Drain/Cover, Restrict/Educate and Pound Sand

 Well, it appears we are coming out of winter in pretty good condition generally speaking. All of our turf has not awakened but I am seeing a tinge of green in some of our zoysia areas. We still have to see if some high traffiked areas are damaged from foot and or carts. More on traffic later.  

DRAIN/COVER

The drain and cover part our blog would not have occurred without some dry weather at the first of the month. This allowed us to make great progress on the drainage project from 6 cart path all the way down to 8 cart path. We finished installing of our small drain lines and covered as much as we could in sod. Over 1,800 yards of zoysia and fescue were laid in various areas. The front of 6 green approach and 8 fairway were covered in zoysia. The left rough on 8 and a few strips along the drain line in front of 7 tee were covered. The remaining areas still need some additional soil and a little bit of settling time.

Laying zoysia sod in front of 6 approach. 30 yard rolls.

After adding some additional soil to the left of 6 green Skip is smoothing it out. Still need to add more dirt to the area and more grading once the rain has stopped.

Some finish soil to help smooth out 8 fairway drainage site.

Skip grading on 8 fairway.

We used the forks on the box to break up the soil surface. We then graded with the box blade finished graded with our bunker rake. Our sod producer who was one of the owners of the company complimented us on our finish grade work. Sorry, for some reason didnt take a finish grade picture.

Big roll sodding 8 fairway.

Almost complete, had to bring in more zoysia the next day with the fescue.

Looking from the green side of 8 across the zoysia.

Big roll fescue going in on the left rough.

From 8 cart path looking across toward 7. Just waiting on some drier and warmer weather weather to get this area opened. It will need to firm considerably before we open it for play.

Signage and ropes asking you to avoid these wet areas at the bottom of 3 green.

Looking across 8 near the intersection of 7 tee cart path. With exposed soil above the newly sodded area, we decided to put some hay bales across to catch the soil from washing down on the new sod until we can get it covered with grass. Bottom right foreground are a few stips of fescue we had left over from 8 rough that we laid on solid ground that was not disturbed except from construction traffic ..

RESTRICT/EDUCATE

With the warm weather comes an increase in cart traffic. With increased cart traffic comes the need to restict cart traffic to slow the potential damage to emerging turf which is slow to awaken from its winter slumber. I made some soical media posts regarding cart traffic and the damage that can be caused from excessive wear. I thought it would be important to include it as a part of the blog post for those of you who do not follow our social media accounts.

We have various areas of the course which have springs coming out of them until the summer. There is of course just regular water weeping for short periods of time after heavy periods of rain from slopes into lower lying areas like illustrated below on 3. We have cart signs and ropes in areas on #3, #12 and #13 at this time. There could be other areas that develop over time that we will monitor and might have to place additional restrictions.

3 Fairway directing carts around wet areas next to hill side.

We have a number of holes that have permanenent stakes and decorative rope to force traffic to stay on the path until arriving past the starting points of the fairway. In most cases, carts should be driven on the path and then turn 90 degree into the fairway. Going directly from the teeing ground straight through the rough into the fairway creates signicant wear and tear at the beginning of the rough and fairway. 

Many are using these areas like they are interstate on ramps. 

We understand if you hit a shot that is short of the fairway. Its okay to take your cart to the ball and then move to the fairway. Golfers in carts are kind of like cattle and or dogs, They walk or drive the same trail, walk along the fence the same place without thinking of the damage that is occuring. Excess wear and tear costs money and time in renovation and makes the course not look its best. 

This is a pirme area of concern off of 3 cart path. The path comes straight down the hill and turns to go alongside of the fairway. The area at the bottom of the hill has a tendency to be a little wetter than other areas as well. You should not drive straight through to the fairway. 

No means NO CARTS proceed through this area. Carts should remain on the path and then turn left somewhere past the drain area to go across to your ball laying in the fairway. If its over in the left tree line, you can still cross the fairway at a 90 degree angle from the cart path.

Area at the start of eight fairway is roped off to reduce wear and tear. We have also roped off areas on  four, five and seven. As you might not be aware, this takes time away from 

the mowing team as they are mowing the rough. You have to get off your mower, take the stakes down, mow through and then get back off the mower and put them back in place. At times, a manager will be doing other things and will stop in and help remove the stakes but it takes time. I like the natural look of a course and don't like to have to put up stakes and signs but this is something we are forced to do if we want these areas to look good.

