FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
31 
cut close to the ground. St. Lucie runs 
more to tops and less to root system than 
Bermuda. The latter is much preferable 
for fairways. 
St. Augustine Grass is coarser than St. 
Lucie and still lighter in color. It makes 
an excellent turf for fairways if kept 
closely cut. It is a more vigorous and 
thrifty grower, once started, than either 
the Bermuda or St. Lucie. Under favor¬ 
able conditions, it will crowd out all other 
grasses and weeds. This grass has pro¬ 
duced an excellent turf on very poor soils, 
absolutely without fertilizer, where, the 
ground water level was approximately 
three feet below the surface. 
It is, however, more, difficult to prop¬ 
agate than Bermuda and is seldom plant¬ 
ed in the original construction of a 
course. After a turf of Bermuda grass 
has been obtained over the entire course, 
one of the surest ways of cutting mainte¬ 
nance costs is to plant small individual 
sods of St. Augustine grass from ten to 
twenty feet apart in each direction on all 
portions of the links favorable to its 
growth. Within two to four years, the 
St. Augustine will have taken possession 
of all those areas where the ground wa¬ 
ter is sufficiently near the surface. Such 
areas once covered with St. Augustine 
grass present no further maintenance 
problems save cutting and the use. of to¬ 
bacco dust when necessary to kill the 
cinch bugs which attack it at times. 
The putting greens are of prime im¬ 
portance on a golf course, for though 
they usually comprise less than five per 
cent of the total area, approximately fif¬ 
ty per cent of all the strokes are played 
on the greens and it is here that the. in¬ 
terest of each hole should reach its cli¬ 
max. It is, therefore, advisable that the 
greens be. made as perfect as possible, 
cutting expenditures elsewhere if neces¬ 
sary to accomplish this result. 
Clay Greens are sometimes used, sur¬ 
rounded by a very carefully kept area of 
grass which might be said to serve as 
a part of the green, but the grass greens 
are so much preferred by the great ma¬ 
jority of golfers that clay greens should 
be considered only where, as in some lo¬ 
calities, adverse climatic conditions, or 
exceedingly heavy play, or both, make 
grass greens inadvisable. 
From the golfing point of view, there 
are two important objections to the use 
of Bermuda grass for turf on putting 
greens. It is a little too coarse and the 
runners which it continuously puts out, 
divert the ball, making accurate putting 
impossible. 
The first objection results in what 
golfers call a “slow green,” which is 
perhaps comparable to what race track 
fans call a “heavy track,” and makes it 
necessary to hit the ball a much harder 
blow to make a putt of a given length 
than would be required on a finer turf. 
The very finest bladed turf which can be 
obtained is the most desirable. 
The second objection may be at least 
partly overcome by continually cutting 
off and pulling up the runners, or by 
constantly mulching up the green to cov¬ 
er the runners. Both of these processes 
are of course expensive, and in my expe¬ 
rience, not altogether satisfactory. 
So far as I know, it was at Belleair 
that the first attempt was made in this 
State to get away from the use of straight 
