Pinehurst reloads
for U.S. Amateur

If it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it, and Pinehurst’s venerable No. 2 course has needed precious little fixing in the last hundred years.

The Donald Ross classic, built in 1907, is back in the USGA’s national championship spotlight this month, hosting the U.S. Amateur for the first time since 1962.

Sharing a bit of the spotlight is Pinehurst No. 4, a Tom Fazio makeover. Qualifying stroke play will be held on both venues Aug. 18-19 to cut the 312-man field to 64 for match play for the remainder of the week at course No. 2.

Paul Jett, CGCS, the superintendent at No. 2 for the past 13 years who has prepped the course for two U.S. Opens (1999 and 2005), says very little has changed at the course in recent years, and that will be the case for the 113th Amateur. There is a new tee at the par-4 third hole that will play at 385 yards in the qualifying rounds and a go-for-it 336 yards in match play. Also, the tee at the 16th has been rebuilt to stretch that par 4 to a whopping 510 yards. For the matches, No. 2 will be a par 70 at 7,232 yards.

The 21-year GCSAA member also doesn’t consider the Amateur as a run-through for when No. 2 hosts its next Open in 2014. It’s aimed more at honoring the resort’s founding Tufts family and all that Pinehurst has stood for in amateur golf.

Moreover, Jett notes that a major at Pinehurst in the dead of summer cannot relate to one six years away and at a different time of the year.

“The golf course is so completely different in August than it is in June that there’s nothing we could do that you could correlate to what might happen in June,” he says, referring to North Carolina’s penchant for hot, humid and wet weather this month. “Whether it rains or not, it’s still going to be wet and there won’t be a lot of run. It’s literally going to be the same setup as for a U.S. Open, but it will play completely different. The bermuda is at the end of its growing cycle, it’s a lot coarser and the greens will be soft.”

While No. 2’s bermuda fairways and rough can handle August nicely, the G2 bentgrass greens — 12 years old now and never better — will need strict attention when attaining championship speeds.

“They’ve asked for 11,” Jett says of the USGA’s Stimpmeter wishes, and he plans to get there more by rolling the greens than by lower cutting heights. “But they also understand what our weather situation is in August . . . if we don’t quite meet that they’re not going to have a big problem with it. We’ll be on the bentgrass constantly in the mornings and afternoons and I’m sure we’ll be syringing. We’re not going to do anything that’s going to jeopardize the quality that’s expected to be here for our fall season.”

Indeed, Pinehurst is a busy place, and Jett is only half kidding when he says the Amateur will come off almost by accident. In a two-month run-up to the U.S. Amateur, No. 2 has been among the Pinehurst venues to host the North & South Amateur Championship (as it has for the better part of a century), including men, women, seniors and juniors; a couple of U.S. Kids Golf tournaments; and a corporate event or two.

“We’ve got so many other events between now and then the U.S. Amateur is going to just sort of fall in line and be ready as its turn comes,” Jett said when interviewed in late June. “Just grooming the course for all those events puts us in an excellent position for the Amateur.”

Eugene CC hosts Women’s Amateur

The U.S. Women’s Amateur is also on tap this month, running Aug. 4-10 at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club. Chris Gaughan, CGCS, has been superintendent at the club since 1991.

A 15-year GCSAA member, Gaughan is prepping for his third USGA event following the 1993 Men’s Mid-Amateur and 2002 Women’s Mid-Amateur. He’s also hosted three Pacific Coast Amateurs.

Eugene CC, ranked among the top 100 courses in America and adorned by magnificent Douglas fir trees, is noted for being reversed — swapping tee and green locations — in 1967 by Robert Trent Jones Sr., while the fairways remain as originally designed by Chandler Egan in 1925.

 — Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer

Good things happen in Vegas

“It’s hard to be humble.”

Thirty-two-year GCSAA member Bill Rohret, CGCS, said that, followed by a loud laugh.

Of course, anyone who knows Rohret — and a whole lot of folks do — knows the director of maintenance at the sprawling Angel Park Golf Club in Las Vegas was only kidding. You’ve got to admit, though, what happened to Rohret in a span of seven days in June would put a strain on one’s modesty, even for a golf course superintendent.

