Training days

Think of it as a training camp for future superintendents. A place where assistant supers can learn about their field in ways maybe overlooked or not covered in-depth at a turfgrass school, ask earnest questions from veterans in the profession, network with their peers and get to see a side of the industry that’s not as prevalent in their day-to-days but one that offers unique insight.  

Such is the opportunity that Bayer Environmental Science and John Deere Golf have paired up to offer to up-and-coming assistant superintendents for the past three years at the Green Start Academy. This year’s edition, held in early October, brought 54 assistants, including three women, to Bayer’s Development and Training Center in Clayton, N.C., and John Deere’s Turf Care factory in Fuquay Varina, N.C.  

Selected for the two-day event based on nominations by their superintendents and an essay contest on why they should be chosen, the assistants heard from a variety of industry professionals on hot industry topics, learned about yet-to-be-introduced-to-market technology in the business and also got a chance to sit down in round-table discussions with Dave Fearis, CGCS-Retired, director of membership at GCSAA; Bob Farren, CGCS, director of golf course and grounds management at Pinehurst (N.C.) Resort & Country Club; and Bruce Williams, CGCS, director of golf course and grounds at Los Angeles Country Club.  

The group also heard about Bayer’s research and development process from Nick Hamon, Ph.D., the company’s director of development and technical services; water management issues from Dan Bowman, Ph.D. at North Carolina State University; a USGA Green Section update from Stan Zontek, director of the Mid-Atlantic Region; putting surface management from Frank Rossi, Ph.D. at Cornell University; and John Deere’s Turf Care factory from Garry Carpenter, manager of training for John Deere Golf.  

Many asked questions of the veteran superintendents at the event about how to move up to a head superintendent position, how to negotiate salary and benefits and other career-related topics. Upward mobility is something organizers of the Green Start Academy hope the attendees will gain as a result of their participation. And it’s a program that Neil Cleveland, managing director of Bayer’s Green Professional Products, thinks will trickle down and contribute to the overall good of the profession.  

“These assistants will learn how to take their careers to the next level,” Cleveland said. “But their golf courses and the entire industry will also benefit from their improved knowledge.”

— Darcy DeVictor, GCM associate editor

Superintendent nabs $10,000 for water works

Christopher S. Gray Sr., Class A superintendent at Marvel Golf Club in Benton, Ky., recently was awarded Rain Bird’s Intelligent Use of Water award, a prize that included an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles, where he was presented a check for $10,000.

Gray, who has in previous years won GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leader in Golf Awards, has always been a staunch supporter of the environment. One of his projects that helped him earn this most recent honor was his work developing a wastewater recapture program at Marvel. All stormwater and wastewater generated by the homes surrounding Marvel GC is captured, treated and pumped into the course’s irrigation retention ponds to be used to irrigate the course.

The award was a pleasant surprise for Gray, who was nominated by his wife, Colleen.

“She read about the competition in one of the e-mail blasts that GCSAA sends out,” Gray said. “Unbeknownst to me, she grabbed my old Environmental Leader in Golf application, used some of the information, and filled out an application. Until I got an e-mail notifying me I was one of five finalists, I didn’t even know I was entered.”

As a further testament to the work of superintendents, also in the running for the $10,000 prize was the Georgia GCSA.

“This was not a golf-only award, this included other industries,” Gray said. “It’s nice to see we’re finally being recognized outside our own industry.”

— Seth Jones, GCM senior associate editor

A State Supreme Court judge recently issued a temporary restraining order against Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., banning play on the sixth hole of the East Course (ranked 43rd in America) after a resident who lives near the sixth green filed suit because of numerous golf balls landing on his property.

Feser winner an inspiration

“Hi, this is Tom. I’m not here right now because I’m out changing things about my life. If I don’t return your phone call within one week, then guess what? You are part of those changes. So long!”

That’s the message on Tom Lavrenz’ cell phone, and it’s typical of what the highly accomplished superintendent who is dealing with one of life’s cruelest turns is all about these days.