Please assist us this season in reducing cart traffic issues by following a 90 degree rule as often as possible.

POUND SAND

No, were are not saying get lost. We are pounding sand into our greens to improve the overall growth of our greens both above and below surface. Our contractor arrived on Tuesday and used three machines to do this work. Cloudy and wet conditions slowed our process but we were able to complete all nineteen greens by the end of the day. 

Dry sand is injected into the surface of the greens with a bead of water with a force of 2-3000 psi. The work is completed on 3"x3" centers. It takes about 10-15 gallons of sand for each pass on the green. Our staff had to move about 40 tons of sand in 5 gallon buckets at a time to fill the sand hoppers on the units. We normally brush and roll the greens but we had to wait until Wednesday to complete this operation. There area a number of benefits in doing this process;

• Opens the surface of the greens to improve infiltration of moisture into drier areas and allows wetter areas to dry more quickly
• Allows sand to be injected into the green mixing with the thatch and assisting in its control
• Provides new pathways for roots to grow and branch/spread
• The sand expands out wider than a normal 1/2" aeration hole as it reaches the 4-5" range of depth
• There is not a lot of excess sand on the surface which is a positive of the process. The remaining sand is brushed into the canapy which improves protection of the crowns of plants and also helps to smooth the greens surface.

Below is an illustration from the Dryject website on how it works. Further down the page is a quick video of the process. We also intend to deep tine our greens to about 8" if the rain ever stops. We might be forced to do this over a number of days and do it when we are open. We will do everything we can to not inhibit play  I wll keep you informed as time goes by when this process will begin. This double aearation process is necessary to help improve the drainage in our greens.

A Visit From Lady, One of Her Pet Peeves, Where Carts Should Be Entering Fairways!

Time for Lady to make an appearance again. Hello my beautiful girl!  We continue to have carts using walk paths as goat paths from the tee areas to the start of fairways instead of entering the fairway from the side. A video from 3 years ago and current picture of what we are asking are below. This is a pretty simple request that will improve our turf, reduce watering and wear and tear in these areas. 

Carts should enter fairways from the sides as the top 2 arrows demonstrate. Entering from the bottom looks terrible at the least plus look at the wear and tear and weaker turf conditions.

New Year,Excellent Videos on Trees and the Golf Course

A nice balanced video from the USGA regarding trees on the golf course. Also a second video which I've posted before on the blog. It discusses the need for light and air movement on our main play surfaces(greens) and the negative impacts that can be placed on this most important surface from trees planted in the wrong location.

Beginning next week we have contracted removal of a few trees that are hazardous and too large for us to drop without first having the limbs trimmed off. This will then allow our staff to remove the totem poled main trunk safely. We drop the logs and haul them to our maintenance area for splitting or placed in our dump for grinding in the future. This work will begin on Monday and Tuesday(for the contractor) and will probably take most of next week for our staff to get the logs removed, area raked and material hauled away. The staff have been involved in splitting and stacking tree parts that were removed during the season to make room for the trees that have been approved for removal by the Green Committee and Board.

Rough Seeding Near Completion

Russ has been drill seeding our rough most of the week. We have about 6 bags of seed left to finish a few more spots. 

A couple interesting tidbits. There are 225,000 seeds in a pound. We will have sown 563 million seeds to improve our rough. In a couple of weeks you can begin to count them.

Drill Seeding Rough

We've been attacking the first cut or two of  Bermuda in our rough with herbicides to reduce its competitiveness over the last month or so. With this reduction means we will need to start some new seedlings of Fescue in areas where we have less than adequate cool season turf, thus its time to start drill seeding our rough. We will be drilling in high traffic rough areas around greens and fairways in an effort to get a stand of grass before winter sets in. It is difficult for young seedlings to make it in our environment with a great deal of shade, mowing/blowing equipment and cart traffic. Hopefully we will get the turf up and growing before the main onslaught of leaves start to fall. By then it will have been fertilized and we should be in good shape for next season. We hope to get this grass up and growing in 10 days or so and look forward to it competing with the Bermuda that survives the winter and from the various chemical treatments it has received. Video below explains our process.

https://youtu.be/ezwBXSy7lwM

Bermuda Eradication/Expanded To Rough(As you have seen if you've played the course over the holiday)

I mentioned in video posts last week that we were expanding our Bermuda Eradication work to the rough with some newer herbicide chemistry called Pylex. Some might question why would you ugly up areas of the golf course like we have when the course was near perfect.