First, on June 6, he was in Reno, accompanied by his wife, Dian, and his daughter, Nicole, for the state’s Special Olympics Summer Games — Bill serves as a coach for several Las Vegas athletes in the competition. During the event, Rohret received one of the biggest surprises of his life: He was named Nevada Special Olympics Coach of the Year.

Then, on June 12, Rohret and his landscape supervisor, Jim Carollo, went to the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s Landscape Awards Breakfast and carted away three major honors recognizing the combined efforts of many at Angel Park, which is famous in Vegas for its array of flowers, plants and trees that greet golfers and visitors and for its conservation stewardship.

The facility, the only multiaward winner of the day, won the first-place Outstanding Color Award, second-place Best Overall Award and then took SNWA’s highest honor, the Linn Mills Award for water conservation, design, creativity, color and public awareness.

Rohret was especially taken aback by the Coach of the Year honor. “I had no clue I was even in the running,” he says. “It was total surprise and shock.”

But one might have seen it coming. Rohret is in his sixth year of involvement with the local Special Olympics. Presently, he is the head coach of one of two golf groups in Las Vegas, raising the roster from nearly none to 30. He’s also head coach of a 40-person basketball squad and helps about 25 Special Olympic athletes as an assistant coach in track and field.

Rohret figures he puts in time with the program nine to 10 months out of the year, including about five hours a day from February to April with basketball and track. He’s recruited a lot of help along the way. Dian assists with basketball and others have chipped in, such as a colleague, Bill Lucena, superintendent at nearby Badlands Golf Club and a nine-year member of GCSAA; a few turf sales representatives; and several other Angel Park employees, including one of Rohret’s course superintendents, Jason Morgan, a five-year GCSAA member.

It all began because of the void left when Rohret’s children, Nicole and son James, both very active in school activities, moved on to college and beyond.

“It was like, other than work, what now?” he recalls. “It was like the empty-nest syndrome for my wife and I. I got involved in coaching (Special Olympics) basketball and Dian started helping me and it kind of grew from there.

“It’s rewarding. The program is for anyone, 8 to 80. Most of our athletes are in their teens, 20s and 30s and are mentally or physically challenged. I love it; it’s not a job.”

The recognition of the trimmings around Angel Park has probably been inevitable, as well. The place in itself is attention-grabbing and in fact is advertised as the “world’s most complete golf experience.” Included are two Arnold Palmer-designed 18-hole courses, a short course with lights for night play, an 18-hole natural grass putting course, also with lights, and a practice range currently undergoing a renovation.

While Carollo and his staff are busy making the Angel Park grounds a piece of heaven, Rohret for the last year and a half has taken a SNWA incentive program to heart (See Inside Your Water, “Accommodating the drought,” on Page 44 of December 2007 GCM) and thus far has eliminated nearly 80 acres of irrigated turf and returned it to its natural desert landscape.

“It’ll be ongoing until about the end of the year,” he says of replacing turf with desert vegetation.

There is a lot of pride among Angel Park employees in earning the recognition. Rohret, Carollo and a couple of landscapers even loaded up the heavy brick-like awards in a wheelbarrow and rolled them into the office of the operation’s general manager, David Bogue, to give him a first-hand look at the fruits of their labors.

— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer

Seed outlook mixed for upcoming year

The outlook for 2009 seed production, as well as updates on new seed varieties, was on tap during mid-June’s seed field days in Oregon.

At Seed Research of Oregon’s Seed Technology Camp, general manager Bill Dunn outlined the principal challenge facing turfgrass seed companies in the near future: providing adequate seed supplies at prices that are not out of reach. Competition for growers’ acreage is intense because many crops other than turfgrass are commanding high prices. The growers need the higher prices these crops bring because the cost of fuel and fertilizer has grown astronomically.

Wheat is commanding as much as $14 a bushel (compared with $4.48 in 2006) because pigs and cattle that were once fed corn are now being fed wheat, while corn is used for ethanol production. In addition, growing demand for wheat products by China and India and crop failures in Australia and Argentina in 2007 have contributed to a worldwide wheat shortage.

Farmers (some of whom had grown grass for many years) are turning grass fields over to wheat. In fact, Oregon farmers are planning to plant 44 percent more wheat this year, and some of that will be at the expense of grass production. Seed companies will have to increase what they pay growers in order to survive in such a competitive market. In turn, the cost of grass seed will most likely be significantly higher this year. The bottom line is that, for some cultivars, there will not be as much seed and what seed there is will be more expensive.

