Clues to Turf Miseries of 1931 Make Greensmen Deep Thinkers

EVERY GREENKEEPER heaves a sigh of relief when he realizes that another summer, with all the worries that with it, has passed. There is always more -or less injury to fine turf on golf ccmrsee during the extreme summer weather atid usually some particular area of the country gets more than its share of turf trouble. This summer has probably set a record for the wide extent of putting green twrf injury. It has not been uncommon to hear greenkeepers from such widely separated points as Chicago, Boston, St. Louis and Richmond describing almost identical turf injury. For many clubs it has been the worst summer in their history, as far as the maintenance of good putting turf is «concerned. With the possible exception of the far west and certain portions of the northern tier of states, few clubs which ;maintain northern grasses on their courses have been entirely free from turf trouble. The summer of 1928 will not soon be rforgotten particularly by the greenkeepers iof the East. The summer of 1928 was excessively hot and humid along the north^eastern coast and the turf on many fine 'putting areas was badly injured or entirely lost. The 1929 summer was an average one, but 1930 brought us a summer which established heat records throughout the whole country. Strange to many is the fact that very little trouble was experienced in maintaining turf during the 1930 summer season. Records show that over the country as a whole we did not have as high temperatures this summer as last, but that there was a considerable increase in the humidity. The experience of the eastern greenkeepers during the hot, humid summer of 1928, and of the greenkeepers over a much wider area of the country during this hot, humid summer compared with the sligifat turf injury of the hot, dry summer ojf 1930 will give us a possible clue to the reason for much of this summers' turf ills.