Ravaged by Parkinson’s disease and related complications in recent years, the 49-year-old Lavrenz was forced to retire last spring as director of golf for the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, ending three decades of caring for that community’s golf courses.

A few months before his retirement, Lavrenz, a five-time winner of the Calhoun Writing Award for the Iowa GCSA newsletter, The Reporter, wrote an article for GCM titled “Stress: What’s really important.” It explored a subject that Lavrenz had become very passionate about and, moreover, one that he believes contributed to his physical decline.

“Stress happens at work, it happens at home, it happens on the road, it happens when we are trying to relax. Stress is everywhere,” he wrote in the article that was published last February (Page 88). “ ... Everyone has challenges. The key to survival is distinguishing between what is important and can be changed and what is important but cannot be changed. Stress often results from not being able to differentiate between the two.”

Recently, the article earned Lavrenz GCSAA’s 2008 Leo Feser Award for the best superintendent-written article in the golf course management industry’s flagship publication. It’s a small reward in his overall scheme of things, but nevertheless a very poignant acknowledgment as far as the 19-year GCSAA member is concerned.

“I’m just as giddy as a school kid; it was a tremendous surprise,” he said a couple of days after being notified of the award. “I was pretty much down in the dumps when I got the word (from GCSAA president David S. Downing II, CGCS). Don’t tell me God doesn’t exist. He knew I had taken enough. It’s truly an honor.”

Lavrenz is convinced that his work lifestyle eventually triggered the Parkinson’s disease that he was diagnosed with almost five years ago, followed three years later by the discovery of an even more debilitating disease, mitochondrial myopathy, which is considered terminal.

“I was always at my office at 4 or 5 in the morning and never left until 6 or 7 at night,” he said. “My kids suffered for it, my marriage suffered ... and, voilà! Look at what happened to me.”

The family that suffered is of course Lavrenz’ biggest support group. He and his wife of 25 years, Julie, have five sons, ranging from Steve, a junior in college, and Craig, in the U.S. Marine Corps, to Matthew, a fourth grader, with teenagers Jeff and Michael in between.

Lavrenz is determined to remain as active as possible under very difficult conditions. On what he calls his good days, his activities may include family, landscaping around the house in Hiawatha, Iowa, playing golf, fishing or teaching Junior Achievement classes. He’s hoping for a lot of good days in a couple of months. As the Feser Award winner, he’s due to be honored at the Golf Industry Show in New Orleans.

On his bad days, he’s usually bedridden, yet manages to pursue another hobby, knitting scarves, as many as 100 a year, and he sells them. Every bit helps for someone who pops 65 pills a day.

“I can’t just sit back and die. I can’t do that,” he said. “Hell, my golf game is the best it’s ever been. I can’t swing hard anymore, so I hit the ball straight and actually outdrive a lot of people.”

Lavrenz said doctors told him about a year ago he probably had from five to seven years to live. He took it as a personal challenge.

“I don’t accept that,” he said. “I told them they can say what they want, but I don’t believe them because I’m going to beat it. In seven years, I’ll be standing on the first tee and I’ll call ’em up and say, ‘Let’s play golf!’”

 — Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer

For the fourth year in a row, GCSAA was a supporting sponsor of the Special Olympics Golf National Invitational Tournament, held this fall at the PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., where 28-year GCSAA member John Lee is director of golf.

From GCM’s blog poll ... Responding to “Are the country’s current economic woes having an impact on the operation of your course?” 43.9 percent said they are definitely feeling the pinch already, while 31.6 percent replied that they are taking a wait-and-see attitude and 24.6 percent said it’s business as usual. To cast your vote in GCM’s polls, visit From the Desk of GCM at http://gcm.typepad.com.  

San Diego GCSA salutes military at ‘Golf with a Hero’

Gunnery Sergeant Bryan Cox has done two tours in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq. He returns to Afghanistan in February.

Which made his tour of the 18 holes of private golf at the Golf Club of California all the more enjoyable.

