Author: Nathan Edwards

Sir Grange Zoysia is making its mark on some of the country’s top golf courses. Here’s why it could be here to stay

IN THE hinterland between Ballina and Lismore on the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales lies a renovated nine-holer winning plaudits from locals and interlopers. Teven Valley Golf Club [pictured] is the inspiration of former Westpac banker Curt Zuber who purchased the fledgling course in 2016.

Determined to create something special, Zuber commissioned former tour professional Craig Parry who had previously designed a backyard hole at Zuber’s Sydney residence. To construct the new layout, Zuber approached Paul Gumbleton, superintendent at his home club of Monash Country Club, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Gumbleton and former Kingston Heath assistant super Bob Simmons spent three years building the new Teven Valley one hole at time.

Such has been the quality of the redesign that it’s created insatiable demand to play a par-31 layout that maxes out at just 1,705 metres. The $60 green fee for nine holes is yet to curb the enthusiasm of visitors, while Teven Valley’s membership is fully capped at 400 with another 50 golfers on a waiting list to join a club with an annual sub of $1,500.

What makes Teven Valley unique is the turf composition. With the exception of its greens, Teven Valley is the only Australian course that features Sir Grange Zoysia on the entire layout. The finely bladed Sir Grange Zoysia is known as a ‘golfer’s grass’. It has a strong, upright leaf structure where a golf ball tends to sit up on top of the leaf rather than sinking into the profile.

THE STORY BEHIND SIR GRANGE ZOYSIA

In America, Sir Grange Zoysia is known by the name of Zeon Zoysia. It was developed by turf breeder David Doguet at Bladerunner Farms in Poteet, Texas. The storied Atlanta Athletic Club and the Rio Olympic course are two prominent tournament venues to feature Zeon Zoysia. Lawn Solutions Australia is the licence holder here under the label Sir Grange Zoysia. It produces more than 50 per cent of all turf sold in Australia from 43 turf production farms under the Lawn Solutions banner. One of those farms, Daleys Turf on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, supplied Sir Grange Zoysia to Teven Valley.

While a variety of couch grasses were considered for Teven Valley, the decision came down to three important factors: playability, environmental suitability and cost savings over the long term. As a boutique golf course, Sir Grange Zoysia offered an opportunity to have a point of difference to other clubs. For Teven Valley course designer Parry, the selection of Sir Grange Zoysia was straight-forward once he realised it was readily available here in Australia. Parry appreciated the qualities of zoysia while playing the PGA Tour event at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm near Washington D.C. “They have extreme weather conditions. So they get really hot in summer and it snows in winter. So if a grass can actually get through that, it would be a really good surface to play on. It was a no-brainer as far as it was going to do well in Teven,” Parry says.

“It’s a very hardy grass. The ball really sits up on a tee. [With] some grasses the ball sits down and it’s difficult to get underneath it. Whereas when you’re playing off zoysia, it sits up and it’s just looking at you all the time. It’s a fantastic grass.” From an environmental perspective, Sir Grange Zoysia was a good choice for the humid sub-tropical climate of the Northern Rivers. It needs probably half the amount of fertiliser as other turf grasses.

In fact, some of Teven Valley’s fairways haven’t been fertilised for three years. “They are pure. It’s an incredible surface. The golf course always stays in immaculate condition,” Gumbleton enthuses. So fewer chemicals and less disease. Hence, it’s good for golf clubs from a financial perspective. And as a relatively slow-growing grass, Sir Grange Zoysia also made sense given Teven Valley was initially maintained by just two turf managers.

“For what we were planning to do with a small team,” Gumbleton adds, “[Sir Grange Zoysia] was going to be a better grass, especially for this Northern Rivers area where the grass will grow around your feet if you stand still long enough.”

As to the cost-savings, Gumbleton says: “Expensive grass to put down. We put down 76,000 square metres, all laid by hand. But we could see the benefits. If I was to do a cost-benefit analysis now, we’d be nearly back in front.” Sir Grange Zoysia is also resilient and withstood the epic floods that engulfed the Northern Rivers during the past two years. Teven Valley hadn’t lost any turf, apart from where the force of the water ripped turf out of the ground. Elsewhere at Killara Golf Club on Sydney’s affluent north shore, Lawn Solutions Australia provided 75,000m2 of Sir Grange Zoysia in solid turf from its Jimboomba Turf farm in Queensland. Sir Grange was used on tees and tightly mown surfaces surrounding all 18 greens, offering a neat contrast between the bentgrass putting surfaces and kikuyu fairways.

