Science, golf mingle on Palouse

By Bart Potter | For The Olympian • Published October 24, 2008

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There's science behind the golf at Palouse Ridge in Pullman

Palouse Ridge Golf Course in Pullman flows seamlessly up and down and around and about the contours of the topographic region that gives the course its first name.

It's safe to say it's the only golf course in the U.S. — the world? — that sits beside a nuclear reactor and a grizzly bear research compound.

The Nuclear Radiation Center, home to a 1.3 megawatt general atomics TRIGA nuclear reactor, a 1,000 Curie cobalt-60 irradiation facility, and a borated neutron capture treatment (BNCT) facility; and the Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Program building, with live grizzlies in residence (but not always in view), are worthy conversation pieces as you move tee-to-green past them.

It's less likely you'll be talking about, or even thinking about, something much closer at hand (and foot). But around here, the Kentucky bluegrass fairways and creeping bentgrass greens are the object of intense study.

Palouse Ridge is a golf course, but it's a laboratory, too. WSU's renowned turfgrass management program provides the science behind the sport, the grass beneath your feet, for its on-campus course, first, but also throughout the Northwest golf industry.

Charles Golob is research supervisor and manager of the turfgrass facility. He's got a B.S. and M.S. in agronomy from WSU, and he's worked in the turf program for 22 years.

There are good turfgrass reasons for the good ball roll that course superintendent Todd Lupkes says is a central part of designer John Harbottle III's grand plan for the course. According to Golob, the fairways, a blend of four bluegrass strains, show a vertical leaf growth pattern, mowed to a height of 3/8-inch to 1/2-inch, that holds a golf ball up and promotes roll.

Golob was the lead author for a study last fall titled "The Use of Black Sand to Accelerate Creeping Bentgrass Seed Germination and Emergence on a Late Fall Planted Putting Green." The site for the study was the green at No. 17, a left-to-right dogleg par-5.