Long grass or fast dirt; winter height of cut on greens.

Winter is here and when it gets cold, growth on the greens comes to a screeching halt. When there is no new growth, there is no recovery to any damage done to the greens or other turf on the course. The shorter grass shows more damage from ball marks, foot prints from aggressive winter golf cleats around the hole, foot traffic and pull carts through wet areas around greens, and carts that can't seem to stay on the paths.

Check out the spike pattern on these two pair of shoes. The bottom shoe has spikes that are common to most shoes on the market today. The top shoe has cleats that are more suited for football, not golf. When the greens are soft due to wet weather, the area around each hole gets very "tracked up."
Since the grass isn't growing and can't recover from traffic very well, we raise the height of cut on greens during winter months. During the playing season, we mow the greens at .095 ( 95 one thousandths of an inch, or real close to 3/32 of an inch.) About ten years ago .125 ( 1/8 ( or 4/32) of an inch) was the industry standard for summer greens height of cut. Due to advances in mower technology, we can now cut .030 lower ( even up to .050 lower !) during the playing season producing faster green speeds. But we have to be very careful with cutting too low for prolonged periods especially during hot weather when the turf is stressed, or we'll wind up with no grass, just fast dirt! OK, back to winter cutting heights. We raise the cutting height to .150 ( 5/32 of an inch) which is .055 inches higher during winter to help the turf deal with stress. Foot traffic, soggy soil conditions, and cold temperatures are all examples of  winter stress. The longer the grass, the better it can handle stress. The photos below will help you understand the difference between our summer and winter cutting heights.

 This photo shows a micrometer reading of .095, (24 sheets of printer paper thick) our summer cutting height.

Here is our winter cutting height of .150 (the thickness of 36 sheets of printer paper) and the difference between the two heights of cut. The difference is not much, an additional .050 is the thickness of 12 pieces of printer paper shown below.

We raise the height of cut just enough to keep the grass plants healthy to make it through the winter. Once spring arrives and the grass starts growing again, we'll drop the height of cut in steps to get back down to our summer cutting height. But for winter just remember one thing; slow grass is better than fast dirt!