The Experience at Farmlinks

The following post was written by our assistant superintendent, Adam Lencke.  Last week, he was given the opportunity to travel to a research golf course called Farmlinks in Alabama.  It's a great opportunity, and this was his experience.  Enjoy!

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Last week I received the opportunity to visit the FarmLinks resort at Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Alabama.  A select number of superintendents and assistants from the Chicagoland area were invited by BASF The Chemical Company through salesmen around the area to attend this 3 day trip for research, demonstration, and a little bit of fun.

11/30: Our first event was an education portion on pesticides manufactured by BASF.  We saw about 5 comparisons of fungicide programs and their efficacy during the summer on bentgrass greens.  These programs are rated by several factors including turf density, color, disease activity, stress, and overall plant health.  There were actually 20 overall programs in the study.  We finished with a Q and A session with reps from our local BASF distributor.

Frost!

12/1:  We woke up to a frigid morning, and yes, they also have frost in Alabama.  It was a chilly 31 degrees Thursday morning.  The highs did reach in the upper 50’s, lower 60’s.

We started off inside with more presentations on products used around FarmLinks. We covered the GPS system they use for tracking golf carts, Visage Mobile Golf Information.  This program allows the managers to zone off any location on the course to keep carts from getting too close to greens, tees, wet areas, naturalized areas, or anywhere that is potentially unsafe.  It also has an interactive screen on all the carts.  If you ask me sometime I’d love to share more about what this program can do.

After more machine demonstrations we finally got to go outside for a brief talk about their program before we would go to lunch and get to have some fun on our own.

Here is Mark Langner, FarmLinks superintendent discussing with us the daily stresses and current activities on the course.  These greens are cool season grass, just like at Calumet, except they are pure creeping bentgrass.  Ours have some poa annua mixed in.  At FarmLinks they go to extremes to keep poa out by plucking and cutting out any poa annua that seeds itself on the greens.  As you can tell in this picture they just aerified the greens a couple weeks earlier.

We also discussed how much heat Alabama can endure in a season and how they manage over time. Speaking of weather effects, how about this pic!

This is a view of their practice range which is entirely bermudagrass, a warm season species. Everything but the greens have gone dormant for the year because of the low temps, especially those overnight lows of 31!  The actual tee box in this picture is green because they overseeded all tee boxes and fairways with a perennial ryegrass variety.  Perennial ryegrass is known for its ability to germinate in 3-5 days and grow quickly. It is a risky species in the summer however because it is extremely susceptible to just about every disease in the book. 

After the on course tour we broke for lunch and had the opportunity to play golf.  The following are pics from the course.  Note the dramatics of dormancy in the rough compared to the overseeded fairways.

The Par 3 17th.  The lodge behind the green is where we stayed.

The Par 3 5th.  The tee box is 170 feet above the green, and provides beautiful views of Alabama.

Par 3 8th hole.  Farmlinks has amazing par 3's.

FarmLinks was a great experience.  It is a public facility so if you have time and you’re in Alabama, I highly recommend adding it to your “courses to play” list. 

Adam Lencke

Assistant Superintendent