Okay, so I’ve been getting super into golf lately, and like any normal person, I went down a rabbit hole about Augusta National. You know, home of the Masters, the legendary course. And my big question was: What kind of grass do they even use there? It always looks so perfect, so impossibly green.
So, I started digging. I mean, really digging. First, I just did some basic searches. Just typed in “Augusta National grass type” and stuff like that.
My Research Journey
- Initial Searches: Started with broad searches to get the general idea. I was looking for, the main grass species.
- Deep Dive: Then I got more specific. It took reading a ton of random articles. And some of that, was hard to understand, too much jargon!
- Putting it Together: I kind of pieced together information from all over the place. like making my own summary.
It turns out it’s not just one type of grass! They have a system, and changing the grass for different seasons.
For the fairways and tees, they mostly use Perennial Ryegrass. Apparently, this stuff is great for overseeding, which means they plant it over the existing grass (usually Bermudagrass) when it goes dormant in the cooler months. That’s how they keep it green all year round.
Now, the greens are a whole different story. They’re usually Bentgrass. And that grass is super fine and can be cut really, really short, which is what you need for those super-fast putting surfaces. So, the greens get all the special treatment, like the VIPs of the grass world.
I feel like a grass expert, at least, specifically a professional grass expert at Augusta.
