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Pine Needles spruced up for Women’s Open
The U.S. Women’s Open has been coming to Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., as regular as clockwork since the mid-1990s. But past familiarity won’t be much help to the best women golfers in the world later this month.
The resort — one of its principal owners being Peggy Kirk Bell, who helped found the LPGA in 1950 — brought in golf course architect John Fought to team up with longtime superintendent David Fruchte, CGCS, in 2004 to basically strip the 79-year-old Pine Needles layout and restore it to the original intent and purpose of legendary designer Donald Ross.
“No real major work had been done to the golf course since it was built. We went in and rebuilt the greens, bunkers and tees; re-grassed the fairways; and removed trees ... all the way Ross designed it,” says Fought, who used a 1939 aerial photo of the course to trace the strategy of the old master. “We studied it, then tried to put everything back as much as possible. It was a classic restoration.”
Adjustments were made to blend the course to modern players and technology. For the women who competed in the first Open at Pine Needles in 1996, or the second in 2001, this year’s event is not only a month later (June 28-July 1), but also many yards longer, faster and, well, just plain different.
Overall length was mainly added by moving tees farther back. The par-4 15th was stretched to its original par-5 length, so the layout is now a par 71. From the men’s tees, it can play to 7,000 yards. For the Women’s Open it’ll be nearly 6,700 yards.
“The course is in the same location, but it’s going to be very different,” Fought says. “It wasn’t too long ago that the men were playing at that yardage. The greens have more contours, more pin locations and will be a lot quicker. I’m excited to see how the ladies play it.”
The project was Fought’s first restoration of a Ross venue, but he’s been a fervent student of the famed Scot going back to when Fought won the 1977 U.S. Amateur at Aronimink, a Ross layout in Pennsylvania.
And, while most of Pine Needles’ new look is an old look, it will feature some spiffy modern grasses — A-1 bentgrass on the new USGA-spec greens and TifSport bermuda fairways. The new fairway grass is the result of the removal of 6 to 7 inches of thatch buildup from over the years. Plus, about 20 acres in play were returned to natural areas.
Interviewed in mid-April, Fruchte, a 22-year GCSAA member, said he was confident the bent greens would be in good shape in late June because their root systems would be strongest then. Of more concern were the fairways, which were lightly overseeded for resort play this winter, and the rough, which wasn’t overseeded. He began taking out the overseed six weeks earlier than normal.
“Our biggest management change is that this Open will be played on bermudagrass,” he says.
Fruchte has been at the resort since 1990 and is director of golf course and grounds for both Pine Needles and nearby Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club, which are under the same ownership. Assisting in the Open prep are his two course superintendents, Chris Hobbs at Pine Needles and Jeff Hache at Mid Pines, who have a decade of experience between them at the resorts and a combined 14 years of GCSAA membership. His regular crew of 30 will be bolstered by the services of about 75 volunteer superintendents, assistants and interns.
“It’s been super busy the last few years. The restoration was a tournament and a half in itself,” Fruchte says. “The USGA pretty much set up how it wanted the golf course in September 2005, and we’ve worked from that ever since. We’ve done a lot of topdressing, especially, to mature the course the best we can.”
Actually, having a U.S. Open every five or six years is business as usual for Fruchte.
“Ever since 1991, when I found out we were going to host the first one (’96), we’ve had a U.S. Open in the back of our minds every day here,” he says.
— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer
According to a national survey conducted by büji LLC, a manufacturer of skin-care products, nearly a quarter of core golfers have contracted poison ivy while golfing. An additional survey finding, whether related or not, noted that 46 percent of the respondents also said they have relieved themselves on the course while playing.
Accidental superintendent endures
Retirement hasn’t been much of an issue for 20-year GCSAA member George Lewis, even though he’s now 81. After all, he didn’t get into the golf course business until he was almost 50.
So Lewis keeps on making up for that lost time — albeit a little bit at a time these days — at Yorktown Golf Course in Belleville, Ill., an 18-hole, par-3 layout that he has had a personal interest in since its inception 46 years ago.
Yorktown GC has a few claims to fame. One, it was designed by a then-aspiring young golf course architect by the name of Pete Dye (yes, that Pete Dye). Two, not only has it become a notable short course just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, but also a popular one among the locals because it’s lighted and takes tee times in season from dawn to 9 p.m. And three, PGA Tour/Champions Tour star Jay Haas grew up in Belleville and as a youngster learned the game at Yorktown.
Lewis, a service station owner, was among the locals who bought stock in Yorktown in 1961. Almost 15 years later, he was a majority stockholder and faced with a dilemma.
