Proxy, Primo -- a lethal combination
Richard Dunn
The greens are lighting fast at Newport Beach Country Club, just the
way the doctor ordered.
But the man in charge of the golf course, Newport Beach
superintendent Ron Benedict, will never forget 1997, when the
microscopic yellowish bulbs known as poa annua, grass that is
indigenous to this area, took over the golf course and blanketed the
greens like wild flowers.
Players who rarely complain about the greens, complained. Those
who usually whine about the greens here, or any other California golf
course, did so even more. It was bad PR for Newport Beach Country
Club, which made sure it wouldn’t happen again by using two chemicals
-- Proxy and Primo -- to suppress the poa annua seed heads.
The greens in California are usually bentgrass with poa annua
mixed in, because it is almost impossible to prevent poa from getting
into bentgrass greens. Players’ golf spikes get kicked around.
While Benedict and his crack staff work hard to keep the greens
smooth, poa annua can sprout in the late afternoons and cause havoc
on East Coast golfers in the PGA Champions Tour event.
Since ‘97, however, Newport Beach’s second year of hosting the
event, the player complaints about the bumpy greens seem to have
dwindled, thanks largely to the new chemicals.
“(Primo) is a growth regulator,” Benedict said. “It reduces the
vertical growth so the greens are more consistent with the morning
and late afternoon. The greens don’t start getting all furry.”
The other chemical, Proxy, is a seed-head suppressant.
“There are less complaints, but there’s still poa annua,” Benedict
said. “It’s kind of a different grass (for the players). It’s
different from what they play on all year. Here, in California, it’s
bentgrass and Bermuda and poa annua. With the poa annua, this year
won’t be quite as bad, but there are 100 different varieties of poa
annua and it grows at different rates ... I had one (Champions Tour)
player last year ask me what we did to the greens, how we got them so
nice ... hey, this is our eighth rodeo, so we’re getting it figured
out.”
Benedict was pleased with the amount of rainfall the golf course
has received this year and PGA Tour agronomist Tom Brown has given
everything a big thumbs up.
“(Brown) was happy with the way things looked during advance
week,” Benedict said. “We’ve done some fine-tuning as we go and it
should be in great shape for the event.”
*
The wives of Champions Tour players are also getting involved in
charity, and Orange County-based Casa Youth Shelter is the latest
outreach.
Casa Youth Shelter announced it has received a grant of $37,500 to
support its innovative Community “Crisis Prevention” Outreach Program
through the PGA Tour’s Champions Tour Wives, Inc., formerly known as
the Senior Tour Wives, Inc., a nonprofit organization that was
chartered in 1994. The membership is comprised of approximately 100
women whose husbands are professional golfers on the Champions Tour.
Martha Jenkins, wife of Champions Tour player Tom Jenkins,
presented the check to the shelter. Tom Jenkins is playing in this
week’s Toshiba Senior Classic.
*
The first of four Toshiba Senior Classic Pro-Ams will start today
at 7 a.m. with a shotgun start. Lee Trevino, Bruce Lietzke and Ben
Crenshaw are among the Champions Tour players in the early pro-am,
while Chi Chi Rodriguez, Gary Player, Tom Kite, Gary McCord and Dave
Stockton headline the 12:30 p.m. pro-am shotgun start today.
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