Dan Husek, director of golf course maintenance at Four Seasons Resort Hualālai on the Kailua Kona coast on the Big Island of Hawaii, managed bermudagrass on fairways, roughs and greens on the resort’s Hualālai course for nearly 26 years. Maintaining the bermudagrass at a premium level to meet golfer expectations was a constant struggle. The irrigation water contains elevated total salts, bicarbonate levels over 600 ppm, sodium levels well over 300 ppm and chloride at nearly 500 ppm. The salty water combined with poor soil conditions and heavy insect and disease pressure stressed the bermudagrass so much the playing surfaces were weak and thin, especially during peak golf season in the winter months.
Nearby courses with similarly poor water quality were showing excellent success with seashore paspalum. Their success convinced Husek and his team to explore converting from bermudagrass to ‘SeaIsle 2000’ paspalum across the golf course and ‘Platinum TE’ paspalum on greens. Husek and his team developed a conversion plan and convinced the resort leadership to shut down the course from April through December in 2020 to complete the conversion. The results have been nothing short of spectacular. Here are a few details from the conversion process.
Step one was eradicating the bermudagrass. The team used two applications of glyphosate and fluazifop together to kill the bermudagrass. This was followed by aggressive vertical mowing, with a minimum of eight passes across each fairway. The team conducted aggressive aeration and scalped the fairways down to 0.200 inches to open up the soil in preparation for sprigging paspalum.
The Nanea Golf Club up the street from Hualālai was kind enough to donate paspalum sprigs generated from vertical mowing. In total, sprig material from Nanea was used to establish about 45 acres at Hualālai and the remaining acreage was sprigged from material harvested from the first few fairways established at Hualālai. Sprigs were incorporated into the soil at about 35 bushels per 1,000 square feet using a disc planter weighted with water barrels. Sprigs grew in quite rapidly and were first mowed about 30 days after planting. The greens were sprigged with ‘Platinum TE’ paspalum with a smaller disc machine fixed to a triplex. The team at Hualālai joined forces with DHR Golf Construction to plant and grow-in the greens at a sprig rate of 15-20 bushels per 1,000 square feet. The first mowing occurred about 40 days after sprigging.
The Mitsubishi Electric PGA TOUR Champions event was held at the course in February 2021 – just one year after the renovation – with great success. The conditions post renovation have been so well received, the resort leadership team recently approved converting the facility’s other 18-hole course to paspalum as well. The conversion was completed on the front nine last year and the course will be fully converted by the end of 2023.
For Husek and his team, life on the golf course has been far more enjoyable and rewarding since converting from bermudagrass to seashore paspalum. Turf health, density and playing conditions are far better. When asked about the challenges since conversion, he acknowledges some of the bermudagrass has grown back and contaminated the paspalum. Fortunately, the bermudagrass blends in quite well and is not readily noticeable. He also emphasized the importance of fresh sprigs and applying water immediately after planting. In fact, he even noticed that if the staff took a lunch break between vertical mowing and transporting or planting the fairway sprigs, there was a noticeable difference in establishment compared to areas where there was no delay between harvesting and planting. For the greens, Southern Turf would harvest the sprigs in the morning and the team at Hualālai would have them planted and watered before 10 a.m.
Paspalum has been paradise for Husek, the maintenance team, and for many others enjoying the spirit of Aloha on the Hawaiian Islands.
West Region Agronomists:
Brian Whitlark, regional director – bwhitlark@usga.org
Cory Isom, agronomist – cisom@usga.org