Cox, along with 59 of his fellow active military members, were welcomed as guests at the GC of California as part of the San Diego GCSA’s annual Golf with a Hero tournament, now in its fourth year. The tournament paired two San Diego GCSA members with two members of the regional active military. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Naval Air Station North Island and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton are all located in the area.

The heroes are asked to just show up. They’re not charged to play in the tournament, or to pay for lunch, or to even buy a raffle ticket — the San Diego GCSA, along with the many sponsors of the event, picks up the entire tab.

“You can look around and tell this place isn’t cheap. They put a lot of effort into what they have here,” Cox said after his round at the GC of California, located in Fallbrook.  

“It’s great that (the San Diego GCSA) recognizes us for what we do ... it’s an honor to be brought in here as a guest.”

Troy Mullane, Class A member at The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., and the president of the San Diego GCSA, said that the honor of hosting the regional military golfers was all theirs.

“The satisfaction we get out of hosting this event is incredible,” he said. “These men have enough stress. We think we have stress because of our greens? Look at these people serving our country — they’re putting their lives on the line.”

In the past, the Golf with a Hero event had been hosted at one of the military golf courses in the area. Board members within the San Diego GCSA thought the next step for the event was to host the tournament at a private course that the troops might not otherwise get to play. That’s why Vince Zellefrow, superintendent at the GC of California and a director for the San Diego GCSA, stepped up and asked the owners of his course, Magnus Investments, to host the event.

“I told them this would not be a money maker,” Zellefrow said. “But we know the military here — it’s a military community. We see the bad things that can happen. We wanted to host a top-notch event for them, and we did.”

Besides the great golf, all the heroes won raffle prizes, from San Diego Chargers tickets to cold hard cash. Meanwhile, they also learned a little about the profession of the superintendent.

“I wasn’t aware that there was such a thing as an association of golf course superintendents before this tournament,” Cox said. “I understand that it’s a tough job, though. There’s competition — just like we want to have the best helicopter, they want to have the best greens.”

— Seth Jones, GCM senior associate editor

Three winners of inaugural Morley Award

Two highly influential superintendents with more than 60 years in the profession between them and an accomplished Penn State University educator who continued to teach turfgrass management while staging a valiant fight for his life are the winners of GCSAA’s 2009 Col. John Morley Distinguished Service Award.

Honored are Mark Esoda, CGCS at Atlanta Country Club; Monroe Miller, retiring superintendent at Blackhawk Country Club in Madison, Wis.; and George Hamilton, Ph.D., turfgrass professor at Penn State and a prominent innovator for the golf course industry.

Hamilton is being recognized posthumously. He died in 2004 at the age of 43 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was director of Penn State’s two-year turf management program for several years and was internationally known for his work in research on runoff and infiltration in turfgrass systems, ice damage to greens and the development of the first pelletized mulch made from recycled paper.

Hamilton served on the GCSAA Education Committee and the C-5 Division Education Committee of the American Society of Agronomy. The Northeast Weed Society twice named him innovator of the year, in 1994 and ’97. He was a prolific promoter of turfgrass management practices at GCSAA chapters and seminars and established a fellowship at Penn State in honor of his father that supports graduate students working in turfgrass science. He also was an avid supporter of Coaches vs. Cancer and frequently spoke on living with cancer.

Esoda has been at Atlanta CC for two decades, hosting the PGA Tour’s BellSouth Classic there six times in the 1990s. The 22-year GCSAA member is one of golf course management’s leading spokesmen for water conservation, having developed a best management practices template for superintendents in Georgia that was endorsed by the state’s environmental protection department and now serves as a guideline for water use and conservation throughout the country.

President of the Georgia GCSA in 1995-96, Esoda won a GCSAA Excellence in Government Relations Award in 2004 for his work with state golf course water rights and was instrumental in the state chapter winning the award three years later for its formation of the Georgia Allied Golf Council, which supplements ongoing lobbying efforts representing the golf industry.

Miller, who retires at Blackhawk CC this month after 36 years at the club, is one of the most well-known superintendents not only in the Midwest, but also across much of the country for his relentless promotion of the profession. More than 100 of the 36-year GCSAA member’s employees and interns are still active in the turf industry today.