That outlook was echoed by program presenters at Scotts Professional Seed and Pure-Seed Testing field days, which were also held in mid-June. Kevin Turner, Ph.D., director of seed research and production for Scotts, told growers, distributors and gathered media that seed customers can expect higher prices.

Dryland bluegrass yields, Turner said, are expected to be lower than normal, with the 2008 crop coming in at less than half the level of 2002, and probably will be even lower for 2009.

Perennial ryegrass yield potential looks above average, he noted, and a large tall fescue crop is expected. Fine fescue acreage is at the low end of normal and Canadian Boreal acreage is down with a small crop expected.

— Ed Hiscock, GCM editor in chief

Turf lions

Mark D. Kuhns (right), CGCS, director of grounds at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., and GCSAA vice president, was on hand recently when his former teacher and longtime mentor, Joseph M. Duich, Ph.D., received Penn State University’s 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award. Duich, professor emeritus of turfgrass science in Penn State’s College of Agriculture and a faculty member in agronomy for nearly 40 years, is noted for his research and development of bentgrass varieties. He is also the 2006 winner of GCSAA’s Old Tom Morris Award. Kuhns is a 1977 graduate of Penn State with a degree in agriculture science.

SRO honors Stahnke as top researcher

Gwen Stahnke, Ph.D., an Extension agronomist at Washington State University’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center, received Seed Research of Oregon’s 2008 Researcher of the Year award on June 18 during the company’s 2008 Seed Technology Camp.

The award was presented by Bill Dunn, Seed Research general manager, who says Stahnke “exemplifies professionalism with her innovative solutions and problem-solving.”

A former assistant superintendent at Medinah (Ill.) Country Club, Stahnke works with a diverse clientele, including Master Gardeners, sports turf managers and superintendents. Her research on transitional ryegrass has assisted superintendents repairing golf courses in the cooler climate in the Pacific Northwest.

Eric Miltner, Ph.D., also at WSU, and Stahnke recommended the grasses used in the construction of Chambers Bay Golf Course, a participant in the Audubon Silver Signature Sanctuary Program in an environmentally sensitive area on Puget Sound and site of the 2015 U.S. Open.

Besides her regular duties, Stahnke is currently the editor of the International Turfgrass Society Journal, which is publishing the papers to be presented at the 2009 meetings in Chile.

Nicklaus/Doak collaboration gets USGA nod

Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., has been selected by the USGA to host the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open Championship, June 27-30. It will be the first national championship conducted at the facility.

Sebonack GC, designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak, opened in 2006. Several of the course’s holes offer panoramic views of Long Island’s Great Peconic Bay and Cold Spring Pond, while others are played along an inland forest.

The course’s seaside land was originally used as a summer home for New York bank tycoon Charles Hamilton Sabin, who in 1919 built a 28,000-square-foot home on the property. In the late 1940s, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers bought the property, which they used as a retreat and later as a summer camp for children. In 2001, Michael Pascucci bought the property with the intention of building a championship-level golf course.

Project EverGreen, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to raise awareness of the positive effects of well-maintained green spaces, recently received the largest donation in its history when the national organization of landscape contractors and lawn-care operators, the Professional Landcare Network, gave $104,000.

Farm bill cultivates turfgrass initiatives

The new Farm Bill recently passed into law by Congress is advantageous for the turfgrass industry, thanks to the combined lobbying efforts of the National Turfgrass Federation and Turfgrass Producers International during the past year.

The turfgrass industry fared well on three levels of the measure:

•    The National Turfgrass Research Initiative is included in the Farm Bill’s Title VII (research) as a high-priority initiative, which recognizes the importance of turfgrass research at the federal government level and is expected to lead to an increase in basic turfgrass research.

•    Congress authorized a total $500 million over five years to develop and fund a Specialty Crops Research Initiative that will enable researchers to compete for funding. The lawmakers also directed the secretary of agriculture to consider turfgrass sod as a specialty crop.

