Golf Rough Weed, Pests and Disease

Weeds, or more likely the flowers of weeds, especially those with predominantly white flowers such as daisy and yarrow, can be a problem in semi-rough areas at flowering time as their presence can make it much harder to find a ball mishit into the semi-rough. Keeping play moving, without unnecessary delays may require the use of a selective herbicide in certain areas of the semi-rough.

The use of herbicides in the standard or deep rough is more questionable as there can be significant environmental and wildlife benefits, especially by reducing the harm done to insect food sources, in not applying pesticides to the rough.

Pests can be a particular, especially localised, problem on some semi-rough areas and these do need to be addressed, primarily for user safety when venturing into the semi-rough and rough areas of a course.

Moles and rabbits, where present in sufficient quantity, will need to be controlled and hazards from sunken mole runs or rabbit scrapes repaired to make safe, as well as to reduce these being unfair on a golfer’s ball that happens to land by or in a rabbit scrape.

Leatherjackets and chafer grubs might present a problem in some roughs. Monitoring for signs of these insects using pheromone traps might help to make better informed decisions as to whether biological or chemical control (if available) is needed. The cost of applying nematodes, for example, to large areas can be very expensive so thresholds for other controls besides cultural and physical methods will either be high or damage, which will primarily be more of a visual nature in the rough, will just be an accepted part of infestation.

Due to less intensity of maintenance carried out on a semi-rough, the extent of stress to which a turfgrass plant is exposed is negligible. This will make the grass rarely susceptible to disease. Some visual discolouring might occur, especially with leaf tip die back, from high winds, drought, wet or occasional waterlogged conditions, but these will onto be temporary and considered as part of the natural response to environmental conditions, generally not requiring any input from a greenkeeper to address, except for maybe some localised drainage work where required.