Miller is a co-founder of the Wisconsin Turfgrass Association and spearheaded a fundraising campaign that led to the establishment of the O.J. Noer Turfgrass Research Facility at the University of Wisconsin. He perhaps was best known as an award-winning writer for the Wisconsin GCSA newsletter, Grass Roots, for two dozen years. He also contributed to the state golf association’s publication, Wisconsin Golfer, in which he educated the golfing community of the importance of proper turfgrass management and environmental protection.

Recognition has caught up with Miller’s career of late. He received the prestigious USGA Green Section Award in 2004 and in 2005 was the first golf course superintendent to be inducted into the Wisconsin State Golf Association Hall of Fame.

This is the first year the GCSAA distinguished service award has been given under its new name in honor of Col. John Morley, the founder of GCSAA, its first president (1926-1932), a two-time DSA winner himself (1932 and 1940) and the 2009 Old Tom Morris Award winner (see “An overdue thank you,” Page 58). The 2009 winners will be acknowledged on Feb. 2 during the Opening Session of the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in New Orleans.

New GCSAA CEO joins elite list

Mark Woodward, CGCS, superintendent-turned-GCSAA CEO, is ranked among Golf Inc. magazine’s annual listing of the 35 Most Powerful People in Golf. Woodward, who became
GCSAA’s executive leader on July 1, was rated 33rd.

Woodward’s predecessor at GCSAA, Steve Mona, was once again named to the list at No. 23, up six places from a year ago. The Most Powerful also included four former Old Tom Morris Award winners — Jack Nicklaus, No. 1; Tim Finchem, 6; Greg Norman, 11; and Arnold Palmer, 22.

The rankings also included members of The Environmental Institute for Golf’s advisory council — Dana Garmany, 2; Joe Steranka, 8; Norman; and Bill Kubly, 25.

Green Links passed on to Williams  

Anthony Williams, CGCS at Stone Mountain Golf Club by Marriott in Stone Mountain, Ga., will host The Environmental Institute for Golf’s Green Links, Highlights from Edge, in the coming year. He succeeds Bob Farren, CGCS, director of golf course and grounds at Pinehurst (N.C.) Resort.

Green Links is a monthly feature on The Institute’s Web site,  www.eifg.org, that highlights case studies from Edge, golf’s environmental resource that is supported in part by a grant from The Toro Foundation.

Williams is a three-time winner of the GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf Award, including the overall title in 2006. As host of Green Links, he will provide additional insight and information about each month’s featured case study.

Professional development winners announced

Bayer Environmental Science recently announced the five superintendents it will send to New Orleans Feb. 2-7 for the 2009 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show.

This is the sixth year Bayer and The Environmental Institute for Golf have assisted superintendents with their professional development by providing them with airfare, hotel accommodations, conference registration and personal expenses for the annual conference and show.

The winners include Charles Fogle, CGCS at the University Golf Club in University Park, Ill.; Rebecca Matis, superintendent at Felicita Golf Resort in Harrisburg, Pa.; Matthew Kowal, Class A superintendent at Twin Hills Country Club in Longmeadow, Mass.; Scott Davis, Class A superintendent at The Club at Strand in Naples, Fla.; and Christopher Beaty, Class A superintendent at Odessa (Texas) Country Club.

20-year low in golf course openings

The National Golf Foundation reports that U.S. golf course developers are on track to record the lowest number of openings in more than 20 years.

Sixty-five courses had opened through October in 2008, and the NGF estimates that another 10 to 20 will open by the end of the year. The 75 to 85 openings would be the lowest in two decades.

Many projects across the country are in a holding pattern, the NGF notes, citing a slumping economy for the delays. Other reasons given include waiting for the housing market to rebound, construction projects taking longer than expected, financing issues and snags in permitting processes.

Plant breeder, turf educator win CSSA awards

Crystal Rose-Fricker, president of Pure-Seed Testing Inc. in Hubbard, Ore., and Roch Gaussoin, Ph.D., professor of agronomy and horticulture and an Extension turfgrass specialist at the University of Nebraska, were among those recently honored with achievement awards from the Crop Science Society of America.

