Coming off an amazing trip to the US Open, I can’t help but think of what would have been had the rain stayed away and the course truly firmed up. The announcers wouldn’t have asked Merion’s director of grounds, Matt Shaffer, about the possibility of players shooting 17 to 19 under par (which Matt immediately laughed off by saying “That’s not going to happen.”). Instead they would have probably asked whether the winning score would have been par.

As it turns out, Merion got over six inches of rain during the week and was still able to fend off the best golfers in the world, leaving Justin Rose the winner at an astounding 1 over par. Had it been dry, the winning score may have embarrassed most of the pros, as well as the USGA.

Regardless of the US Open outcome, water management is probably one of the most important aspects of turfgrass management. More importantly, it’s not just about how to add water, but how to remove it as well.

At universities across the country, we all share the same mantra of “deep and infrequent” when it comes to the application of water turfgrass. We sometimes talk about replenishing the system to a set percentage of the ET. We may even go into detail about the current techniques and technology that allows for rapid movement of water through soil profiles.

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