“The general manager had quit and they needed somebody. So I substituted. Then, I wound up selling my station to run the golf course,” says Lewis.
During the next decade, Lewis also taught himself and his son, Butch, the basics of golf course maintenance.
“It was hard in those days to find someone to work and learn something. So I picked the brains of all the guys who sold me fertilizers and fungicides and so forth and finally learned how to do it,” says the elder Lewis, who joined GCSAA in 1986, while Butch eventually moved on, becoming a stockbroker for A.G. Edwards in St. Louis.
Lewis sold the golf course in 1993, but instead of retiring at age 67, he continued on as general manager/superintendent, and today he continues to be one of the profession’s oldest working superintendents. Even though macular degeneration has left him legally blind, Lewis still shows up at the Yorktown maintenance facility for work whenever needed.
“As far as seeing the grass and seeing the diseases, I can’t do that, but I can still see good enough to fix the equipment,” he says. “I go in one or two days a week — it’s all according to how much stuff breaks down.”
And that’s not all. Lewis has spent most of the past 40-some winters restoring old vehicles and equipment, from his grandmother’s 1931 Chevrolet (a 20-year, $19,000 project that won a local best-of-show award in 2004) to various odds and ends, including a couple of original Jacobsen riding greensmowers and those “Little Red” three-wheelers Lewis and other superintendents zipped around golf courses on back in the day.
One of the Jacobsen mower restorations, vintage 1969, is pristine with all original parts. Another is a 1971 model and is nearly complete.
All that said, however, the eyesight problem and the limited time he’s able to put in at the golf course has edged Lewis toward actual retirement as a superintendent, which he says he plans to do this month when his GCSAA membership renewal comes up. Even as he says that, he sounds like a man who’s still got a lot yet to do in life.
— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer
ValleyCrest tabs former Pursell executive
A veteran agronomist and educator, Jeff Higgins, Ph.D., was recently named director of agronomy for ValleyCrest Golf Course Maintenance. He will provide agronomic support to ValleyCrest superintendents in evaluations and strategies for plant and soil management and in the development of annual agronomic plans.
Higgins was formerly the executive director of business
development for Pursell Technologies (now Agrium Advanced Technologies) and also has been an adjunct professor at Auburn University and Kansas State University, assisting in turfgrass research, extension and teaching.
Higgins is associated with several golf course industry
organizations, including 10 years of membership in GCSAA.
In other ValleyCrest news, the company has signed an agreement with Amelia Island Plantation in Florida’s far northeast corner to provide maintenance services for the resort’s four golf courses
— Long Point, Oak Marsh, Ocean Links and Royal Amelia.
Winter’s late surge took its toll on rounds played in the first two months of 2007, according to the National Golf Foundation. Rounds through February were down 15.8 percent, the lowest for that time frame in three years. The lower Midwest took the biggest hit, 70.6 percent, and rounds were down 60.4 percent in the mountain region. The upper Midwest, with the third-worst showing, minus 52.7 percent, suffered a 90.2 decline in February alone. However, play rebounded in March with an 11.3 percent increase, trimming participation for the first quarter to minus 4 percent.
Golfworks works for pioneering intern
Hermen B. Van Dunk IV, among the first to participate in the Metropolitan Golf Association’s innovative Golfworks Student Intern Program, is a dozen years later the first graduate to land a top-level job at a golf course.
The 29-year-old Van Dunk became the head superintendent at Leewood Golf Club in Eastchester, N.Y., earlier this year, culminating a near-lifelong association with golf course management.
A Native American, Van Dunk not only represents a success story for the MGA program, but also for his people, the Ramapough Lenape Nation from New Jersey’s Ramapo Mountains. It also validates the efforts of Van Dunk’s father, Burgess, who is in his 40th year working at The Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. The son was a presence around the golf course as a youngster — “I cut my first cup at 8,” he says — and was on the maintenance crew by his early teens.
A member at Tuxedo, Jay Mottola, is executive director of the MGA and was quick to enroll the young Van Dunk in the Golfworks program when it began in 1994 with 12 interns at six facilities. Last year the program boasted 225 interns at 85 MGA-member courses.
After graduating from Golfworks, Van Dunk, armed in part with a scholarship from the Ramapoughs, took on Penn State’s turf-management discipline. As a college intern in 1998, he worked under veteran superintendent Ed Walsh, CGCS, at Mansion Ridge Golf Club in Monroe, N.Y. After earning his turf degree, Van Dunk had stints as an assistant at Rockaway Country Club in Denville, N.J., and Manhattan Woods Golf Club in West Nyack, N.Y., before joining the staff at Leewood GC in 2004.