•    The move to make turfgrass sod a specialty crop gives the green light for sod producers to apply for specialty crop marketing grants through their respective states. The program provides block grants to support projects in research, marketing, education, pest and disease management, production and food safety. Congress mandated funding for the program of $10 million this fiscal year, $49 million in fiscal 2009 and $55 million for each of the fiscal years 2010-2012.

More information on turfgrass-specific segments of the Farm Bill is available at http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/Legislation/110/FB/Conf/CRlang.pdf

Outreach initiative for green industry formed

Seeing the need for an information and communications planning source concerning issues important to green industry professionals, Aquatrols, a leading manufacturer of water-management products, recently formed the Water Impact Alliance.

Created in part as an industry response to increasing water regulation on the local, state and federal levels, the alliance is considered to be an outreach effort to ensure that green industry professionals are heard in the nation’s water regulatory dialogue.

The initiative will work with turf and ornamental professionals on the local level, identifying and analyzing water regulatory issues and helping to evaluate the needs of its partner groups and provide counsel and planning tools.

More information on the alliance is available by contacting Kathy Conard, marketing manager of Aquatrols, at 800-257-7797 or at kathy.conard@aquatrols.com.

Golf rounds played in the U.S. got off to a slow start this past spring, showing a 4.4 percent decline from 2007 in May, according to the National Golf Foundation. The regions that lost the most rounds were the Lower Midwest, down 10.8 percent, and the Mid-Atlantic, down 8.2 percent. June wasn’t looking any better for the middle of the country, beset by destructive weather and flooding. Total rounds year-to-date (through May) were down 2.3 percent.

Greater concern surfaces from lead tests in artificial turf

In a follow-up assessment of test results of lead chromate levels in synthetic turf (GCM, July 2008, Page 28), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) raised a heightened level of concern and has issued actions and recommendations.

Prompted by the results of routine health investigations at a nearby metal facility, earlier tests conducted in the state of New Jersey examined lead levels in synthetic turf athletic fields and proclaimed that the levels of lead contamination in artificial turf were well below that which would cause harm to those using the fields.

However, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services also reported to the CDC that the findings raised concerns about potentially high lead levels in artificial turf. In an official CDC health advisory, the tests revealed that artificial turf made of nylon or nylon/polyethylene blend fibers contains levels of lead that pose a possible public health concern. Much lower levels of lead were found in fields made with only polyethylene fibers.

The advisory also said that information provided by the New Jersey DHSS noted that higher lead levels were found in older, weathered and visibly dusty synthetic fields, while the exposure to lead is lower in newer fields where the turf fibers are still intact.

Lead chromate is used in many synthetic turf fields to extend the life of the turf’s colorfastness.

Additional tests are being done by the New Jersey DHSS. For more information on the testing and the CDC’s proactive recommendations, visit www.cdc.gov.

GCSAA essay winners announced

Mark Brotherton of Oak Ridge, N.J., a fourth-year undergraduate at Penn State University, is the top winner in GCSAA’s annual Student Essay Contest.

Brotherton won the first-place $2,000 scholarship for his essay, “How Well Do You Know Your Topdressing Sand?”

The other winners in the competition are Jon Trappe of Fayetteville, Ark., a first-year graduate student at the University of Arkansas, who won the second-place grant of $1,200 for his paper, “Implications of Genetically Modified Turfgrasses,” and Patrick McCullough of Hoboken, N.J., a graduate student at Rutgers University, who took the third-place award of $1,000 for his essay, “Roughstalk Bluegrass Control: Do New Herbicides Offer Long-Term Management Solutions in Cool-Season Turf?”

The contest is open to GCSAA members who are undergraduate or graduate students pursuing degrees in turfgrass science, agronomy or any field related to golf course management. Funding is provided by The Environmental Institute for Golf through the Robert Trent Jones Endowment.

In the news

Feisty fowl a nuisance
A story in the Peoria Journal Star recounts the challenges Peoria, Ill., golf courses face with Canada geese, featuring GCSAA members Pete Clarno, CGCS at Mount Hawley Country Club, and David Likes, superintendent at Weaver Ridge Golf Club.

Audubon stretches program to Germany
The Stars and Stripes features in its European edition Stuttgard Golf Club in Kornwestheim, Germany, and GCSAA member Chris Konik, superintendent, earning Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program certification.