• First off, the club spent 1/4 million dollars to install Zoysia 20 years ago. We need to protect that investment. 

• We've spent well over $10k over the last few years spraying fairways, adding Zoysia and the labor required to install the new sod.

• The efforts on our fairways must extend into our first cut of rough because Bermuda wants to move into areas of least resistance. It will continue to try to push into fairways. We must push it back or at least keep it at bay. There is probably one grass more aggressive than Bermuda and its poa annua which is most adapted in shade.

• Bermuda grass is subjected to winter kill in our area about every 5 years or so. This damage leads to delayed green up of our fairways. Reduction of Bermuda in our first cut of rough is also important because of the difficulty in playing out of this grass in the late summer. The less Bermuda, the better playability and for our members and guests.

The last week of August I sprayed varied rates of a product called Pylex from BASF. The rates were from .25 oz/acre on bent grass collars/approaches to 1.5 oz/acre to our main rough. I used our large area spray unit on these areas to insure proper calibration and application. The white color of the leaves is caused by the disruption of chlorophyll production in the plant which gives the plant its green color. It has less activity on cool season grass but there is some activity. Also the secondary herbicide I used also has activity on the cool season. 

Parts of collars on 3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,18 were sprayed. 

Rough was sprayed on 1,2,3,4,10,16-18. Bunkers/Green surrounds were sprayed on parts 4,5,7,9,10,11,12,13, and 18. 

This chemistry has serious activity on Zoysia as well which is a warm season grass. Greens collars such as 1-3 will require backpack applications in the next few days because of close proximity of Zoysia directly off the green. The rough was sprayed with an additional herbicide called Turflon which can reduce the amount of white discoloration caused by Pylex but it does have additional activity on the Bermuda and will turn it red. I've sprayed 6 acres of first cut rough and about 1 acre of collars, tees, and green surrounds. 

The rough areas I intend to drill seed Turf Type Fescue into these areas in the next couple of weeks to encourage additional cool season grass and discourage the Bermuda. I will expand the applications to additional rough in the next week to 10 days as well as other green surrounds. We do not have an unlimited supply of this material so don't fear, I will not spray the total course with this material.

This is an area near the dogleg of #1. This was a much lighter rate of Pylex that was applied without the Turflon added. Its having an effect but a slow one at that. You can see the Bermuda beginning to turn white.

This is an area on the right of #1 where I usually dilute and spray extra product out of my tank. You can see the green strip of no activity where I skipped an area in the rough. The cool season rough is tolerant of the spray but the mid-90 temperatures of this week has made its activity on the cool season turf a little more pronounced.

This is the area off the tee on 16 on the left. This is a 1/2  rate of Turflon. With warmer temperatures predicted, I decided to cut the rate in 1/2. More activity on the cool season grass than I wanted but it should calm down over the next few days with rain and cooler temperatures.

This is activity on the 2nd tee on some crabgrass which is cut at 6/10" about twice as tall as our collars. Pylex has activity on multiple grassy and broad leaf weeds which is an added benefit.

Goose grass on 2 tee. Great activity on goose grass.

This is the back of 5 green. The red is Bermuda grass. Most of the white on the right side is activity on the Fescue around this green but I expect this to come out in the next week or so.

This is activity on the right rough on the tennis court side of 18 near the right bunker. It has smacked the Bermuda in the mouth!

This is activity around the right bunker. This was sprayed without the Turflon material.

This is behind 18 green where we have some Bermuda as well.

Part of our Fairway eradication has involved sodding as well. This is over the hill on 10 about 125 yards from the green. Guys removing sod on Thursday and installing new.

In the same area installing new sod.

Removing old spots.

Additional spots waiting for more sod on Friday.

Repaired areas beginning the healing process. Did not remove every little spot of dead Bermuda. Expect the Zoysia to fill in the smaller areas by next season. If we spray and kill more Bermuda next to these areas and larger patches are showing, we will cut them out next season. 180 yards of new Zoysia in this area. 360 total yards laid this week. Well over 20 pallets of sod plus some removed from our nursery as well this season to repair treated and or winter killed Bermuda.

Fall rough bermuda application

At the end of October, I made an application on 10 acres of rough with  high % of bermuda in it.  My plan was to hit it with a spray that would injure the bermuda going into winter and would delay its emergence next spring.  The rate was about 75% of recommended rate.  After a few weeks went by I noticed some discoloration in the rough which I expected.  Normally we would have growth until the end of November but the 14 degrees arrived and a week of cold shut down the turf.  In most cases, the cool season turf would have grown out of the injury.

