Natural turfgrass sports fields exhibit within-field variations due to climatic conditions, field construction, field management, and foot traffic patterns from field usage. Variations within a field could influence the playing surface predictability and require athletes to make abrupt or frequent adjustments that lead to increased ground-derived injury occurrence. This study introduces a new methodology aimed at evaluating the potential relationship between within-field variations of turfgrass sports field properties and ground-derived athlete injuries. Collegiate Club Sport athletes self-reported ground-derived injuries over two years. Soil moisture, turfgrass quality, surface hardness, and turfgrass shear strength were quantified from their two home fields. Hot spot analysis identified significantly high (hot spots) and low (cold spots) values within the fields. Injury locations were compared to hot spot maps each month. Binomial proportion tests determined if there were differences between observed injury proportions and expected proportions. Twenty-three ground-derived injuries were reported overall. The observed injury proportions occurring in turfgrass quality cold spots [0.52 (95% CI 0.29-0.76)] and soil moisture hot spots [0.43 (95% CI 0.22-0.66)] was significantly higher than expected [0.20 (p < .001) and 0.21 (p < .05), respectively]. Most injuries in significant areas of turfgrass quality, soil moisture, and surface hardness were along edges of hot and cold spots. These results suggest a potential relationship between within-field variations and ground-derived injuries, particularly in transition areas between non-significant and significant high and low values. Future larger-scale studies can incorporate the reported methodology to validate this relationship and implement strategies that reduce ground-derived injuries.

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Research compared handheld and mobile data acquisitions of soil moisture [volumetric water content (VWC)], soil compaction (penetration resistance), and turfgrass vigor [normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI)] of four natural turfgrass sports fields using two sampling grid sizes (4.8 × 4.8 m and 4.8 × 9.6 m). Differences between the two sampling grid sizes were minimal, indicating that sampling with handheld devices using a 4.8 × 9.6 m grid (120–130 samples) would achieve results similar to the smaller grid size. Central tendencies and data distributions varied among the handheld and mobile devices. Moderate to strong correlation coefficients were observed for VWC and NDVI; however, weak to moderate correlation coefficients were observed for penetration resistance at three of the four locations. Kriged maps of VWC and NDVI displayed similar patterns of variability between handheld and mobile devices, but at different magnitudes. Spatial maps of penetration resistance were inconsistent due to device design and user reliability. Consequently, mobile devices may provide the most reliable results for penetration resistance of natural turfgrass sports fields.