Water Burns Lawns. Really?

Old wives tales and urban legends litter the landscape of the home lawn care business. Among those that seems to be the most persistent and downright weird is the old adage that we shouldn't water the lawn in the direct sun, otherwise the water will burn the grass. I have run into countless examples of people allowing their grass to turn straw brown and crunchy to avoid having the water burn it. ???

If you google the question "Can water burn grass?" you'll be directed to pages like the following:

eHow

Yahoo Answers

While this Internet thingy has its advantages, it ends up falling on guys like me to set the record straight. I plan to do that here.

Water won't burn grass. There, it's straight.

I'm sure someone somewhere tried to water their lawn on a scorching hot day. It was probably too little, too late, but the grass hadn't actually turned brown yet. In fact, the grass actually will stay green for a few hours once it has hit the wall and starts going dormant. They watered. The lawn turned brown anyway. They connected the two dots using logical, but incorrect assumptions. These people told their friends, who told their friends, etc. The legend was born and started floating around the country, closely tethered to the "Mikey's Death From Coke & Pop Rocks" story.

While it was relatively easy to bring Mikey out of retirement for a new Life Cereal ad, I simply can't go look at a brown lawn that turned brown after watering and prove that it had nothing to do with the water. I can tell you that this rumor has no basis in fact, and there's no reason to give it the benefit of the doubt.