Last October, Van Dunk replaced superintendent Peter DiRollo on an interim basis at the 18-hole, membership-owned venue nestled in the midst of New York’s prestigious golf haven in Westchester County. In February, he was officially named head superintendent.
“What I’m doing now is what they had hoped for,” Van Dunk, an eight-year GCSAA member, says of Golfworks, which originally was designed to attract disadvantaged high school kids to careers in the golf industry. “For me, it was different because I’d always been around golf. I’m Native American, so I guess that makes me a minority. But was I an unfortunate inner-city kid? Absolutely not.”
Van Dunk notes that the program has evolved with better direction and better recruitment to include youths from many walks of life. “Kids today don’t realize what type of job opportunities golf courses have,” he says. “You don’t have to be a superintendent or an assistant — you can be a caddiemaster or a golf pro, a chef or a general manager. There’s everything out there.”
For the Ramapough tribe, Van Dunk hopes he has set an example of the rewards of education, stating, “I’ve told them I’ll do as much as I possibly can ... any type publicity for the profession and future generations. I’m on board to help.”
Van Dunk likes where he’s settled after a lot of moves in a short time. The MGA represents a heady golf neighborhood that includes many of America’s top venues in a tight area. That can be quite challenging, to say the least.
“We’re in the shadows of some great places,” he says. “That’s the hard part here. The Met is the major leagues of golf courses. That type of competition is quite an experience.”
— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer
GCSAA/National Golf Foundation research notes that 99 percent of superintendent employers consider the superintendent to be the key to the economic vitality of their facility. Golf professionals were second at 82 percent. Also, 85 percent of employers consider GCSAA to be a leading golf organization. The USGA also earned an 85 percent recognition, while the PGA of America had a 78 percent response.
Shareholders of Lesco Inc., a supplier to the professional green and pest-control industries, have approved the company’s merger with John Deere & Co. According to a company release, Lesco plans to close the transactions contemplated by the merger agreement as soon as practicable pending the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions set forth in the agreement.
Texas venue has strange attraction
Anyone searching for the Bermuda Triangle might want to try just south of Fort Worth, Texas, in the town of Mansfield. That’s where the fourth hole at Walnut Creek Country Club is and that’s where trouble comes to roost more often than not for Class A superintendent Scott Alford, the golf course maintenance director at the club.
Writing in the North Texas GCSA News recently, Alford noted that the vicinity of No. 4 has experienced such calamities as routine flooding, tornado damage and other incidents like a wayward golf car that sped down a creek bank with two women aboard.
Then came this past Feb. 21, when an experimental military helicopter on its maiden voyage crash-landed on the fairway of the par-3 hole in the midst of members of the local girls high school golf team. Fortunately, no one was injured, although the ’copter hit only about 30 yards from some of the girls on the No. 4 tee, and flying debris just missed several others on the green.
The two pilots in the craft, who dumped fuel and hydraulic fluids before the crash, escaped serious injury. Alford, a 23-year member of GCSAA, wrote that most of the damage to the fairway occurred when a crane and two large flatbed trucks were used to remove the helicopter.
Also, while writing his piece for the chapter newsletter, Alford was notified by the city that a chemical spill in a storm sewer near the course was draining into one of Walnut Creek CC’s ponds. Hmmm ...
Oregon golf course falls victim to water woes
Water issues will force the closure of Battle Creek Golf Course in Salem, Ore., later this year, probably in October.
The course has been a Salem recreational staple for more than 50 years. Test wells recently indicated that there isn’t enough groundwater to provide for the 18-hole public layout following a requirement from the Oregon Department of Water Resources that owner Terry Kelly must upgrade or replace two existing wells. The tests were a moot point, actually, since the course is in an area that restricts the use of groundwater to an amount less than the facility’s irrigation needs. Tapping into city water has been deemed too expensive.
According to Salem’s Statesman Journal, Kelly is considering applying for a zoning change in order to develop senior housing units and a retirement center on a majority of the 83-acre site. The remaining land, about 10 acres, would be set aside for a park buffer area. The wells there now would be upgraded to provide for the park, and city water would supply the rest of the development.
Daniel Island GC adds to Arbor honors
Ralston Creek, the newest course at Daniel Island Golf Club in Charleston, S.C., won one of the National Arbor Day Foundation’s 2007 “Building with Trees Award of Excellence.”
The award recognized the club’s efforts to protect and preserve trees during the design and construction of the Rees Jones designed layout, which opened last year. Another Daniel Island GC venue, Beresford Creek, won the award in 2003, making the club the first single facility to win the award twice.
