Now’s the time Pam Smith described as the “pinnacle of hot” for the longest-running golf course west of the Mississippi.
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“I know what’s coming,” the director of agronomy for Denver’s golf courses said of conditions at Overland Park Golf Course, which opened in 1895.
She and Matt Bennett, the superintendent who manages maintenance for the 18 holes, say they think 2026 is ushering in a new era of normal for local courses. This year’s drought conditions have caused all of Denver’s eight city-owned courses to cut their water budget by 20%.
“Golfers, especially in the West, we’ve got to get used to not everything being green,” Bennett said during a recent golf cart tour of Overland. “We’re not Augusta National.”
Much of the water used to quench Denver Parks & Recreation’s grass has been going to tee boxes, fairways and greens rather than the rough. While those main areas still look fairly lush at Overland, the outer reaches and in-between spots are browner.
Bennett and his team have also stopped watering the driving range grass to have more to give the rest of the course. The driving range appears in significantly worse condition than the rest of the course, though that could change through reseeding with more drought-resistant grass
“I don’t think this is every golfer’s experience, but some say playing out of the rough is way easier than the fairway now,” said Smith, who’s been the city’s agronomy director for nearly 20 years. Typically, the out-of-bounds edges of the course are more difficult to hit out of because the grass is longer.
“That makes my day,” she continued, saying it’s evidence that golfers are adapting.
Smith’s courses have hit the 20% reduction target in May and June after Denver Water, which supplies the courses, instituted changes earlier this year. She also said they’re on track to hit that goal in July.
In a normal year, each course would require between 45 million and 65 million gallons of water to keep the grass green. That’s the equivalent of hundreds of houses — the average household of four uses 73,000 gallons a year, according to Denver Water. Smith estimated that it would’ve taken 55 million to 75 million gallons to maintain baseline conditions this year if there were no restrictions.
“We already water at a pretty restrictive rate to start with, so now you’re taking away 20% from someone being very efficient and throwing in the climate that’s already hotter and drier than the last 5 years,” Smith said.
She did not share how much Denver Parks & Recreation spends on water each season. But her department expects to spend more this year despite the reduction because water rates are up as a result of the drought.
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Crews at courses also have been mowing less throughout the summer. Bennett said his team at Overland is mowing the rough once a week instead of the usual twice and trimming shorter grass twice weekly instead of three times, something Smith added is typical across the city’s portfolio.
Still, the turf at Overland and other city-owned courses has been looking greener than expected, in part because a wet May helped sustain a drier June and early July. That caused things to brown more around the course, but in the past several weeks, the grass has bounced back thanks to more rain.
Another part of that is a new technology Smith’s team has been using this year at City Park, which has the most sprinkler heads of any Denver facility; Overland, where Bennett is “very tech savvy,” Smith said; and at Willis Case, which uses potable water and is the most expensive to maintain.
TurfRad, as the system is called, measures water radiation at each course every day. Somebody from the maintenance crew takes it out every morning to track moisture levels in the soil and predict what’s coming down the pike. The software allows each course superintendent to make hundreds of head adjustments to change the speed and scope of watering each day. A human crew member can make only tens of changes daily.
Smith said each system costs $12,000 for the equipment, along with a $16,000 yearly subscription for the software. At Overland, it takes Bennett about 1½ hours to survey the course. His turfRad scanners are affixed to several two-by-fours that are ratchet-strapped onto a golf cart.
“It’s not so much about cost savings, but you take the water you have, and you’re much more effective in how you put it out,” Smith said. “Formerly, we’d look at the turf from a humanistic perspective. Now, the golfer’s experience is much better too. They used to find mush spots or dry spots across a course.”
Those golfers have been pretty understanding of the conditions that Smith and her staff face, she said, despite more golfers checking the “could be better box” on recent surveys about the shape of a given course.
With an El Niño weather pattern forecast for the future, Smith is optimistic about making it through the end of the season. Irrigation systems typically shut off around Thanksgiving and come on in late winter, depending on the weather.
That didn’t happen last year, though. They turned the system back on in February to make sure the grass wouldn’t die out and just stay dormant. At one point, she and her staff had to pause golf cart use to keep the ground from getting too beat up. It was the busiest winter season yet, Smith said.
“To me this all is an opportunity to adapt and learn and grow and change our expectations around turf and the optics around turf,” she said.
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