With the injury still evident at the first week of December,  I contacted our Sygenta area rep who actually is based in Stl.  He came by and looked at the areas I sprayed. In most areas, he believes the turf will grow back.  There are some areas which look a little more affected. One of the things I found out was that there is a fescue variety that is used in our rough seed and sod we purchase that is not as tolerant to the herbicide I applied.

I believe also some poa, bluegrass and bentgrass in the rough were injured as well.  Holes 1-11 and a little on 12 were sprayed.  Some areas in shade were not sprayed because the Bermuda is not strong in the shaded locations.

This is a view looking toward 4. You can see the turf that was not effected in the middle between the 2 passes.

Tree root pruner in action

Just started to use our tree root pruner today.  Purchased from Commercial Turf in Chillicothe.  This unit will be invaluable in our tree management efforts to improve the overall conditions of our turf grass in our main play areas near greens, tees, fairways and rough.   This unit will help to conserve water of our tree lined rough and fairways, will improve fertilizer availability for grass and will enhance the rough allowing it to be more consistent  throughout the property and overall a much more healthy plant.  It will also enhance other other turf surfaces such as fairways, tees and greens.

Check out video below.

Rough bermuda suppression spray

Made a video discussing the rough bermuda spray that was applied on April 26th.  Holes 1-3, 13, 15-18. Video gives most of the details below.

Bermuda suppression product in rough

Sprayed a little over 7 acres of first cut of rough this morning in an effort to suppress some of the bermuda that has popped out in the last few days.  This spray consisted of 1/2 of the product that I use on the fairways at a slightly higher rate.  I sprayed Fusilade II around holes 1-3 and 13, 15-18.  In most cases, it was about 30 feet but I did go a little further out in a couple of areas. The rough will turn slightly off its emerald green color for 7-14 days and will green back up.  The bermuda should turn off color and then red but will come back in 4-5 weeks. If the bermuda would have grown out sooner, I possibly could have gotten a second spray before the heat of summer sets in.  The product is not supposed to be sprayed on the cool season turf during summer. The second spray could also conflict with Member/Guest in mid-June.  I will keep you informed if we decide to do another application.  It can be sprayed again in the fall which we will do this year.

After the rain stops this week, we will spray holes 4-5, 7-8, 10-12. This spray should give us some relief from the bermuda since we mow our rough between 2.5" to 3".  I'll take a couple before and after pictures and post them later next week so you can see the difference in the color of the rough.

Seed and rough grass beginning to pop

A majority of our turf regeneration efforts are done in the fall with drill seeding close rough and late fall fertilization.  Once the turf awakens in the spring, we evaluate our progress and make plans for further renovation as necessary.  We drilled 4000 pounds of a fescue/bluegrass mixture last fall into thinned rough areas.

We began to use our renovaire aerator at the end of March to pull cores on all of the rough.  That effort is still going with Skip closing in on the last two holes.  Around he first of April, we over seeded a very large area on the left of #3 with Fescue.  It has been drill seeded in the fall as well.  This area is over burdened with shade and the trees out compete the weakened turf grass for available moisture.  We will add a part circle head in this area which should increase the amount of moisture this area receives.  Some root pruning of the trees should be helpful but there are 3 layers of trees in this area which reduces our ability to prune the total area.

Seeding is very limited in the spring due to pre-emergent applications being made at the same time but the area on 3 is in deep shade so we made sure it was not sprayed.  The area covered about 20 yds from the fairway to 12 cart path and  about 50 yards long.  The grass seed has germinated and is about an inch tall as seen in the picture below. A little patchy but our nemesis poa annua usually fills in the voids pretty quickly.

The staff used almost 200 yards of sod behind 15 green and used another 200 yards of sod on stump holes and worn, rutted areas around trees.  The delay in turf green up and subsequent rough growth has put our turf a couple of weeks behind. My first rough mowing of the year was a week later than last year. This week we are making  sure the close rough is getting mowed twice before the rains set in. The turf is beginning to expand and grow and in most cases will fill in the voids in the rough.  There are still some areas that will get some attention but in most cases there will be more than enough grass to swallow your errant shots from the short grass fairways and tees.

Area on #3 that was seeded the first of April. New grass growing but existing turf that was there has filled in the area quite nicely with increases in temperatures and timely rain. 