Twenty-two-year GCSAA member Mike Fabrizio, CGCS, is director of grounds and maintenance at Daniel Island GC. Jason King, a 10-year GCSAA member, is the superintendent at both the Beresford and Ralston courses, while his top assistant at Ralston Creek is Josh Jordan, a member of GCSAA for six years. Daniel Island is a 4,000-acre island town within the city limits of Charleston, S.C.
NGF joins research collaboration
The largest online study of sports participation in the nation was made public in May following a milestone collaborative effort among the National Golf Foundation, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, Snowports Industries America and the Outdoor Industry Foundation.
The USA Sports Participation Study was conducted via the Internet. Its advantages include consistent methodology among the partners, a larger sample size, higher resolution of data and the ability to present cross-participation numbers.
The National Golf Foundation, for instance, was able to put out 60,000 individual surveys, the most ever since it began golf participation research in 1986. Plans call for 60,000 more surveys to be added each year to eventually build the industry’s largest and most useful database ever.
The golf portion of the study was published in the May issue of the NGF newsletter, Golf Industry Report.
Eighty-eight percent of GCSAA-member superintendents own their own home and 81 percent of them are married. Also, more than half of the married superintendents have children living at home.
— From GCSAA’s superintendent profile report
Fifteen college interns are traveling with USGA Green Section staff this summer on Turf Advisory Service visits to golf courses throughout the U.S. The visits traditionally bring research results and information concerning construction and maintenance practices to superintendents and other course officials. The internship program gives the students a comprehensive view of the golf course industry and maintenance programs.
Deere, Kohler contribute to EIFG
The coffers of GCSAA’s philanthropic organization, The Environmental Institute for Golf, were enriched by $200,000 recently.
John Deere Golf & Turf One Source contributed $100,000 to The Institute and also will be represented on its advisory council by Gregg Breningmeyer, Deere One Source’s director of sales and marketing.
Another $100,000 donation to The Institute was made by Herbert V. Kohler, chairman, CEO and president of the Kohler Co. Kohler was recently elected to The Institute’s board of trustees for a second time.
Turf educator’s wife killed in Virginia Tech tragedy
The shooting rampage that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech on April 16 had sad repercussions in the turf industry.
Among those killed was faculty member Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, wife of Jerzy Nowak, Ph.D., head of the university’s horticulture department. Mrs. Couture-Nowak, 49, was teaching intermediate French in Norris Hall when the gunman entered the classroom and shot her and several students.
Jerzy Nowak is a past author for GCM. His article, “Interseeding in creeping bentgrass: A viable option or wishful thinking?” appeared in the January 2001 issue.
Three options are available for contributions in memory of Mrs. Couture-Nowak:
• The Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Scholarship for French Majors. Virginia Tech Foundation, University Development, 902 Prices Ford Road, Blacksburg, VA 24061.
• The Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Memorial Garden Fund. Department of Horticulture, 301 Saunders Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0327.
• The Sylvie Couture-Nowak Educational Fund. First National Bank, 601 N. Main St., Blacksburg, VA 24060.
EWGA sets ‘women-friendly’ ground rules
Golf facilities can now officially be deemed as “women-friendly” by participating in a new program offered by the Executive Women’s Golf Association.
The EWGA Golf Club Network is available to golf courses, resorts, practice facilities, golf academies and other instructional facilities. By joining — including a nominal fee and special rates for play, practice or instruction for women — the facilities will be listed in EWGA directories and exposed to the association’s 20,000 members, more than 60 percent of whom play more than 25 rounds a year. Each EWGA member also spends nearly $3,500 annually on golf activities and merchandise.
Other criteria required to meet the women-friendly designation includes courses having at least two sets of tees rated for women, distance markers inside of 100 yards, clean restrooms available at least every six holes and equal services to men and women.
The first facilities to earn the designation are 13 Troon Golf-managed golf courses.
“At the golf course, women don’t want to feel they are being treated differently, they just want to be taken seriously,” said Pam Swensen, EWGA CEO. “ ... A satisfied woman customer means more business — it’s the power of the purse.”
GCSAA has a number of resources available to assist golf course management regarding severe drought conditions. The GCSAA Drought Information Packet is located at www.gcsaa.org//resources/infopacks/drought.asp, while the GCSAA Drought Communications Resources are at www.gcsaa.org/resources/links/drought.asp. The USGA Regional Updates are at www.usga.org/turf/regional_updates/regional_reports.
Alternative energy news . . .
Super-size solar farm planned in Canada. A California company, OptiSolar Inc., will build a massive solar farm near Sarnia in Ontario, Canada, that will be the largest solar power station in North America. The 40-megawatt project would serve up to 15,000 homes.
Preliminary estimates put the cost of the project at about $300 million.