Rose-Fricker, who is on the advisory board for both Scotts Professional Seed and the Turfgrass Breeders Association and has been involved in the development of more than 200 cultivars, received the Genetics and Plant Breeding Award for Industry in recognition of her significant contributions through private sector genetic and plant breeding research.

Gaussoin was given the Fred V. Grau Turfgrass Science Award, honoring his career contributions in turfgrass science, specifically his research focusing on turfgrass weed management and the construction and management of golf course greens.

Nebraska GCSA hires interim executive

The Nebraska GCSA met with members of a task group in late October and decided to retain the services of Jeff Wendell, CEO of the Iowa GCSA, as an interim executive director leading up to the time when a permanent paid executive can be hired.

Wendell, who will continue to serve the Iowa chapter during the interim, told the board it would probably take up to two years for him to get the foundations of an effective chapter established in Nebraska. Some of the tasks Wendell plans to emphasize are member needs assessment, member facility penetration and relationships with industry partners and allied associations.

Wendell also has agreed to assist the Nebraska chapter in finding his qualified and trained replacement.

Patriot Golf Day nears $2 million

The second-annual Patriot Golf Day, a nationwide effort to support the families of veterans who have been disabled or lost their lives in the line of duty, has raised more than $1.7 million thus far. The event was held over the Labor Day weekend, Aug. 29-Sept. 1, at approximately 3,800 golf facilities.

The campaign, the brainchild of Major Dan Rooney, an F-16 pilot, PGA pro and USGA member from Broken Arrow, Okla., benefits the Folds of Honor Foundation and is jointly sponsored by the USGA and the PGA of America, with additional sponsorship from GCSAA, the Club Managers Association of America, the National Golf Course Owners Association and leading industry manufacturers and media outlets.

Golfers donate an extra dollar to their greens fee at participating courses during the holiday weekend. This year, the initiative was boosted by a $130,000 donation from Captain Paul Azinger and the 12 members of the victorious U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Last year’s inaugural Patriot Golf Day raised $1.1 million.

Never-Search Inc., publisher of golf course information via patent travel and trip software, has added 1,200 e-mail addresses of superintendents to its Business Edition, which also includes contact information on thousands of PGA pros, general managers and owners.

The LPGA Foundation has donated $5,000 to GCSAA’s philanthropic organization, The Environmental Institute for Golf. The gift was made in honor of Rae Evans, an Institute trustee and a former chairman of the LPGA Board of Directors.

James F. Vernon of Pasadena, Calif., has been nominated to serve a second one-year term as president of the USGA. Election of the association’s officers and executive committee will take place Feb. 7 at its annual meeting in Newport Beach, Calif.

Golf car trek across Wales

Club Car, a leading manufacturer of golf cars and utility vehicles, put one of its top products to a unique test this summer — a journey across Wales to help promote a tourism advertising campaign for Visit Wales and also to bring attention to the 2010 Ryder Cup matches scheduled for Celtic Manor, an event strongly supported by Club Car. A Welshman and an American manned the golf car through 15 villages on the trip. The Club Car vehicle used in the journey was a road-registered Precedent Villager 4 electric.

GCSAA, Syngenta link up education, superintendents

Taking career-based education to a grassroots level served as the driving force behind the creation of Links to Your Future, a series of interactive educational events for superintendents that debuted in Austin, Texas, in early November.

GCSAA and Syngenta Professional Products teamed up to create these educational opportunities, which also visited Pittsburgh and Greensboro, N.C., in the month of November. All three sessions brought in local superintendents for a half-day of education focused on business concepts and communications.

Bill Maynard, CGCS at Milburn Country Club in Overland Park, Kan., led all three Links to Your Future events. In Austin, his presentation for 15 superintendents focused on issues such as budgeting, the payroll process, persuasive speaking and developing relationships on a professional level.