Drilling Fescue-Bluegrass mix into rough/Bermuda eradication in fairways

The staff over the next few days will be using a slit seeder to incorporate a Fescue/Bluegrass mix into the rough.  We will be concentrating our efforts around green complexes and first cut rough areas that come into play.  Some of these areas will include the back green surrounds of #5,6,8,16 which have substantial amounts of bermuda.  Last season, in an effort to reduce costs during the bunker project, I did not sod the back sections of these green complexes.  The slit seeding of these areas will give these complexes a more attractive look and will make the turf type consistent throughout the entire complex.  We will be keeping a 7' intermediate cut around #8 and #16 because of the severity of the slope of the greens.  You should see germination of the seed within the next couple of weeks depending upon the amount of moisture that we receive.  It is rather difficult to fully irrigate these areas because 1/2 the moisture goes onto the fairways.  We attempt to keep the zoysia relatively dry during the fall.  Drier turf reduces the onset of Large patch in our Zoysia fairways.

Speaking of zoysia fairways, I sprayed 7.3 acres of fairways with our bermuda eradication product today.  That is about 25% of our fairway acreage.  This includes parts of holes 1-5, 7-8, 10, 13, and 15.  This product will severely injure the bermuda as it goes into dormancy and will delay it breaking dormancy next spring.  We will then go into some of these areas and make another application next spring.

Russ slit seeding into the area in front of #4 tee and #11 green surround.

Jason dragging the left side of #3.  The drag helps to smooth over the slit and places the seed in better contact with the soil which assists in germination.

Rough Height Adjustment

With the growth of the Bermuda grass in the rough and its aggressive nature , we have lowered the rough mower  height a 1/4 inch to assist you in locating balls in the rough and advancing it out of the rough on your next shot.  By Friday evening, a majority of the rough will have been cut once at the new height.

Pre-emergent(crabgrass preventative)

Have you made your crabgrass pre-emergent application yet this season?  Its getting close to the time to get this product applied.  Our zoysia application was made in February in combination with RoundUp to kill the poa annua that had germinated.  If you've played the course in the last month, you can see the dead spots of poa annua.  Don't worry, there is zoysia under most of those spots that will fill in once the warm weather arrives for good.  There are a few small spots that we missed  which you can see but overall we had a good application and kill this season.

This past week we have been applying our crabgrass pre-emergent in the rough.  We use the chemical name Prodamine which is commonly known as Barricade or other generic brands.  There is also a product called Dithiopyr(Dimension) that is a good product as well.  This season, we are applying a granulated formulation  on a 0-0-7 potassium fertilizer product at about 185 #'s an acre.  We will be applying about 8,000#'s of material to our roughs, around our tees and on the cool season tees which is only about 5 tee surfaces.  The growing degree models are showing we are still on the low side of the range but we are getting closer each day and wanted to get most of this application down so we can get some rain on it which will release the chemical to the soil surface and will bind with the soil.  The pre-emergent disrupts cell division when it is trying to germinate which leads to its death.  Our grass is happy with this death because it has less competition and I'm happy because we have a purer stand of grass.

Spreader that we use on the large rough area.  It will hold comfortably about 700#'s of product.  We use walk spreaders on the tight areas around greens, bunkers, tees etc.  This spreader will throw about 20' feet on either side of the application, more or less.

One of our large area rough mowers had a large hydraulic hose leak at the right side bottom of the rough along #13.  The leak was enough that we need to remove the old sod and replace it with some sod that we had near the green nursery.  Usually, a narrow leak will heal itself pretty quickly and we will leave it alone but this leak was a foot wide or more in the area where it blew.  Even though I do not like to add bermuda back on the golf course, it is the only thing that could possibly survive being laid at this time of year.

Tom removing the sod at the bottom of #13.

Metrolink, #1 Fairway/rough work

The remaining sod was installed on Wednesday on the right side of #1.  The remaining zoysia fairway spot was covered as was the rest of the road up to our maintenance building lot.  The asphalt near the employee parking area to the back gate was replaced.

The only thing left to complete for this project is the wire mesh for the fence along #1 which is to be accomplished on Tuesday.

Old asphalt lifted from back drive

New asphalt installed.

Missouri Turf installing new fescue sod for old construction roadway near #1 tee.

The finished product.  Looks great!

