Trends at Coachella Valley golf courses spring up every three or four years. Some fade away and some stick around for a while.
The hottest trend at desert golf courses at the moment, one that seems to be sticking around, is MiniVerde. The dwarf Bermuda grass with a relatively dark color has become popular as a new greens surface at many desert facilities.
Add to that list the Pate Course at Rancho La Quinta Country Club. Director of Agronomy Christopher Erickson, in just his first year at Rancho La Quinta, oversaw a renovation of the 24-year-old Pate Course that included transitioning all 18 greens on the course from Tifdwarf Bermuda to MiniVerde.
“I have a very high level of comfort managing MiniVerde in Texas at multiple properties,” Erickson said. “I have always liked it. I have always liked the color of it. And I have always liked the fact that the grain is so much more minimal than TifEagle.”
Another advantage of MiniVerde is that it often doesn’t require overseeding to keep its color in the winter. Rancho La Quinta won’t overseed the Pate greens this year, wanting the MiniVerde to establish itself before being introduced to cool-weather grasses next year.
Mike Williams, chairman of the golf committee at Rancho La Quinta, said the membership at the facility is excited by the change.
“The more Chris educated us on it, the more we bought in,” Williams said. “We are all following him because he knows what he is doing. We can tell. The one thing people are wondering about is if we are going to overseed. We are not going to overseed this year. He wants this to have a year, and make sure this is not competing with an overseed. We are kind of curious what’s going to happen. But everyone is so excited we have already decided we want to do this over on the Jones Course next summer.”
The process includes stripping off two inches of existing organic materials and then blending more leftover materials with new organics to help the MiniVerde establish roots. In addition, Erickson and his staff took the opportunity to expand the 18 greens back to their original sizes and contours. Erickson says the contours are now within a quarter of an inch of the original plans from 2000.
Bunker sand dazzles
Changing grasses on one of the two golf courses at Rancho La Quinta was just part of the work at the La Quinta property this summer. The most obvious change was swapping out the sand in all 89 bunkers on the Pate Course to Augusta White, a bright sand that practically sparkles in the desert sunlight.
Christopher Erickson, director of agronomy at Rancho La Quinta Country Club, inspects the new Augusta White sand put into the bunkers on the Pate Course at the club this summer. (Larry Bohannan/USA Today Network)
As part of that renovation, Erickson and his staff also included new bunker linings in each trap, a white lining known as Bunker Solutions.
“What we have is six inches of sand to make sure you have plenty of material to hit through,” Erickson said. “We have a very minimal amount of sand in our bunkers because at the end of the day, you can hit a golf shot off of Bunker Solutions. It’s Astroturf, it’s like the field turf for the football fields.”
The Augusta White not only gives the Pate Course a new visual look from the tee and around the greens, but it also makes financial sense, Erickson said. With the white Bunker Solutions, Erickson and his team are able to use less sand in each bunker.
“Next summer we can take half of this (sand) out because we used half of the amount that you traditionally use in a bunker,” he said.
Adding to the financial advantage of the Augusta White is that this batch of sand was mined in Lucerne Valley, meaning the sand could be delivered and the trucks back in Lucerne Valley within four hours.
Going to a new grass is only part of the changes at Rancho La Quinta over the summer. The club has also leveled the teeing area for the practice facility, which had mounded in the middle through the years and limited the flat areas for golfers to hit from. In addition, cart paths around the practice facility have been widened and redone with pavers rather than concrete.
While the Pate Course opened in 2000, the Jones Course opened six years before that. Even as the younger of the two courses, Williams said the Pate Course greens needed some change.
“We all felt that this was going to be an upgrade from the beginning,” Williams said. “These greens had become hard. They weren’t very receptive. The Bermuda grass we had on there was not the right kind. It was just not the right receptivity.”