After overseeding, the summer turf is slower to grow back in and may stay scraggly into midsummer.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

Phoenix Country Club did "reverse" overseeding this fall: allowing its fairways to go dormant, but overseeding the rough.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

Painting fairways is just one of the tricks that course supers can use to cut down on overseeding.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

The two courses at Grayhawk, a deluxe 36-hole daily-fee facility here, are typical of where overseeding stands today.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

At first they may drop overseeding for just one year every two or three, while judging member and customer reactions.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

Even so, overseeding practices in the Southwest have changed dramatically in the last five to seven years, as the golf industry's overbuilding boom went bust and put pressure on bottom lines.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

Given the progress that researchers are making on new, hardier grasses and agronomic techniques, Pock, a third-generation Arizona golf-course expert, expects more courses to move to minimal overseeding in the years ahead.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

The labor costs of overseeding are also significant.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

That's the reason that Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina, which will host the 2014 U.S. Open, has stopped overseeding entirely: It wants its Bermuda fairways as strong and healthy as possible for the big event.

WSJ: Why Brown Is the New Green | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport