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Superintendents
everywhere at PvP
Sale emphasizes Jacobsen focus on
golf
GIS podium to feature Miller, Croce
Berg, 1986 Old Tom Morris Award winner,
dies
Metedeconk National adds to chapter,
RTJ coffers
Moore protégé certifies
record seven times
CRM conference on GIS stage
Home state honors GCSAA founder
Correction
RRCB plants found in the wild
Detroit GCSA does a good turn
Hooks and slices
EPA decision taken to task
Scholarship honor roll
Donations add up to new athletic field
Course 'owners manual' gets designer's point across
Time short to apply for Bayer/EIFG grant program
Superintendents everywhere at PvP
You didn’t have to be a golf course superintendent to participate in the 2006 People vs. the Pros, held over three days at the fabled Pinehurst Resort, but it apparently helped.
Superintendents, of course, made up the field of the third annual BASF Superintendent’s Cup, which was won at Pinehurst No. 8 by Steve Jones (Class A), a 19-year GCSAA member. But a superintendent also was in the spotlight in the third BASF-sponsored People vs. the Pros event on the same course, in which Doug Johnstone (Class A), an 18-year GCSAA member, played Champions Tour professional and CBS golf commentator Gary McCord for a $50,000 donation to charity.
Jones, 54, superintendent at Greenville (S.C.) Country Club, and this year’s Superintendent’s Cup runner-up, Ron Dobosz (Class A), a 16-year GCSAA member and superintendent at Ludlow (Mass.) Country Club, were among 22 superintendents in a field of 200 who won three-day regional qualifiers. Those qualifier wins put the group on track to compete at Pinehurst and vie for a head-to-head ESPN2-televised match against McCord in the 50-and-over division or PGA Tour pro Retief Goosen in the 49-and-under pairings.
Jones, who received nine strokes from scratch golfer Dobosz, won on the 17th hole, 2-and-1, and took home $10,000 in cash for his victory, as well as $10,000 worth of BASF products for his course. Dobosz, 35, walked away with $5,000 for his efforts, and along with Jones, a one-year loss of his amateur status.
Jones turned lemons into lemonade by winning the “tournament within a tournament” Superintendent’s Cup with an unfamiliar set of clubs, a situation necessitated when his 14-year-old set of Titleists was stolen from Greenville CC a few days before the tournament. Asked what he would do if he found the person who stole the set, Jones joked that he would “give him a big slap on the back and say thank you.”
Fate also participated in Jones’ win in that he almost didn’t play in the May qualifier, which he won by 16 strokes with a 218. Jones, a Little League Baseball coach, had scheduled practice for one of the qualifier days, but friends convinced him that he should participate.
Johnstone, 51, owner and superintendent at Staten Island Golf Practice Center and Staten Island Paintball Inc., brought an 8 handicap to his match with McCord, which McCord won 1-up. Goosen played and bested amateur Greg McGraw of Davie, Fla., a manager for Office Depot.
With all the pressure that comes with being followed by a gallery and camera trucks, would Johnstone do it again?
“I’d love to,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll ever happen again, it’s a once-in a lifetime experience. I never expected it to happen in the first place. I’m the luckiest guy around.”
The People vs. the Pros matches, along with coverage of the Superintendent’s Cup, will air Oct. 17 at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
— Ed Hiscock
GCM editor in chief
Sale emphasizes Jacobsen focus on golf
Jacobsen sold its commercial grounds care product lines late this summer to Commercial Grounds Care Inc. out of Southampton, Pa.
The sale includes the Textron company’s manufacturing facility in Johnson Creek, Wis.; a leased service parts outlet in Dalton, Ohio, and the product brands BOB-CAT, Bunton, Ryan, Steiner and Brouwer.
“Jacobsen has made a strategic
decision to focus on its professional turf business, which includes golf
courses, sports turf and municipal grounds equipment. Although the commercial
grounds care division offers strong brand names and an excellent facility
in Johnson Creek,
it is not consistent with Jacobsen’s long-term growth strategy,”
company president Dan Wilkinson said in a release.
GIS podium to feature Miller, Croce
The usually outspoken Johnny Miller and sports and business entrepreneur Pat Croce will be the featured speakers at the 2007 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in Anaheim, Calif.
Miller, a former PGA Tour star and currently the lead analyst on NBC-TV golf telecasts, will give the keynote address at the Opening Session on Thursday, Feb. 22, at the Anaheim Convention Center. The following day at the Golf Industry Show General Session, Croce, a former owner of the Philadelphia 76ers in the National Basketball Association, will deliver the traditional motivational talk.
Miller, the most passionate and controversial of golf’s TV commentators, also is a columnist and author and designs golf courses. He had a mercurial playing career, winning most of his two dozen PGA Tour titles, as well as the U.S. Open and the British Open, in the 1970s. He continued to play full-time in the 1980s and early ’90s, and in 1994 he stunned the professional golf world by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am at the age of 47. He retired from the tour that same year.
A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Miller and his family received the 1997 Jack Nicklaus Golf Family of the Year Award, and he is a co-founder and honorary chairman of the Utah Junior Golf Association.
Croce rose from a career as a physical therapist to build a sports medicine empire of 40 centers in 11 states. After he sold the company, he purchased the last-place 76ers in 1996. Within five years, the team went from worst to first in the NBA standings and set franchise records in attendance, revenue, merchandising and consecutive wins. Croce went on to provide sports commentary for NBC, including a gig in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece.
Today Croce is a nationally renowned motivational speaker and has written a New York Times bestseller, “I Feel Great and You will Too!,” and two other books.
His talks focus on “Pat Croce Pointers,” which emphasize lessons on everything from clear communication to the power of a positive attitude, and his “Ten Commandments of Customer Service,” which are targeted at creating an atmosphere of success, personally as well as in business.
Berg, 1986 Old Tom Morris Award winner, dies
Golf legend Patty Berg, the founder of the LPGA and the winner of GCSAA’s Old Tom Morris Award in 1986, died in early September. She was 88.
As a professional golfer, Berg won 44 titles — including nine majors — in a span from 1948 through 1962. In 1950, she was among 13 founding members of the LPGA Tour and served as president of the organization from 1950 to 1952. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
“There was no better ambassador for golf than Patty Berg,” GCSAA CEO Steve Mona, CAE says. “Everyone who considers themselves a fan of the game should be thankful for her contributions. I know GCSAA golf course superintendents appreciate the steadfast support and recognition she afforded them.
“As the winner of the 1986 GCSAA Old Tom Morris Award, Patty Berg has a special place in the association. Even in her late years, she stayed in communications with us and remained interested and engaged in the golf course management profession. She will be missed.”
A complete story on the passing of Berg will appear in the November issue of GCM.
Metedeconk National adds to chapter, RTJ coffers
The Environmental Institute for Golf’s gold mine in Jackson, N.J., Metedeconk National Golf Club, hosted its 17th annual Robert Trent Jones Invitational fundraiser recently and turned over more than $30,000 to be split between the GCSA of New Jersey Foundation and the RTJ Endowment Fund.
The event is held annually for superintendents and other golf course representatives along the East Coast to raise funds for scholarships, turf research and education initiatives.
Bolstered by the money raised each year by the invitational, Metedeconk National is one of only three donors to The Institute, GCSAA’s philanthropic organization, to reach the Star Club level ($500,000-$999,999) in contributions.
Ryan Oliver, a five-year member of GCSAA,
is the superintendent at
Metedeconk.
Moore protégé certifies record seven times
Garry Crothers, CGCS at Montague Golf Club in Randolph, Vt., lives by a mantra he picked up years ago from his mentor, the late Sherwood A. Moore, CGCS.
“You never stop learning,” Crothers says.
Crothers served as Moore’s assistant at Winged Foot Golf Club for two years — one of which, 1959, gave him the experience of hosting the U.S. Open. He was one of the first trainees of Moore, a former GCSAA president and Old Tom Morris Award winner who died this past July at the age of 90. The never-stop-learning attitude Crothers gained through that experience stuck.
A 46-year member of GCSAA, Crothers has renewed his GCSAA certification for a record seven times, extending it through 2012 and making him the association’s first member to qualify for the 40-year mark as a CGCS. GCSAA implemented its certification program in 1971.
Crothers’ yearning for continued education grew as the golf course management industry gained in sophistication, part of which he credits to his mentor.
“Sherwood always left a good image of what you’re supposed to be as a superintendent,” Crothers says. “This was in 1959, and he was in a coat and tie when he went to the board of directors.”
When Crothers took his first certification
exam, most of his industry colleagues didn’t think the measure was
necessary, he says. But, with GCSAA education already in place through
seminars and conference speakers, the certification process came naturally,
he adds.
Crothers says he values what his certified status has added to his career
and would recommend it to others. In fact, he has recommended it to an
entire nation.
In 1994, when Crothers was hired to work on a golf course development project near Jakarta, Indonesia, he suggested to his peers there that they develop a professional association. Crothers followed the procedures of GCSAA’s bylaws to help set up the organization and became a founding member of the Indonesia GCSA. Thus far, one member of the association is a certified golf course superintendent, he notes.
Crothers worked at various courses during his nine-and-a half-year stint in Indonesia, in addition to others in Japan and Morocco. With an obvious language barrier hindering communication between Crothers and his workers, he says he connected to his staff with a surefire technique — candy.
“Every Friday was candy day,” he says. “I would get a whole selection of candy and chocolate in a big can and take it around to everybody. I did it at every golf course.”
When Crothers goes back to Indonesia to visit, he still hears excited screams of “peppermint” from some of the employees.
Crothers returned to the United States in 2004 and has showed no signs of slowing down.
“When I came back to the States, I didn’t want to retire,” he says, so he took the job of superintendent at Montague GC, the lowest budget 18-hole operation in Vermont.
“Money is not an issue. I want something to do,” the 73-year-old Crothers says. “It turned out the place needed a lot of work, and we’ve done a lot. We rebuilt nine greens last year and 37 bunkers this spring.”
— Darcy DeVictor,
associate editor of GCM
GCSAA’s support of the Center for Resource Management will be evident during the 2007 Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in Anaheim, Calif., when it provides a venue for the Environmental Principles of Golf Conference.
The conference will be held in conjunction with the GIS on Feb. 19-20. The Center for Resource Management leads the golf and environment initiatives and fosters policy development involving the business community, environmental groups, science and government.
It was a decade ago that the Environmental Principles for Golf Courses in the United States — a set of guidelines for the design, construction and management of courses — were established. The conference in Anaheim will offer the opportunity to review the progress the industry has made in the past 10 years and chart a course for the future.
Home state honors GCSAA founder
Col. John Morley, one of the founders of GCSAA and the association’s first president (1926-1932), will be inducted into the Northern Ohio Golf Association’s Hall of Fame this month.
A native of England, Morley helped organize the Cleveland District Greenkeepers Association in 1923, from which the National Association of Greenkeepers of America, and later GCSAA, evolved. His career spanned stints at the Bass Lake Club in Chardon, Ohio; the Cleveland Athletic Club and Youngstown (Ohio) Country Club.
Morley died in 1946 at the age of 78.
Correction
Bradley C. Coulson, Class A superintendent at PGA West Golf Resort in
La Quinta, Calif., has not moved, as reported in On the Move in the August
issue of GCM.
In September GCM’s On the Move, the CGCS designation was inadvertently dropped from the listing for Larry Balko, who is now CGCS at Park Ridge GC in Lake Worth, Fla.
An unapproved, genetically engineered turfgrass has been found growing outside field test sites in central Oregon, according to ecologists at the Environmental Protection Agency.
According to an article in The New York Times, the grass is Roundup Ready Creeping Bentgrass, a glyphosate-resistant variety developed by The Scotts Co. and Monsanto for golf course use. RRCB is currently being reviewed by the Department of Agriculture, a long regulatory process that in this case has been further drawn out by pollen-flow concerns.
According to the article, scientists say it’s the first time a biotechnology plant has established itself outside the confines of a research facility. They also added that because only a small number of plants were discovered, an ecological threat was unlikely.
In the EPA study that found the wayward bentgrass, more than 20,000 plants up to three miles from the edge of an 11,000-acre zone around the test plots were sampled. Nine plants, 0.04 percent, were found to be genetically modified. The scientists said some of the plants had been created by seeds that had blown off the test area and others were the result of hybridization of wild grasses from pollen drift. All of the plants in question were identified as RRCB.
A spokesman for Scotts said the company had been aware of the off-site plants and had been working to eradicate them. The cause, he said, was a wind storm that dispersed seeds after the grass had been cut and was drying in the field. The spokesman added that the use of the grass on golf courses would not pose the same problem because it would be kept much shorter than grass grown to produce seeds.
More than 100 superintendents came to the aid of one of their own recently when an undetermined cause destroyed the turf on all 18 greens at Westwynd Golf Course in Rochester Hills, Mich., on Detroit’s north side.
According to news reports about the incident, the greens were sprayed with a chemical on July 11 that quickly left them brown and barren while course officials were perplexed as to what happened.
“There are a lot of ‘whys’ to this whole situation,” Westwynd superintendent Deron Crouse was quoted saying in The Oakland Press nearly two months after the mysterious mishap. “We’re trying to address every avenue as to what could have happened — from a mistake in the chemical room to vandalism.”
Crouse, a seven-year GCSAA member, maintained that none of his staff was at fault, adding that tests on the greens soil and turf remnants are still being conducted.
In the meantime, 120 volunteers from the Greater Detroit GCSA showed up at Westwynd on Aug. 28 to help aerify the greens, lay new sod and do some seeding. They also made repairs to one green that was damaged by a vehicle that trespassed on the course the night before.
“Anytime there’s a friend in need, we’ll do whatever it takes to help,” John Cooney Jr., CGCS at Tam O’Shanter Country Club in West Bloomfield, told The Press.
The course continued to operate after the incident, but head pro Chris Rzeppa estimated that by September, 12,000 rounds had been lost out of the 30,000 the four-year-old upscale layout hosts annually.
Hawaii’s own ‘Amen
Corner’
Koolau Golf Club in Kaneohe, Hawaii, one of America’s longest and
most difficult layouts, was recently sold to the First Presbyterian Church
of Honolulu. While the church will continue to operate the golf course,
the clubhouse will be turned into a chapel for the 1,200-member congregation.
A former superintendent at Koolau is GCSAA’s current president, Sean A. Hoolehan, now CGCS at Wildhorse Resort & Casino in Pendleton, Ore. The present superintendent at the Hawaiian venue is Lawrence Renio.
He said it:
“The fact that players in other sports take steroids is not evidence
to me that players in this sport are. I have no evidence of players taking
steroids in this sport.”
— Tim Finchem, PGA Tour Commissioner,
in reference to his belief that drug testing is not necessary in professional
golf.
And he said it:
“I think we should be proactive instead of reactive. I just think
that we should be ahead of it and keep our sport as pure as can be.”
— Tiger Woods, who also offered to be first in line to be tested, in a reply to Finchem’s comments. (From Sports Illustrated, Sept. 4, 2006)
GCSAA and the MAA Research Task Force are disagreeing with a proposed Re-registration Eligibility Decision (RED) document issued by the Environmental Protection Agency regarding the organic arsenicals MSMA, DSMA, CAMA and cacodylic acid. MSMA, especially of concern to golf, is a herbicide used for grass weed control in bermudagrass and zoysiagrass, as well as in some cool-season turfgrasses.
Members of the task force include Drexel Chemical Co. (APC Holdings), KMG-Bernuth Inc. and Luxembourg-Pamol Inc. These companies are global providers of products to the turf care and agricultural industries.
The task force believes that crop and turf uses of these products meet both the Food Quality Protection Act standard for dietary risk and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act risk-benefit standards and thus warrant continued registration.
“EPA has exaggerated the risks of organic arsenicals by including inorganic arsenic in the exposure assessment for water and food,” said Michal Eldan, Ph.D., chairperson. “The (task force) is being asked to meet a standard for inorganic arsenic in water that is 500 times lower than the EPA Office of Water’s MCL for drinking water. We disagree with the evaluations behind the agency’s Re-registration Eligibility Decision and will continue our efforts to explain the science that supports our position.”
Eldan says that MSMA/DSMA/CAMA/cacodylic
acid registrations on cotton and turfgrass are of critical economic importance
to farmers and turf managers and that the EPA underestimates the value
of the organic arsenicals by ignoring the comments from many cotton growers
and golf course
superintendents.
GCSAA, state departments of agriculture and superintendents have written in support of the continued use of the organic arsenical products.
Last month, GCSAA issued an action alert
to urge members to submit comments to the EPA docket by the Oct. 10 deadline
and the association will also submit its own comments.
Based on a large body of scientific data, the task force believes that
the organic arsenicals do not pose an unreasonable risk to workers, farmers,
the public or the environment when used according to label directions.
The MAA Research Task Force can be contacted at 800-890-3301 or e-mailed at meldan@luxpam.com.
— Information provided by GCSAA NewsWeekly
Funded by The Environmental Institute for Golf:
- 2006 GCSAA Essay Contest (open to GCSAA members who are undergraduate or graduate students pursuing degrees in turfgrass science, agronomy or any field related to golf course management) — First place, Patrick McCullough, Hoboken, N.J., a student at Rutgers University, $2,000 for his essay, “Annual Bluegrass Control: Implications for Eliminating a Historic Weed in Golf Course Turfgrass”; Second place, Jon Trappe, Fort Wayne, Ind., a student at Purdue University, $1,500 for “Managing Poa annua North of the Transition Zone”; Third place, Corey Heasley, Onalaska, Wis., a student at Rutgers, $1,000 for “Turf Management: A Brief History and What’s to Come.”
- 2006 Joseph S. Garske Collegiate Grant by Par Aide (for children of GCSAA members to assist in the funding of their education at a college or trade school) — $2,500 each to Sara Steinhurst, West Branch, Mich., who will attend the University of Michigan and is the daughter of Bob Steinhurst, Class A member at West Branch Country Club, and Branden Tanko, Stevens Point, Wis., a renewal of his scholarship at Minnesota State University. He is the son of Gary Tanko, CGCS at Sentryworld Golf Course in Stevens Point.
- 2006 Royal Spanish Golf Federation Scholarship (to individuals from Spain pursuing a turfgrass management degree from Michigan State University) — $10,000 each and an all-expense-paid trip to the 2007 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in Anaheim, Calif., to Luis Manuel Casado Garcia and Eugenio Escribano de la Rosa.
Funded by Project EverGreen:
- Inaugural Because Green Matters Scholarship (to
assist in
preparing for careers in the green industry) — $2,500 each to Amy Hegwood, who is working toward an environmental horticulture degree at Gwinnett Technical College in Lawrenceville, Ga., and Tao Fan, who is studying landscape management at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Donations add up to new athletic field
Students in the Molalla School District south of Portland, Ore., are enjoying a completely renovated athletic field this fall, thanks to the efforts of several individuals and business professionals, including the area’s grass seed and golf course management interests.
The renovation included new sports turf, a custom irrigation system, a new grandstand and new locker rooms. Volunteer coordinator of the project was Bill Rose, a pioneering figure in the grass seed industry in central Oregon’s Willamette Valley and chairman of the Scotts Grass Seed Advisory Council.
“The level of participation throughout the community was outstanding,” Rose said. “And what a great message for the students, to see businesses come together for the sake of a good-will project.”
The turf — a seeded blend of Quicksilver perennial ryegrass, High Noon Kentucky bluegrass and North Star Kentucky bluegrass — was donated by Scotts Turf-Seed. The seeding and irrigation system installation was overseen by Joe Clarizio (Class A), a 12-year GCSAA member who is a co-owner of the Arrowhead Golf Club in Molalla.
Other donations included $650,000 by local residents Dale and Julie Burghardt for the grandstand and locker rooms.
Course ‘owner’s manual’ gets designer’s point across
The Wigwam Golf Resort in Phoenix, whose 18th hole on its Gold Course was featured as a Unique Golf Hole in the August issue of GCM, now has another unique aspect in the wake of its extensive renovation that was completed a year ago — an actual golf course “owner’s manual.”
The 3-inch-thick handbook was the product of golf course architect Forrest Richardson of Richardson & Associates in Phoenix, who directed a two-year renovation project that included remodeling and restoration work on the resort’s two courses created by Robert Trent Jones Sr. many years ago, the Gold and Blue; new irrigation systems; a new, comprehensive practice facility; a facility to accommodate a golf school; a putting course, The Village Green; and a three-hole layout for kids.
At the time, Richardson called the work “a big jigsaw puzzle,” and he recently took that thought a lot farther with the creation of the owner’s manual for resort ownership and management and golf course management. The document contains the essential ingredients of the project, an edited and updated collection of all course details and elements that define the strategy or intent of the course developer and designer — all of which is expected to be important to present and future operations personnel.
“We had finished a dream project for the owners,” Richardson says. “But, while there were plans and notes from the past few years, nothing was put into writing that could easily be used as a reference ... just a loose bunch of pretty plans and papers in every format imaginable.”
Richardson believes the owner’s manual will help assure quality in many areas throughout the golf courses, such as pace of play, course utilization, revenue generation, course setup and maintenance protocols.
Time short to apply for Bayer/EIFG grant program
GCSAA superintendents who did not attend the last two Golf Industry Shows have until the end of this month to apply for a chance to win a grant to attend the event in Anaheim, Calif., in February.
Five winners will be selected by a random drawing for an all-expense-paid stay at the show. This is the fourth year that Bayer Environmental Science and The Environmental Institute for Golf have teamed up to provide the grants, which are designed to assist superintendents with their professional development through participation in such events.
The deadline for applications is Oct. 27, and the winners will be announced Nov. 10. Applications can be completed online at www.eifg.org or by contacting GCSAA Member Services at 800-472-7878.
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