America’s North vs. South Part Two

Modern Turf Wars

**“Photosynthesis is the process that plants use to turn light, carbon dioxide and water into sugars that fuel plant growth, using the primary photosynthesis enzyme, rubisco” — **Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency

Throughout my many years of playing golf, almost nothing has remained consistent, not my swing, not the weather, not the clubs, the ball nor the players… just the grass. Agronomy is an extremely complicated job all over the country but especially difficult in the Transition Zone.

The Transition Zone is the line or belt that splits the Eastern part of the country in two, spanning from North Carolina to Kansas. Southern grass species can’t survive above the line due to the cold in the winter and Northern grasses can’t survive beneath the line because they wither and die in the blistering summer months. Managing golf courses in the Transition Zone is the king crab fishing of the golf world as the course requires extreme attention and diligence 24/7.

Photo Credit: Thechiputt.com

Northern grasses are known in the golf world as C3 Plants and southern grasses are known as C4 Plants. Northern grasses use a C3 photosynthetic pathway, actually most plants do, almost 90 percent of all flora on earth. With this system, carbon dioxide enters through stomata on the plants leaves. After entering the plant, the CO2 is passed onto the Rubisco enzyme where it is fixed into sugar through a process called the Calvin-Benson Cycle. Fascinating, right?

There are a couple reasons why C3 plants are incapable of surviving warmer climates. For starters, when stomata open up to let carbon dioxide in, they release water vapor, which disallows them to survive in heat. Rubisco’s purpose is to fix carbon dioxide, however they also have the ability to fix oxygen molecules. About 20% of the time, Rubisco accidentally fixes oxygen along with carbon creating a poor double-carbon compound that can’t help sustain the plant. Over time, southern plants have adapted and created a way to fix this problem, though slightly defective. They undergo a process called photorespiration, which recycles the flawed compounds releasing oxygen. This does require quite a bit of energy from the plant though.

Believe it or not, some southern plants have become even more creative, corn being a prime example. Corn stops the need for photo respiration by completely removing rubisco from the first step of photosynthesis and instead uses an enzyme called PEP. The entire step takes place in the mesophyll cell which is located quite close to the stomata. Unlike rubisco, PEP is extremely attracted to carbon and never interacts with oxygen, the mesophyll acts as a filter and after it grabs the CO2 it is shipped to the Rubisco to be made into sugar, completely eliminating the oxygen. Plants really are a miracle…

C3 grasses thrive in temperatures between 60 and 75 but can also survive much lower, meaning they do not cope well with extreme heat. C4 plants live their best life in temperatures between 80 and 95 degrees but cannot tolerate anything below 40.

Scores tend to drop lower above the Transition Zone mainly due to the grasses.

Northern grasses are more flexible and thin allowing for the ball to fall down into the fairway. However, the club head slides through C3 grass with little to no resistance… this makes it easier to have club first contact when swinging but punishes a fat shot as the club digs into the turf. In Northern climates it’s beneficial to come in with a much shallower attack angle and attempt to sweep the ball rather than post through every shot. For a lower handicap golfer a normal swing may turn out just fine but for high handicappers I definitely recommend having more of a ‘sweep’ or ‘pick’ mindset.

Photo Credit: Thechiputt.com

Whereas Northern grasses allow the ball to fall down through them, southern grasses create a woven web of stems known as stolons or rhizomes, which creates a dense springy mat to hold the ball up high. On tightly mown southern fairways, especially Zoysia the ball sits propped up on top. But when you hit a ball into the rough and the grain is against you, the ball will most likely sit down in a snaggy pocket of grass, making it much harder to hit. The high friction of all C4 turf acts like Velcro. If your clubhead catches the grass before the ball, the grass will grab the hosel and twist your face closed, causing a nasty pull or smother. Quite unlike more northern turfs, you cannot sweep the ball off of C4 rough. You need to have a slightly steep angle of attack, keep your hands in front of the club head through impact and hold the club tighter to prevent the face from twisting. A common mistake on southern grass is having too steep of an attack angle which causes dig, possibly the worst feeling in golf save a s***k.

“C3 and C4 grasses create distinct friction patterns between the ball and the turf. This friction directly dictates how high the ball launches, how much spin it generates and how it behaves once it hits the putting surface.”

Because C3 turf is thin, most times, soft, clean contact is expected and very common. This allows your clubs grooves and loft to work exactly as they were engineered. For a low handicap golfer playing in the North it’s rather easy to hit both a high and a low shot off of the fairway. The turf doesn’t bunch between the face and the ball so you can change your ball position to manipulate flight without concern for contact. In the North, grass collapses very easily under the club so out of rough you can still escape with relatively high launch, though deep rough will naturally cause a lower ball flight. Most agronomists or greens keeping staff in the North like to grow rough very tall at courses like Aronomink or Shinnecock where high-level tournaments are played so that misses off the tee are punished by 3 to 5 inch Fescue or Ryegrass rough. Meanwhile southern rough isn’t very deep, it doesn’t need to be because of how devastating southern fairway grass can be.

Most of my time is spent in either New York, Florida or Montana and the differences in these three places is monumental when it comes to golf. I train in Florida where I believe golf becomes the hardest and most heartbreaking. Terrible contact is more common than in places like New York or Jersey where range sessions are immensely gratifying. I find that in Florida you must hit fairways as approach shots are tedious and specific, putting also becomes a huge aspect of the game where up-and-downs are a must-have. In the Northern states tee shots are punished by thick rough, but low accurate ball flight out of the rough makes it easy to approach greens, once again, putting is crucial for low scores. Like they say — “Drive for show, putt for dough”

All botany information cited from RIPE (https://ripe.illinois.edu/). All golf information cited from personal opinion and experience.

John Tunney iV is a homeschooled 8th grade student. This work has been verified by his Educator for the absence of AI and the presence of true creativity, research and execution.