The Cognizant Classic’s home, PGA National, has gained extra media attention over the last two editions, though the story is not about the players gracing the grass; it is about the grass itself.
More specifically, people are talking about overseeding.
PGA National Resort uses the process of overseeding to keep its rough and fairways rich, soft, and green. Since its implementation in 2023, the Champion Course has become a more playable beast, allowing players to reach lower scores due to the rough providing better lies.
In 2025, Joe Highsmith won the Cognizant Classic with a score of 19-under, and Jake Knapp shot a ludicrously low 59 on the opening day - something previously unheard of over the feared Floridian layout.
Additionally, overseeding also improves the aesthetics of the course on television, as highlighted in popular culture by the particularly green grass at Snow Canyon Country Club in High School Musical 2.
So, what exactly is this process?
Overseeding is a very common practice in the south of the United States, largely due to the climate.
Courses in the south often favor Bermuda grass due to its ability to tolerate warm temperatures. However, like the northern state-based golfers who migrate south every fall, Bermuda struggles in the cold.
In the winter, Bermuda grass enters a dormant state and turns brown, and would ultimately die out if left in freezing temperatures for too long. This is where Ryegrass enters the equation.
Ryegrass is a cool-season grass seed that is spread over the current warm-season turf (Bermuda) in the fall to maintain high-quality conditions throughout the winter. This repairs any damage and boosts turf density, to ensure luscious courses even when the Bermuda has fallen dormant.
Masters venue Augusta National uses perennial ryegrass when its base Bermuda is dormant. Tee-boxes, fairways and the rough are all overseeded to conjure up the magical allure of Amen Corner and co, delivering the intense, popping colours you enjoy on television
However, in contrast to the rest of the course, Augusta’s greens are exempt from the overseeding process. This is due to them being a special strain of bentgrass that flourishes in the early spring climate.
This transitional period, between fall and spring, is by no means easy and certainly not cheap. Many courses opt for a ‘wall-to-wall’ approach, meaning every single part of the course is covered.
This requires courses to shut down for extended periods of time. Bermuda grass will be scraped off to make way for the ryegrass, and the seedlings are then heavily, repeatedly, watered and fertilized.
Following this, course conditions can be tetchy, but once January and February arrive, the course captures perfection before awaiting the warmth of the approaching summer.
Aside from benefitting TV viewers with lush green landscapes, overseeding has also had a significant impact on maintainence and the challenge of the course. Overseeding requires extremely consistent irrigation to maintain seed germination, producing slower, softer and generally more forgiving conditions.
Common but controversial
Overseeding is common practice across the States, but also a controversial one.
The process demands high costs and significant resources; seed alone is said to cost upwards of $100,000 for an entire course. Environmental critics raise concerns over the copious amounts of water overseeding requires, as well as fertilizer and increased machine power.
Going below the surface, the base turf slowly weakens due to dormant Bermuda fighting with the ryegrass for nutrients and water.
In States such as Arizona, overseeding is the norm, however many courses across America are now beginning to opt out of it.
Anthem Country Club in Nevada ended its overseeding operations in 2022-23, instead opting for a drought-tolerant Bermudagrass. This switch predicated Southern Nevada’s implementation of water restrictions in 2024.
Brooks Koepka, one of the Cognizant Classic’s headline acts, spoke on the changes to his hometown course, where he admitted that the process of overseeding made things easier for the pros.
“The course has changed so much, I think, from when I last played it, being overseeded,” he stated.
“Chipping around the greens has gotten a lot easier. The rough is down a little bit. It was so difficult because if you got in the rough here, you had to judge whether it was going to be a 30-yard flier or just come out 30 percent of its normal distance.
"It was just a pure guess. So it's a little more consistent now. You can kind of judge that better.
“I think you look at 10 being a par-4, chipping around these greens. On the back of 4, 11, they were always very dicey. If you missed those greens, you knew you were pretty much making bogey.
"Now with it being a little bit more consistent, I think you've got a reasonable chance of holing a chip or even getting it up-and-down.”
Time will tell whether this proves true as the Cognizant Classic plays out.