Rough bermuda eradication/control

The fog and heavy dew this morning showed the great progress we are making with our first cut of rough and reducing the impacts of bermuda on the rough.  The bermuda has a great deal of leaf surface and the dew shows up and is more concentrated on it in comparison to zoysia or fescue. As shown along #16 a month ago, there is still some bermuda in the left half of the picture but it is has been tremendously reduced.  To the right of the flag pole is a solid patch of bermuda that was all the way across the picture to the fairway a couple of years ago.  As we improve our rough, we will begin to over seed with additional fescue out into the area to the right side of the picture.

Mostly fescue on the left with a solid patch of bermuda on  the right side of the picture.

Rough Aeration

Yesterday, we began the process to core aerate our rough.  We were able to aerate the rough in the fall as well.  The staff concentrated on the cool season green surrounds yesterday.  As weather permits over the next few weeks, we intend to aerate our main rough areas pulling a 2-3" plug.  This aeration process will help us reduce some compaction in high traffic areas, will improve soil oxygen content and reduce runoff of water by providing tiny reservoir's where the plug was removed which allows water to penetrate into the profile more quickly.

We plan to pull a weighted drag with a cart over the plugs to break them up to reduce the healing time and mess that wet plugs can create. 

Tom pulling our rough aerator around #12 green.

The back view of the aerator.  8 tines with 12 total wheels(6 feet wide) and blocks on top of the machine to increase the depth of the plug.  

A plug that is about 2" long. 

Anonymous Donor, rough aeration beginning

We have been in need of an aerator for our rough since I arrived in 2008.  I was able to locate a pull behind rough aerator in the last couple of months that was very reasonably priced and in great condition.  A very generous member heard of our need and purchased the aerator for us a couple of weeks ago.  Thanks to our anonymous donor for their generosity. 

The staff is beginning to pull cores in the rough this week. The soil is not overly moist so the plugs that are being pulled are not very large but they will still do some good for our rough turf.  We will be dragging the cores to try to break them as much as possible but I am sure there will be some remnants still left in the rough that will ultimately break down during rains we receive over the next few weeks.  

I am out of the office this week but will be getting some pictures posted in the next few days of the aerator and the work that is being accomplished.  We are going to try to make at least a couple passes through the rough before winter and at least one in early spring which should help our rough become less compacted and have the ability for water to penetrate the surface of the turf. 

We are also beginning our late fall application of fertilizer to our rough which will allow the turf to grow slightly and strengthen its roots before winter.  The slow release part of our fertilizer will be available next spring for our rough to fill in and grow into early summer.  The thicker the rough is in the spring, the better its ability to slow down the bermuda grass that is laying and waiting for warm weather to arrive.    

The Rough is tough

As some have mentioned, the rough is brutal.  We've hit the perfect storm a couple of weeks early.  The warmer than normal temperatures over the last couple of weeks has created an explosive situation in our rough.  The grasses seed head production and growth of the turf has kicked into over drive from the 15-20 degree above normal days and at least 10 degree above average evenings.  Usually this type of rough does not take place until late April to early May.  The lack of frost has allowed the turf to continue to grow as we sleep.  Seed heads have make it even more difficult to get the club head through the golf ball.  We have been lucky that rainfall has been reduced which has allowed us to keep the mowers going each day.  I know some wonder why we keep the rough as long as we do. 
Our height of rough is kept at 3" during the season for a number of reasons. 

• Maintenance standards recommended by the club 
• Typical rough height of country club facilities in St. Louis
• A healthy height for our cool season grasses to reduce the potential damage from pests,(insects, disease, weeds) water loss from trees during the summer, and cart traffic.
• Longer leaf blade can generate more chlorophyll which is the building block of the plant leading to the development of more energy for bigger and deeper root systems and thickens the leaf blade which can help protect it further from pests. 
• Reduces the competitiveness of bermuda grass until the heat of July and August. 
• Protects the scoring of the golf course which has no fairway bunkering. 

PGA Professional Nash Haxel made the following comment regarding playing out of spring rough.  

"Learning how the ball will react from different types of lies is a real key to success in the spring time.

When the ball is lying down in that tall green rough that we are experiencing now, try the 7,8,9 irons and play the ball back in your stance to create a steeper attack angle."

The University of Missouri has a guide sheet for proper mowing practices which includes a discussion on proper height of healthy well maintained turfgrass.

A view of a ball in the rough.

The same view but a close up.  Yes that is 3-4" rough.

A section of rough you do not want your ball to fall into.  A ball swallowed by poa annua in its full seed head stage.