— Scott Hollister, GCM editor

Been there, done that

Editor’s Note: The following is an installment in a periodic series of stories in Front Nine focusing on the careers of some of GCSAA’s longest-tenured and most respected members. This month features Garry Crothers, CGCS, an avid practitioner and supporter of the superintendent’s profession, both here and abroad.

Some superintendents are content to have low-key careers in the comfort of familiar surroundings, while others like to see the sights along the way. Then there’s Garry Crothers, CGCS, who, in nearly a half-century of golf course work, has been more than halfway around the world and back.

Crothers, who’s now where he was 30 years ago, Montague Golf Club near his beloved ski slopes of central Vermont, may never stop. He’s 75, but says he looks and feels younger than that and, besides, he’s having too much fun to quit now.

“I’ve been around,” the 48-year GCSAA member says, letting that sink in for a moment, then adding, “I’ve had a fantastic career.”

Crothers made a name for himself in the Northeast even before he embarked on a 12-year international odyssey that took him to golf course developments from Morocco, to Japan, to Southeast Asia, and points in between. And all the while he managed to heed the advice of his mentor from many years ago, the late Sherwood Moore, which was to be involved in enhancing the profession wherever you are.

Crothers has been president of GCSAA chapters in New Jersey, New York and Vermont, helped found the Indonesia Golf Course Superintendents Association and played a role in bringing GCSAA greenkeeping expertise to the region and the Golf Asia Show in the early 1990s.

Moore, who was GCSAA’s president in 1962 and its Old Tom Morris Award winner in 1990, was one of several golf industry greats Crothers has rubbed elbows with over the last 50 years. “That was my golden egg — the people I’ve been associated with and who’ve helped me,” he says.

Actually, Crothers got into golf course management mostly by chance. A New Jersey native, he went to Penn State University in the 1950s to study agronomy, but in forage crops with aspirations in farm management.

“When I was in school no one was talking about turf or golf course management as a profession. Yet, we had Dr. Joe Duich and Burt Musser there,” Crothers says, noting that one of his roommates at Penn State was Pat Rielly, who 30 years later would be president of the PGA of America.

After Crothers graduated and did a stint in the military, he was job-hunting in 1958, his fervor for farm management already cooled. A relative pointed him toward two golf course equipment legends, brothers Tom and Tony Mascaro in West Point, Pa. Crothers got hooked on their business, and the Mascaros in turn hooked him up with Moore at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., in the summer of 1959 when Moore was prepping for the U.S. Open.

Crothers learned the craft from the master at Winged Foot for two years and also spent one winter at UMass under the tutelage of Joe Troll and Geoffrey Cornish.

“Sherwood was a great man and we became very close,” Crothers says. “And one of my best friends to this day is Ted Horton, who also worked for Sherwood and then became superintendent at Winged Foot when Sherwood left.”

Crothers began his career on the steady side, spending eight years at Deal (N.J.) Golf & Country Club and 10 more years at The Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y. But in 1978, he and his wife, Sharon, both avid skiers, moved to Randolph, Vt., to run a ski shop. Crothers worked at Montague GC in the summers to supplement their income, but neither the venture nor the marriage (they have a daughter, Sherri Gene) survived.

Crothers bounced around a while, then in 1989 he was hired to direct an all-bentgrass grow-in at a large development in Hokkaido in northern Japan. “It wasn’t easy — a totally different culture with the language and all that,” he says.

After he completed that project, he was back in Vermont for a while, then the International Management Group hired him in 1994 to grow-in a new course near Jakarta, Indonesia. Over the next decade, Crothers became instrumental in nurturing participation and leadership in golf course management in Indonesia and Singapore.

“They were so hungry for something like that and it just took off,” he says. “That was very rewarding to see how it developed.”

Four years ago Crothers returned to Randolph and Montague GC. He’s surrounded himself with a staff of mostly retirees — guys who’ve also been around. It’s low-key and he’s liking it.

“I don’t want to retire,” he says. “I’ve never considered this work. I’ve had fun. I’ve been fortunate to have had such varied experiences in a profession like this.”

— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer