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Going mobile
Once an extravagant extra for many superintendents,
hand-held devices are now tools most can’t live without.
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There was a time when superintendents used hand signals to communicate with their staffs. First, a loud whistle to get their attention, then some arm flailing, and eventually the crew knew to come back to the shop as soon as they were done with their current task.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Now, a superintendent uses a hand-held radio to talk to their crew members. Once they’re done talking, the same device is used to give the No. 4 fairway a quick syringing. The superintendent puts that away and checks e-mail on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). An e-mail from the general manager approves a purchase of seed, but that distributor is such a windbag … so send him the order as a text message on the cell phone.
The old hand signals? Those are reserved for a wave to a member on the practice green. Otherwise, the hands are busy punching buttons on technology that fits in the palm. From PDAs to cell phones to walkie talkies that double as irrigation centers, today’s superintendent has a myriad of gadgets at his disposal.
GCM worked the phones to see what supers were using all over the country, and even put some equipment in the hands of one superintendent, just to see what he thought.
Simple by design
Mitch Stamey, CGCS at the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville, N.C., has been using a hand-held device to operate the irrigation system on his course for 13 years now.
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“The first one I used in ’93 was the Toro OSMAC system. Now we have the Rain Bird Maxi Freedom System — the hand-held is a Kenwood,” the 15-year GCSAA member says. “I like the Kenwood because you can actually see the code being punched in. You can hold the code in your radio if someone is on the green, wait for them to leave, then hit the receiving button and it kicks in.”
Thankfully, all these gadgets make the job of the superintendent easier. That’s what they’re designed to do, of course, but there have been different technologies that require a user to re-educate time and time again to stay on top of the new equipment.
“It’s very simple and very efficient, that’s one good thing about it,” Stamey says. “There’s not a lot of technology involved in something like this.”
Jeff Plotts, the Class A superintendent at TPC Scottsdale in Arizona, remembers the days before cell phones, e-mail and wireless Internet. He got along without it, of course, but each new technology has made his job easier to perform.
“Every new technology that comes out just makes us more efficient,” he says.
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Fore Brown, CGCS at the Midland (Texas) Country Club, includes PDAs in his arsenal of weapons to keep his course looking good. Both he and his irrigation technician keep one handy.
“All the time, I think to myself, ‘How did we do without this?’” the 11-year member of GCSAA says. “Being able to monitor and adjust the irrigation system while you’re in the field, I would say it saves us three to four hours a week. Because we’re always adjusting irrigation run times, and now we’re able to adjust it with Palm Pilots.”
Brown and his team at Midland CC use Motorola hand-held radios and their PDAs are iPAQ from Hewlett-Packard. Brown says the things he’d like to see improved typically are improved, and that’s why he’s always quick to get the latest upgrade.
More with less
There’s one key point to all this technology, according to Paul Standerfer, product manager of golf central control products for Toro Irrigation, and that is that the grass doesn’t grow in the office.
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“The superintendent can now retain access to their system as they’re moving around; they don’t have to be sitting at their desk,” Standerfer says. “Things aren’t drying out in their office. You don’t have to worry about sprinkler-turning in the office. All those things are going on on the golf course.
It’s a logical goal, a logical desire for the superintendent to be where the action is and still have access to the control that he had in his office.”
Companies like Toro are working to get feedback from superintendents and give them exactly what they want in hand-held tools. Standerfer says the thing most coveted by superintendents now is a device that can put all their hand-held tools into one unit.
“They’re weighed down with all these gizmos attached to their belt — they’ve got a phone, pager, radio, smart device,” Standerfer says. “They’re starting to feel like Batman.”
Standerfer says that taking all these devices and shoehorning them into one tool is possible, but comes with a few challenges — durability, for instance. An ideal environment for such a high-tech gadget is not a place like the golf course, where things can easily get dropped, wet and muddy.
“What we are looking for and driving toward is a wireless smart device that provides for the kind of connectivity that we want, to Internet, computer, pro shop, fill-in-the-blank, that can work as a phone, interface the irrigation system, and can support a graphic display in the bright sunshine,” Standerfer says. “I’m thinking within the next 12 to 18 months (we’ll be releasing such a product).”
Personal touch
Even with all this 21st century equipment, Plotts says it’s still important to communicate with people in person.
“I like to do most communication face-to-face,” the 12-year GCSAA member says. He’ll often call his crew members on the radio to find out their location, and then drive to meet them in person. “I think in person, you can stress upon them the importance of an issue. You can see in their eyes that they grasp and understand what you need them to do. Plus, it gives you a chance to connect with them personally, maybe ask about their family.”
Plotts says that even though the new technologies make him more efficient, he also needs to be able to connect with his crew, something he can only do in person.
“The technology is great but to get your guys to work with you, you need to connect with them personally,” Plotts says. “If you want to rally the troops, you need to do that with one-on-one communication, not over the airwaves.”
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