A majestic, coastal course with amazing turf.

Using Stressgard^® to maintain appealing shades of green adds to the unique vibe at Shelter Harbor Golf Club.

Shelter Harbor is a place where a newcomer becomes disoriented in the grandeur of a 500-acre, 27-hole facility. Dachowski’s visit in late 2009 as part of a job interview resulted in him landing a coveted position and becoming a mainstay at a club where transience and permanence converge. The bulk of the membership lives elsewhere and only uses the golf course in the summer as June, July and August bring familiar faces striving for a fascinating golf experience and escapism from big-city life.

Awakening the courses – Shelter Harbor has an 18-hole Michael Hurdzan- and Dana Fry-designed championship layout and a 9-hole short course with coastal views – for summer sojourns requires a coordinated and calculated agronomic effort. The summer crew hovers around 30 determined workers, including 11 employees possessing turf degrees. The staff has enormous responsibilities. Dachowski’s team maintains 5½ acres of Velvet bentgrass greens and 48 acres of Seaside II bentgrass fairways.

The bentgrass requires year-round attention, and the Velvet can initially stun a newcomer. Shelter Harbor’s Velvet turns purple in winter before returning to an attractive green as temperatures warm. Learning the nuances of the variety represented one of Dachowski’s first tasks after becoming the club’s superintendent in early 2010.

“There’s not a lot of research on it,” he says. “You find out that it’s low fertility, but there’s not a lot of information or a guide to steer you in the right direction. It took a good two to three solid years to get used to it. But once we figured it out, we learned it’s a great grass.”

The grass requires less summer mowing than other bentgrass varieties. Dachowski says his team mows greens a “maximum” of three times per week in the middle of summer. Through daily rolling and a spray program created in collaboration with experts, members enjoy consistent, slick and disease-free greens, no small feat considering coastal climatic challenges such as fog, intense sunlight and warm evenings. “When you’re in school for turf and they teach you about the Temperate Oceanic Climate, you never know what that means (until you experience it),” Dachowski says.

Dachowski, who previously worked at Merion Golf Club, Quaker Ridge Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and The Cliffs at Keowee Falls, found the New England turf community eager to share information about climate-induced maintenance challenges. Dachowski worked with technical experts, establishing a program based upon climate history to combat “high dollar spot pressure.”

A partnership grounded in science.

Superintendent Mike Dachowski works closely with Envu’s Brian Giblin on creating reliable programs for Shelter Harbor Golf Club.

Cooperation from inquisitive superintendents such as Dachowski helped Envu launch its Green Solutions Team, a group of technical experts who conduct research to support superintendents. “We brought the Green Solutions Team to Shelter Harbor to start doing modeling with the weather,” says Brian Giblin, a Envu sales manager who covers New England. “Going to a place like Shelter Harbor, where they have such extremes and short windows, helped us determine how to best lay out a spray and preventative disease program looking at the weather.”

The collaboration yielded reciprocal benefits. Dachowski developed a reliable spray program, while Envu received data on new products, including additions to its Stressgard^® line.

Dachowski uses Signature™, Interface^® and Tartan^® on greens. In addition to helping Shelter Harbor avoid dollar spot, the program allows the Shelter Harbor to promote fast and firm conditions while deploying what Dachowski calls “lean” irrigation tactics. Greens are treated weekly from May to September. The program extends to Shelter Harbor’s fairways, which are sprayed biweekly using a rotation that includes Interface, Tartan, Exteris^® and Fiata^®. Moisture meters guide irrigation decisions on playing surfaces, and frequent rolling has further enhanced fairways.

“We balance things pretty well,” Dachowski says. “We will still be green, but we are not a vibrant obnoxious green. We’re just kind of a subtle green. The leaf blades are very thin because of the low fertility. You still get the green color. The Stressgard helps us get a good green color, but it’s not a fake green. When we spray one of the Stressgard products, particularly on fairways, we get good color on those for two weeks (and beyond).”

Dachowski’s relationship with his supplier, and particularly Giblin, continues to strengthen. Dachowski uses parts of the par-3 course, which features the highest humidity on the property because of proximity to the ocean, to test products. Dachowski then shares the results with Giblin and fellow superintendents. “Having the scientific data is big,” Giblin says. “Mike has that relationship with his peers where they talk back and forth. Tapping into that group of people who talk about what they are seeing goes a long way for the both of us.”

Tweaks to the program will be minor in 2019, Dachowski says, because of repeated success avoiding disease and unpleasant aesthetics. Shelter Harbor often records nighttime temperatures surpassing 70 degrees throughout the summer, which contrast milder nighttime weather at Dachowski’s past Northeast stops. But a proven program means a coastal calm permeates the crew. “It gives you peace of mind knowing we are covering our bases for what could be popping up,” Dachowski says. “You don’t stress out about what’s going to pop up out here because you know what’s going to happen.”

From the field

Envu area sales manager Brian Giblin, who works with superintendents in New England, says resorting to agronomics basics can help golf courses in cool-weather environments achieve desirable results as they try to present quality early-season conditions and aesthetics: “Don’t try to add a million and one things to your turf. Sometimes overdoing it can push things in the wrong direction. When you have a balanced approach, you’re going to know your soil conditions and your levels, and what’s available so the plant is only getting what it needs. Stressgard is an input that provides benefits beyond disease control. It’s more than just a fungicide. Everybody has fungicides and we all expect them to be successful and prevent disease. But adding in Stressgard helps superintendents dial things back a little bit and keep turf healthy.”

Content from this story is taken from a GolfCourseIndustry.com article by Guy Cipriano published on June 6, 2019.

 

Working together to prevent problems.

Shelter Harbor superintendent Mike Dachowski, second from left, with assistants Greg Hunkins, Cody Woods and Victor Faconti.