Apart from being a beautiful surface from which to chip, pitch and putt, Sir Grange Zoysia is not invasive like kikuyu where the runners tend to creep into a green. That was an incentive for Killara, which spent $1 million alone on Sir Grange as part of a $5.6 million renovation. The overall refurbishment has been a resounding success, vindicated by Killara’s re-appearance in Australia’s Top 100 Courses at No.83 after an absence of almost two decades. Zoysia performs particularly well in shade-tolerant areas. On the NSW South Coast, Catalina Country Club at Batemans Bay laid 2,500m2 of Sir Grange on a shade-affected hole with pleasing results. Wollongong, Narooma and Pambula-Merimbula golf clubs have also trialled Sir Grange Zoysia.

Mollymook Golf Club is considering laying Sir Grange at its Hilltop course (currently No.92 in Australian Golf Digest’s Top 100) after a successful trial at its nine-hole Beachside course, which led to maintenance savings.

When posed a question as to whether Sir Grange Zoysia sounds as though it’s a ‘wonder grass’, superintendent Gumbleton paused for a moment before replying: “That’s a pretty fair statement.”

As seen in…

Golf Digest…

Australian East Coast Experiencing Biggest Turf Shortage Ever Seen

The Australian DIY market has exploded, with the nauseating boredom of endless lock downs and working from home driving even the laziest of folk into action. Why not fix the backyard up? We’ve barely touched it for the greater part of a decade while we’ve lived here, but now’s the time!… said everyone all at once.

But unfortunately gone are the days (for now anyway) of making an order and receiving your turf the next day. You can still purchase freshly harvested turf; however, your delivery may have to be scheduled for a few days or even weeks later. This year it was a perfect storm, with the biggest building boom, the largest flood, and the largest demand for turf in 30 years, creating turf shortages we have never experienced before.

The devastating NSW floods experienced in March have wreaked havoc on supply more than anything else. With the forecast in the lead up being of “minor to moderate flooding,” but what actually developed was “major flooding.” The amount of rain that did come, caused utter destruction. Areas of the Hawkesbury Valley west of Sydney and on the NSW Mid-North Coast were the hardest hit, with over 2,800 hectares of turf production severely impacted.

As Bo Burnham says in his latest comedy special on Netflix, we want to have available to us ‘a little bit of everything all of the time.’ This is about our use of the internet, but this has extended to every single aspect of our lives. We really do want a little bit of everything, all of the time… more than ever. But the reality is we can’t. You want a new car? Sure thing, you can have this white one right now, but for anything else there is a 3 month wait.

The turf industry is obviously no different. But it’s not like the iconic Sir Walter DNA Certified buffalo grass is impossible to get. You might have to wait a little bit for it, but you will get it.

The housing boom has continued to climb with a record 143,700 detached homes commencing construction this year. That’s a lot of new lawns. The building industry naturally as a result has supply constraints up the wazoo, probably because everyone seems to have bucket loads of cash and wants to build, renovate, renew, and extend and it’s absurd to comprehend an interest rate rise… just don’t ask the RBA. That’s like so 2024’s problem, right or is it 2023 now?

The trend for DIY has obviously saturated our tv content as well. Love it or hate it, The Block is like the reincarnation of Hey Hey it’s Saturday. Everyone’s watching it. The ratings are sky high, and it’s just been signed on for another 3 seasons. If The Block was aired exclusively on TikTok they would have to call it BlockTok.

The lesson to be learnt out of all of this… all good things take time… I think.

If you need a new lawn, some turf, the iconic Sir Walter or the new TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda, you may need to wait, but it’ll be worth it. If your local supplier has a waiting list, don’t wait, get on it now.

Lawn Solutions Australia is proud be a sponsor of Water Night 2021, brought to you by the Smart Approved WaterMark.

Thursday 21 October 2021 | 12pm – 12am

No taps. One night only.
Improve your water mindfulness

 

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Did you know that TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda is the first and only turf grass to be awarded the Smart Approved WaterMark? For more information on this incredible water efficient grass, click here.

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