Superintendents promote stewardship
A presentation about golf and environment made to golf media at Chambers Bay Golf Course in University Place, Wash., was published in The Olympian, featuring GCSAA member David Wienecke, superintendent at Chambers Bay; Chris Goodman, GCSAA Class A superintendent and manager at Meadow Park Golf Course in Tacoma, Wash.; and the Western Washington GCSA.

Kansas chapter boosts research
An article about the Kansas GCSA raising more than $10,000 at its 24th annual research golf tournament at Dodge City (Kan.) Country Club is featured in the Dodge City Daily Globe.

Wildlife sightings add to dining experience
The executive chef at The Resort at Red Hawk in Sparks, Nev., teams up with GCSAA Class A superintendent Ron Gribble to match wine and light hors d’oeuvres at an Audubon Wine Tasting with places on the golf course where some of the wildlife tends to congregate, showcasing Red Hawk’s Audubon International Signature Sanctuary certification.

Water tap tightened in L.A. suburb
The Rossmoor (Calif.) News reports on increased water restrictions by the East Bay Municipal Utility District on area golf courses, featuring Blake Swint, GCSAA Class A superintendent.

Maddern takes over San Diego golf position

The city of San Diego was quick to replace Mark Woodward, CGCS, as its golf operations manager and deputy director of its golf division, promoting Woodward’s assistant, Jon Maddern, CGCS, a day after the U.S. Open was completed at Torrey Pines.

Maddern officially took over on June 28, the same day Woodward departed to become GCSAA’s new CEO.

Like Woodward, Maddern is a former president of GCSAA, having served the association in 2003. He joined the staff in San Diego last year as the assistant golf operations manager and played a crucial role in preparing Torrey Pines’ South Course for the Open. In his new job, Maddern will manage the golf division of the city’s parks and recreation department, which includes the day-to-day operations at Torrey Pines, Balboa Park Golf Course and Mission Bay Golf Course. He will also head preparations for all major events at Torrey Pines, including the PGA Tour’s Buick Invitational each February and the annual Junior World Golf Championships in July.

Maddern, a 32-year member of the association, previously worked as the experience manager at FarmLinks in Sylacauga, Ala., and before that was the longtime superintendent at Elk Ridge Golf Club in Atlanta, Mich.

Mark Woodward, CGCS, the new CEO of GCSAA, will deliver the keynote address at the Fall Golf Inc. Conference, Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Woodward will speak on Wednesday, Oct. 1.

Water education trickle-down aimed at consumers

With the southeastern U.S. still in the grip of drought, green industry leaders are fighting back with an educational series designed for those on the front lines — landscape contractors and independent garden centers.

Nine out of 10 households surveyed by the National Gardening Association believe it is important to manage personal lawns and gardens in an environmentally friendly way. However, only half (53 percent) of all households say they know how to maintain gardens using good environmental stewardship practices.

“Education is the key component to successfully develop water usage practices that are sustainable for years to come,” says Mary Kay Woodworth, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Landscape and Turf Association. “It’s our job as industry professionals and leaders to educate consumers on environmentally sound landscape practices.”

But keeping up with ever-changing water restrictions is not easy to do, specifically for landscape contractors and independent retail garden centers servicing multiple communities which may fall under differing regulations. That’s why the Southern Nursery Association plans to host a number of educational classes for industry leaders as part of its annual Green Industry Trade Show, Aug. 6-9 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

“The focus is not on keeping up with current restrictions, but rather continual water management practices that can be implemented to produce sustainable landscapes,” says Steve Newton, executive vice president of the SNA.

Educational topics will include best management practices for drought tolerance and water conservation in the landscape, as well as tips to shrink water bills and to maximize the use of rainwater and recycled water. Additional classes will focus on hidden treasures, such as available plants that are often overlooked and conifers for sweltering environments like the Southeast.

Although the educational classes are only for industry professionals, the SNA hopes the information will trickle down to consumers through landscape contractors and seminars hosted by independent garden centers.

“Our goal is to educate the green industry professionals who interact with consumers daily,” says Newton. “In turn, they pass on that information to their customers.”

 — GCM NewsWeekly

Correction

Joseph R. Paternostro, superintendent at West Winds Golf Club, New Market, Md., was listed in the June 2008 issue of GCM as a Class C member. Paternostro is a Superintendent Member.