[Editors note: The Golfer may be out of town, but these days being out of town hardly means being out of touch. He read Jiggers ran..uh post. And he offers this response( I will get back to doing my own posts eventually)]:
Apparently there are those in The Household who feel golf commentators are obsessed with grass. While I do think they could spend a little less time talking about grass( insert your own 'watching golf is like watching the grass grow' joke here), the grass is important. In the interest of furthering your golf education , here are some basics about grass.
There are 3 basic areas on each hole, the tee, the fairway and the green. The tee is where you hit the ball for the first time on the hole. The grass on the tee has to be pretty hardy. it is cut pretty short and people walk on it and hit balls off it all day long. The individual tees usually aren't very big, so a lot of walking is done on just a few square yards of grass. The fairway is the area between the tee and the green. The grass on the fairway has things a bit easier. Carts drive on it and people walk on it, but not always in the same place. And it is not cut nearly as short. The cut on the fairway is about the same as a typical lawn just after mowing. On the sides of the fairway the grass is allowed to grow long. This long grass is called The Rough. Depending on the course design there can be different 'cut's' of rough, from almost the same as the fairway, all the way to letting the grass grow naturally and not mowing it. Most courses have at least what are referred to as the first and second cuts of rough. This means for a certain number of feet off the fairway the grass will be cut a little longer. Beyond that the grass will be kept even longer still. And there can be other 'cuts of the rough' after that. The green is where the hole is. The grass on the greens needs to be able to take being cut VERY short, like 1/2 an inch or so, and being walked on all day.
Which grasses are used on a golf course depends on where the golf course is and the characteristics of the grass. Some grasses to better where it's warm and dry - Southern California or Arizona. Some only grow well where its warm and humid - Florida and other southern states. Some does better up in New England and the northeast. And all grass has a dormant period. Even if the weather is warm all year around the grass will go dormant for a period. It may even still look green, but it will be less resilient and more straw like. Courses use at least 2 different grasses, one for tee and fairways, and one for greens. Most courses use more than 2, and come courses seed the greens and fairways with 2 or more different grasses, so when one is dormant the other is growing strong. So at Torrey Pines( the course that was being played this weekend when Jigger heard all the grass talk ), the rough is Kikuya( which is dormant right now ) overseeded with Rye( which is nice and green ). Most expensive courses with dormant winter grass overseed with Rye to make everything green.
Different grasses play differently. Zozia is an easy fairway grass because it's strong and the ball will set up nicely. However it's a grass that only grows well in certain parts of the south. Bermuda is a warm weather grass that is nasty as part of a rough. It's not a strong grass so the ball sinks down, and it can be brutal trying to chop it out. Some grasses are more slippery, and some tend to grab the ball. The grass that Jigger hear the commentators refer to as 'cauliflower like' is Poanna. It is used on a lot of greens. It is hardy and can be cut very short. Poanna is an annual blooming grass that, when in season, forms a seed head. Once the seed head forms, it will affect a rolling ball. Greens with seed heads can be bumpy.
And as for 'watching the grass grow'. Well. For tournaments the greens are cut first thing every morning. This ensures a nice even cut all across the green. Then you have 10 to 12 hours of sun shine while the tournament plays. The grass grows. And it grows unevenly. So the players later in the day don't have quite the nice even surface the morning players do. Remember, on the green the grass is cut very short, so even a little bit of growth can matter. For 99% of players Jigger is right. That tiny bit of growth doesn't matter at all. But if you are trying to make a putt that will get you 2nd place and another $100,000, the fact that the grass grew is something you probably want to take into account.
So to sum up, the grass does matter. Before hitting every shot those tour players take into account what kind of grass their ball is in. How thick is it? How tall is it? Does this grass grab balls or let them go? 'It's all green' is fine for Jigger to roll in, and occasionally munch on. But when you are playing for big money, grass matters.
As for 'shaving'. The issue there is how the USGA will set the course up for the US Open, which will be played there ( Torrey Pines ) this June. The grass conditions will be different that time of year. If you are really interested here is an article that explains things.
