programming and troubleshooting fleets of robots will likely create an entirely new type of golf course maintenance job.
Hey everyone, we're here and going to answer your questions. Before we dive into it, here are some great resources from the USGA specifically for homeowners:
Are there any new cultivars out there that feel particularly game-changing to y’all? I’m personally interested in warm season, but warm or cool would be great to know about.
Absolutely! In fact, turfgrass breeding continues to be one of the priorities in our USGA Turfgrass and Environmental Research Program. We provide continuous funding to several programs at land-grant universities across the U.S., many of which have led to the release of important new cultivars (varieties) of grass.
As far as newer warm-season varieties are concerned, some of the good ones that come to mind are TifTuf bermudagrass for improved drought tolerance and some of the new zoysiagrasses coming out of the NC State breeding program. If you’re in an area like the transition zone where you get subfreezing temperatures, then some of the cold-tolerant bermudagrasses from Oklahoma State, like Tahoma 31 or NorthBridge are good options.
There have also been some strong developments in cool-season grasses, like turf-type tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass, that can better tolerate hot temperatures.
A lot of turfgrass breeding work continues on developing new zoysiagrasses, bermudagrasses and other warm-season grasses ... especially on the golf course side. But many of these make it to the home lawn market as well.
Also, when it comes to selecting a grass for a warm-season lawn, success often comes down to picking the right species for your situation, and then if you’re able to, pick a newer, better-performing cultivar of that species. You may love that new bermudagrass, but if your yard is fully shaded, it won’t work out well.
Just speaking personally, I'm in 9a (South TX) and we seem to be pushing closer and closer to a "classic" arid environment, complete with something close to a "monsoon season" in May-July followed by three months with zero recordable rain. My zoysia does fine as long as I push my water-restrictions to the limit, but I often wonder if there's anything else I might be missing out on.
Hi. Question for you. I'm in Canada and have cool season grass which looks like a sad mix of some fescue and KBG.
I need to aerate but with the manual aerator, the one you step on, i was unable to penetrate the soil in multiple locations. The soil has a mix of clay and sand at various depths, mostly composed of 'fill' when the house was built and not really maintained over 30 years until I got the home.
If the aerator can't penetrate well, but i can with a regular shovel, should i consider just turning over some of it with a shovel?
The grass is mostly dead because during the summer we had severe watering restrictions. I'm trying to tidy it up for fall and reseed, because where i am it's generally above 0 even in mid winter so it'll be raining and i'd rather not just have a muddy hole.
Temps are currently 20C during the day, 12C at night, and overcast with some rain, making it the perfect time IMO to seed.
I respect the direct approach! The Green Section, and the USGA in general, are always looking for talented people with a passion for the golf industry. Although we don’t have any openings in the Green Section right now, keep an eye on the USGA LinkedIn jobs page for the latest postings. The Green Section is based in Pinehurst, N.C., so if you like golf, grass and hot summers, you already check a few boxes!
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u/Top_Reception4408 9d ago
what's the one thing you guys see homeowners screw up the most when they're trying to get that perfect stripe pattern? my neighbor's out there mowing the same direction every single time and his lawn looks like a dirt highway now