The 900-acre site, which is near the U.S.-Canadian border north of Detroit, dwarfs other large projects around the world, including Germany’s 12-megawatt Erlasee solar park, which is currently constructing a 40-megawatt parcel nearby. In America, it was announced just recently that a 15-megawatt solar PV system is to be built on an Air Force base in Nevada.
EU executive arm wary of biofuel initiative. Europe’s thirst for biofuels may result in a bitter taste if European Commission concerns are on target. The executive organization of the European Union recently determined that the push to clear land for fuel crops to produce the alternative fuels could accelerate the destruction of tropical rain forests.
The commission specifically pointed to the decision by the EU membership to increase tenfold its consumption of vehicle fuel made from crops by 2020, saying that the pending legislation would put much virgin land, especially in Asia, in dire straights.
“In a bid to solve one problem, we risk creating another and making things worse,” said Chris Davies, a Liberal member of the British Parliament. “Rain forest destruction is a major contributory factor in global warming, and it would be ludicrous to promote this loss to slake our thirst for fuel.”
For now, Davies favors cutting consumption and waiting for new technology that would make the utilization of certain plant wastes more viable.
Project EverGreen honor to ELGA winner
The Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort and Stone Mountain Golf Club near Atlanta, and Verandah, the Bonita Bay Group’s master-planned community near Fort Myers, Fla., are the winners of Project EverGreen’s 2007 Because Green Matters Award, the first time two properties have earned the honor in the same year.
The Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort and Stone Mountain GC was recognized for its programs that blend environmental and business stewardship, such as Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary status, 12 acres dedicated to native grasses and wildflower habitat, water management, wildlife habitat and IPM.
“This award validates our constant efforts to apply ‘environomics,’ which is the practice of preserving green space in harmony with operating a successful business,” said Anthony Williams, CGCS, who is director of grounds for the resort and golf facilities and is the 2006 overall national winner of the GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf Awards.
Located along the Orange River, Verandah was cited for its leadership in emphasizing the importance of green space in master-planned neighborhoods and communities and for its water conservation programs and preservation of other natural resources.
Lowe, Georgia GCSA claim EGR award
Winners of GCSAA’s 2007 Excellence in Government Relations Awards for exceptional commitment to advocacy are Douglas C. Lowe, CGCS, and the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Association.
The EGR awards reward efforts that serve the interests of the superintendent profession and the golf course management industry. They were officially presented to the winners during the 2007 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in Anaheim in February.
Lowe, maintenance director at Greensboro (N.C.) Country Club, has been a persistent grassroots advocate for fairness in water restrictions at both the local and state levels since 2003. With courses in the Greensboro area facing debilitating drought restrictions, the 20-year GCSAA member worked with city officials to gain equitable water concessions. Statewide, Lowe is an active leader in the North Carolina Water Task Force, which works on behalf of the golf course industry, and played a key role in 2006 legislation on water conservation that gave superintendents improved flexibility and options to deal with future restrictions.
Likewise, the Georgia GCSA has a long-standing record of advocacy in the realm of mutually beneficial water management. The GCSAA-affiliated chapter has been a leader in best management practices and environmental stewardship in the state and was instrumental in the formation of the Georgia Allied Golf Council, which represents the golf industry at various levels of state government.
Most recently, the GGCSA worked with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division on a water conservation initiative that resulted in a Best Management Practices for Water Conservation Program. Please see Page 44 for more about the GGCSA initiative.
A new report has found that the 2006 Ryder Cup matches at Ireland’s K-Club reaped nearly $200 million for that country, an increase of more than 30 percent over the preceding European venue, the 2002 matches at The Belfry in England.
The economic impact of the 2006 competition exceeded projections of around $175 million. Spectators numbered 260,000 at the K-Club, with each spending about $460 a day on average. The average guest from the corporate sector spent more than $600 a day, with those from the United States spending about $800.
Correction
Editor’s note: In the April issue of GCM, the Photo Quiz
featured incorrect text accompanying the photo for Problem A. The correct text and photo are featured here.
Problem: Numerous white spots on green
Turfgrass area: Practice putting green
Location: Southwest Pennsylvania
Grass variety: A-4 and G-2 bentgrass
Answer: The white spots on this bentgrass practice putting green are a result of robins flying low over the green and lightening their load before landing. For two to three weeks in May, robins like to build their nests on the beams under the clubhouse balcony. Unfortunately, the robins’ flight path happens to cross right over the practice putting green on the way to the nesting area. Each morning during this time period, the superintendent has to assign an employee to wash the bird droppings off this green before they can mow. Apparently the birds in that area are eating pretty well in the spring time.
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