The warm-weather grass developed in Poteet, Texas is making a global debut on Gil Hanse’s Rio de Janeiro golf course in August. The grass requires less water, fertilizer, nitrogen and pesticide than most other types of golf turf, and can endure Rio’s poor soil and water quality.
Zeon Zoysia, a durable, warm-weather grass developed in tiny Poteet, Texas, is making a global debut on Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic golf course, The New York Times reported.
Bred and developed over the past 20 years by Bladerunner Farms, a turf nursery 40 miles outside of San Antonio, Zeon Zoysia could play a role in the sport’s potential growth, particularly in South America, an expanding market for course construction, the Times reported.
“It’s one way to make the Olympics,” said David Doguet, the owner of Bladerunner Farms. “We didn’t make the Olympics as athletes, but we made it as grass farmers.”
Gil Hanse, in consultation with the Hall of Famer Amy Alcott, designed the 7,290-yard, par-71 course in the Barra da Tijuca area, about three miles from the Olympic Village. Nearly 90% of the 88-acre course will feature Zeon Zoysia, including on the fairways, the roughs and the tee boxes, the Times reported.
Zeon Zoysia requires less water, fertilizer, nitrogen and pesticide than most other types of golf turf, Doguet said. Perhaps most important, he said, it can endure Rio’s poor soil and water quality and meets the strict environmental regulations that prohibit the use of chemical fertilizers and weed killers on the course, which is on a nature preserve, the Times reported.
“The playability of the surface is always good,” he said.
Course designers also like the grass for its minimal requirements for water and care, which can reduce operating costs, the Times reported.
Zeon Zoysia first appeared on American courses in 2001. Most recently, Tiger Woods used it on Bluejack National, his first course in the United States, outside Houston. Trinity Forest Golf Course, a new site in Dallas that will host the Byron Nelson PGA tournament in 2019, also features Zeon Zoysia, the Times reported.
A lush Olympic golf course that is able to survive Rio’s harsh environment, looks good and plays great could provide much-needed relief to the sport. Golf’s bumpy return to the Olympics has been marked by the withdrawals of top male players, who have cited tight tour schedules and concerns over security and the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness linked to birth defects, the Times reported.
Olympic golf took another hit at the British Open this month when Rory McIlroy told reporters that he would not watch it on television, instead preferring track and field, swimming and diving, the Times reported.
“I won’t say they’re prima donnas, but we have very high-value players that choose to not attend for various reasons, which will obviously affect some, but not people here in Rio,” said Neil Cleverly, Rio’s Olympic golf course superintendent. “They don’t know Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth from Father Christmas. Organizers put this together under the auspices that these guys are playing, and then they don’t come.
“Why, because of Zika or security? You could be shot in downtown Chicago or run over in Florida just as easily.”
After Rio, the International Olympic Committee has included golf at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. Beyond that, the sport’s Olympic future is uncertain. A good show at Rio, where 120 men and women will play in separate tournaments before three billion television viewers worldwide, would bolster the case to keep golf in the Olympic program and help maintain interest in the sport, the Times reported.
Zeon Zoysia is playing its part this summer, though it is far less celebrated. The course defied every harsh condition, natural and political, that Rio has presented. In 2012, two handfuls of grass sprigs were shipped down from Texas to an off-site turf farm in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, where it was grown and tended by Marcelo Matte of Green Grass Brasil. The sprigs were then grown into one acre of sod and trucked 1,000 miles to a farm near the course. At the farm, Matte grew the sod to 60 acres, and it was planted on the golf course in 2014 by six local men whose only experience was working on soccer fields, the Times reported.
The grass was laid down in large rolls of sod unfurled or as sod slabs fitted together like puzzle pieces. The entire process, including continuing weeding and sod installation, was done by hand, the Times reported.
“You’ll see it on television,” Matte said. “No patches, very clean and green. Olympic golf will be a natural beauty.”
Along the way, there were setbacks and logistical delays, including late paychecks, limited resources, equipment issues, environmental protests, bureaucratic roadblocks, debates over land ownership and a months-long legal battle in which the builders were accused of violating environmental regulations. The builders were prohibited from removing or adding any soil to the course and were forced to dig below sand deposits for usable soil. Chemicals were banned. Sand was recycled for traps, the Times reported.
Doguet said that Cleverly “couldn’t manage the course the way you would at one of the majors, where they can do anything to make a course look good and play well.”
Cleverly has helped build challenging courses in remote areas in Egypt, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, earning him a reputation as “the Indiana Jones of golf course construction” and the “grass whisperer.” He said the Rio course, with the alchemy required to build it, was unlike any other course he had built, the Times reported.
“Having patience, thick skin and a military background helped,” he added.
The course is ready for its close-up. This month, it won Golf Digest’s Green Star Award for outstanding environmental practices, an industry honor. Since the course was built, native vegetation has increased by 167%, according to an assessment report by the Rio government that was cited by the magazine. The number of animal species has more than doubled and now includes a mix of monkeys, owls, sandpipers, egrets, crocodile-like caimans and capybaras, the world’s largest rodent, the Times reported.
When the Olympics are over, the site will become Brazil’s first public golf course. Doguet is pleased about that legacy and shrugs off the problems surrounding Olympic golf. He said the dropouts and critics were beside the point, the Times reported.
“This is the first Olympic golf course ever built,” Doguet said. “This is history.”
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