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FRONT NINE |
Interlachen shakes
off long winter
This month’s U.S. Women’s Open at Interlachen Country Club in the Twin Cities suburb of Edina, Minn., will be played on a layout that barely three months ago was still under a blanket of snow.
The recovery from the persistent winter of 2007-08 has been the main challenge for superintendent Matt Rostal, who has been at the 99-year-old club since he joined the maintenance staff in 1990. He was a turf school intern (University of Minnesota) during the setup for the Walker Cup matches at ICC in 1993, became the head superintendent in 2001 and a year later prepped for the 2002 Solheim Cup.
“I’m praying for warm weather,” Rostal said when interviewed on the last day of April. “We were below average in temperatures for March and April. The grass greened up, but it really wasn’t growing.”
But Rostal, a 12-year GCSAA member, has had his ducks in a row for the USGA for some time. He completed the major pre-Open projects a couple of years ago, narrowing most of the fairways, directing a full bunker renovation, including some new placements, and lengthening No. 17, a par-4 dogleg and arguably the hardest hole on the course, to 445 yards.
Those Open competitors who played Interlachen during the Solheim Cup matches will see a longer and tougher layout this time around. In all, the course will be the longest in Women’s Open history, just under 6,800 yards.
Interlachen — which was originally designed and built by William Watson in 1911, completely redesigned by Donald Ross in 1919 and tweaked here and there by Robert Trent Jones in the early ’60s — has had a storied past, particularly when it hosted the 1930 U.S. Open, won by Bobby Jones en route to his historic grand slam that year.
Other major events at the club have been a Women’s Open in 1935 and the U.S. Senior Open in 1986. Interlachen also was to host the 1942 U.S. Open, but it was canceled because of World War II.
Rostal said he would have few agronomic options in the month and a half leading up to the 2008 Women’s Open (June 26-29), other than hoping Mother Nature cooperates with some warm, grass-growing weather.
“We had snow cover all winter long, and that definitely helped,” he said, noting that the course’s greens covers were removed on April 8. “Some of the high areas melted down, which was why we had some damage on the second and seventh greens. But we had a good winter overall.”
His main concern was coaxing the bentgrass/bluegrass/ryegrass rough to Open step-cut specs — 3½ to 4 inches in the first 11 feet and about 5 inches thereafter. By May 1 the rough was still only an inch tall.
“The USGA doesn’t want us to fertilize it,” he said. “They want the rough tall, but not thick.”
Rostal added that he planned to have Interlachen’s bent/Poa fairways and greens up to their respective speeds by lowering mowing heights in early June. The greens are expected to run 12 on the Stimpmeter by tournament time.
For the 42-year-old Class A superintendent, who has been on the site for 18 years and knows its nuances well, just a little assist from Mother Nature will set up things just right.
“Once everything starts growing, it’ll happen fast,” he said. “It’ll pretty much be like our normal years here. We don’t have really great golf course conditions until after the first of June.”
And that’s just in time.
— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer
Bunker education
comes full circle
At Blue Hills Golf Club, a small semi-private 18-hole layout in Roanoke, Va., the membership has established a clear priority list for superintendent Roscoe Craighead — greens matter most, and everything else is a distant second.
Lumped into the “everything else” category have been the course’s bunkers, which have received little in the way of a facelift since the 75-year-old course reopened in the late 1950s as Blue Hills. They’re certainly playable and maintained regularly, but like many older bunkers they’re are prone to washouts in heavy rains and lack the bells and whistles common to newer bunker constructions.
That started to change earlier this year, when the greenside bunker on the course’s fifth hole became a laboratory of sorts as a part of Bunkers360, a GCSAA-approved educational program from bunker construction and renovation firm SandTrapper that was part of the Virginia Turfgrass Association’s April 8 meeting at Blue Hills.The program was designed to deliver a comprehensive examination of bunker renovations, from a broader, more global look at the history of bunkers and master planning (delivered in Roanoke by golf course architect Lester George), to a nuts-and-bolts look at implementing a renovation project (led by Chris Kelly, a project manager with Landscapes Unlimited), to an examination of the grounds renovation policies at Blue Hills featuring club president John Montgomery.
Additionally, all attendees receive access to an online Bunker Tool Box, which contains worksheets, planning guides and all presentation aides from the day.
Kelly and the Landscapes Unlimited crew charged with performing the actual work on the bunker did use SandTrapper products in their work — the Sifon drain belt for drainage and the Super Mighty Edge for bunker edging — but that was where product pitches and company promos ended. It was an approach that appealed not only to Craighead, but also to an important group of people at his facility.
“My membership was under the assumption that this project was being done for SandTrapper to sell products,” the four-year GCSAA member says. “What they found was this was really an educational project to show superintendents what it takes to redo a bunker. I know that my board of directors is just tickled with the final results.”
Tickled enough to finally move bunkers out of that “everything else” list at Blue Hills? Maybe not right away, says Craighead, but it hasn’t hurt that since the completion of the project the course has endured a pair of heavy rains that dumped a total of 4 inches on the course and “not a grain of sand has moved in that bunker.”
“I haven’t had one complaint about that bunker since they finished, and that’s big around here,” Craighead says. “I’ve been here long enough to know that when people don’t say much, that’s a good thing.”
Bunkers360 also visited the Michigan GCSA meeting at Kalamazoo Country Club in May and the Central Texas GCSA meeting at Cimarron Hills Country Club in Georgetown, Texas, early this month. Plans are in the works for a fourth stop in 2008 and perhaps as many as six in 2009.
— Story and photo by Scott Hollister, GCM editor
Barenbrug USA and Turfco Manufacturing Co. have joined GCSAA’s Partner Recognition Program, both at the Silver level.
Patriot Golf Day founder honored
Dan Rooney, the PGA professional who founded Patriot Golf Day and Folds of Honor Foundation, is one of the recipients of the 2008 Significant Sig Award, the highest honor bestowed upon alumni of the Sigma Chi fraternity in recognition of their achievements in their respective fields.
A year ago, Rooney started Patriot Golf Day, a national fundraiser supported jointly by GCSAA, the PGA of America, USGA and the National Golf Course Owners Association. The event reaped $1.1 million, with the proceeds going to the Folds of Honor Foundation, which provides scholarships to the spouses and children of troops injured or killed in combat. Patriot Golf Day is scheduled this year during the Labor Day weekend, Aug. 29-Sept. 1.
Rooney, 35, besides being a PGA pro and a golf course owner, is a captain in the U.S. Air Force and will make his third tour of duty in Iraq later this year.
Carolinas chapter boosts success story
It’s probably time the Wall Street Journal printed a retraction to its 1995 story that panned legislation establishing South Carolina Golf Week as an annual event in the Palmetto state. Since then the game has grown from a $640 million to $2.3 billion contributor to the state economy. And no single enterprise has done more to tell that story and advance the industry’s status in the eyes of legislators and the public than Golf Week.
A significant proportion of that success can be attributed to the volunteer support from members of the Carolinas GCSA. For most of this decade at least, the Carolinas GCSA has helped underpin Golf Week with labor, financial support and a day devoted to introducing schoolchildren to the game and the business of maintaining golf courses.
This past April, 50 fifth grade students from Rice Creek Elementary School in Columbia, S.C., got up close and personal with the superintendent profession at The University Club at Cobblestone Park. It’s the fifth year Carolinas GCSA and Midlands GCSA members have hosted a school group and over the years, the annual Kids on Greens Day has generated considerable media attention and won the hearts of hundreds of future golfers.
“The kids really enjoy it every year and so do I,” says Craig Taylor, director of golf course maintenance at Cobblestone Park. “They just love getting outside and they always ask a lot of questions. You can tell by their excitement that they go away with a positive view of the game and you know they’re going to be talking about it to their parents at dinner that night.”
Superintendents are also a highly visible presence at an annual legislative reception where they rub shoulders with lawmakers and their staffers. The following day superintendents sponsor teams in the annual legislative classic golf tournament where teams are matched with a legislator in a captain’s choice event.
“The reception and the golf tournament are great ways to get to know some of the people who make decisions that affect how we do business,” says Carolinas GCSA secretary-treasurer, Jeff Connell, Class A superintendent at Columbia Country Club. “These people have huge demands on their time from all sorts of people, so to get the chance to spend quality time with them in such informal settings is invaluable. You can build a relationship with someone that way that gives you a better chance to have your message heard.”
The South Carolina Golf Association, which runs Golf Week, honored the Carolinas GCSA’s support with the 2007 Tom Fazio Service to Golf Award. Although Fazio, the prominent course architect, is based in North Carolina, he has designed more courses in South Carolina than anybody else and is a major benefactor of that state’s golf association’s junior development programs.
When Golf Week was established, the Wall Street Journal mocked the move in a lengthy story on “silly” legislation alongside laws on toad licking, bungee jumping and cursing on public roads. Rep. Doug Smith, from Spartanburg, who sponsored the legislation, was unperturbed at the time and is surely vindicated now.
In an interview several years ago, Smith said: “Golf is a couple-billion-dollars-a-year industry in South Carolina. The fact is, it is also a remarkably large portion of the tourism industry. A lot of people don’t pay enough attention to that reality and a lot of lawmaking that affects golf is negative because legislators are among those who don’t recognize the magnitude of that economic benefit.”
“I think we’ve made serious inroads into changing those perceptions,” Connell says. “And I think we’ve been able to do that by getting to know people and telling our story rather than just knocking on doors asking for something.”
— Story and photo by Trent Bouts
Chambers Bay designer heads ASGCA
Bruce Charlton, president and chief design officer of the Robert Trent Jones II architecture firm in Palo Alto, Calif., was elected president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects at the organization’s 62nd annual meeting recently in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Charlton has been with Robert Trent Jones II since 1981. His course portfolio includes the 2015 U.S. Open site, Chambers Bay Golf Course in University Place, Wash. Topping his agenda for his 2008-09 term is a strong awareness of environmental issues in relation to golf course design, notably the responsible and effective use of water, and the need to educate the public about how courses are good stewards of the environment.
The ASGCA also elected four new associate members at the meeting: Jim Cervone, president of James Cervone Golf Course Design in Level Green, Pa.; Bob Gibbons, president of Robert Gibbons Design, Wilmington, N.C.; Jae Lee, design associate with Global Golf Design, Sacramento, Calif.; and Jerry Lemons, president of Golf Links Inc., Old Hickory, Tenn.
Feds improve wetlands and stream mitigation
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA have released a new rule to clarify how to provide compensatory mitigation for unavoidable impacts to the nation’s wetlands and streams. The rule will enable the agencies to promote greater consistency, predictability and ecological success of mitigation projects under the Clean Water Act.
“This rule greatly improves implementation, monitoring and performance, and will help us ensure that unavoidable losses of aquatic resources and functions are replaced for the benefit of the nation,” says John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army.
Benefits of the compensatory mitigation rule include:
• Fostering greater predictability, increased transparency and improved performance of compensatory mitigation projects.
• Establishing equivalent standards for all forms of mitigation.
• Responding to recommendations of the National Research Council to improve the success of wetland restoration and replacement projects.
• Setting clear science-based and results-oriented standards nationwide while allowing for regional variations.
• Increasing and expanding public participation.
• Encouraging watershed-based decisions.
• Emphasizing the “mitigation sequence” requiring that proposed projects avoid and minimize potential impacts to wetlands and streams before proceeding to compensatory mitigation.
Each year thousands of property owners undertake projects that affect the nation’s aquatic resources. Proposed projects that are determined to impact jurisdictional waters are first subject to review under the Clean Water Act. The Corps of Engineers reviews these projects to ensure environmental impacts to aquatic resources are avoided or minimized as much as possible.
According to the Golf Course Environmental Profile, the water bodies account for an average of about 11 acres on an 18-hole golf course. Of that, 12 percent is in wetlands, and 10 percent is in streams or rivers.
Consistent with the administration’s goal of “no net loss of wetlands,” a Corps permit may require a property owner to restore, establish, enhance or preserve other aquatic resources in order to replace those impacted by the proposed project. This compensatory mitigation process seeks to replace the loss of existing aquatic resource functions and areas.
The new rule establishes performance standards, sets timeframes for decision-making and, to the extent possible, establishes equivalent requirements and standards for the three sources of compensatory mitigation: permit submitter-responsible mitigation, mitigation banks and in-lieu-of-fee programs.
The new rule changes where and how mitigation is to be completed, but maintains existing requirements on when mitigation is required. The rule also preserves the requirement for applicants to avoid or minimize impacts to aquatic resources before proposing compensatory mitigation projects to offset permitted impacts.
For more information on the compensatory mitigation rule, visit www.epa.gov/wetlandsmitigation.
— GCM NewsWeekly
California creates state golf alliance
The powers that be in California golf recently came together to form the California Alliance for Golf, an organization intended to represent the positive interests of the game in the state.
The alliance’s high-profile constituents include the California Golf Course Owners Association, the California Golf Course Superintendents Association, the Northern California Golf Association and PGA of America, the Southern California Golf Association and PGA of America, the California Club Managers Association and American Golf Corp., all representing more than 300,000 individual golfers, superintendents, course owners and managers and golf professionals, among others.
The inaugural president of the CAG is Ted Horton, CGCS, executive director of the California GCOA, a consulting superintendent for ValleyCrest Golf Course Maintenance and a 41-year member of GCSAA. Bruce Williams, CGCS, director of golf courses and grounds at Los Angeles Country Club and president of GCSAA in 1996, is a member of the organization’s board of directors, representing the California GCSA.
The alliance’s specific corporate purposes are to serve as an educational resource for the industry and to communicate to the public the economic benefits and environmental stewardship provided by the game of golf.
The executive director of CAG is Robert L. Bouchier.
Three GCSAA members are among Golf Inc. magazine’s Most Admired Operators, distinguishing themselves by maintaining a consistently high level of achievement at their golf facilities: Ray Davies, CGCS, director of golf course maintenance and construction for CourseCo.; Bob Farren, CGCS, director of grounds and maintenance at Pinehurst (N.C.) Resort; and Jose Quesada, director of golf at La Iguana Golf Course in Playa Herrandura, Costa Rica.
Winter-weary supers speed up the green-up
Spring has sprung and the summer solstice is close at hand, but the remains of winter won’t go away easily for many superintendents.
A case in point is Justin Brown at Jackson Hole (Wyo.) Golf & Tennis Club, where a lingering 3-foot snowpack in early April was a point of concern. So Brown and his crew decided to take action to see if they could make the snow melt faster than Mother Nature on her own.
What they tried on a green was black sand, applied at a rate of 400 pounds per acre using a fertilizer spreader pulled behind a snowmobile. In less than a week, the snow in the areas treated were completely melted. During that period temperatures were between 50 degrees and freezing at night.
Brown, a 10-year GCSAA member, also notes that the usual mole, vole and mouse damage that occurs under the prolonged snow pack, as well as snow mold fungus, were greatly reduced by the lack of cover and quick runoff.
Meanwhile, Ken Dahl, superintendent at Wayne (Neb.) Country Club, got a rude introduction to vole damage once springtime temperatures prevailed. Featured in the Front Nine section of the March GCM when he took matters into his own hands in early December and cleared the snow and ice off Wayne CC’s greens with a tractor, snowblowers and Milorganite, Dahl discovered the voles nevertheless had their way, burrowing through the turf mostly in the areas where crews had piled the snow in their removal effort. Pink snow mold also occurred in some of those spots.
“I had personally never heard of a vole, so I had to look up some information on them,” says Dahl, a 24-year GCSAA member. “I also made the mistake of mentioning the vole problem to our morning coffee group. They next thing I knew they had installed a ‘highway sign’ at the course (see photo). Everyone had a lot of fun with it.”
Nike boss heads The Institute
Bob Wood, president of Nike Golf, was recently elected chairman of The Environmental Institute for Golf’s Board of Trustees, while Ken Melrose, president of Leading by Serving LLC and retired chairman and CEO of The Toro Co., was elected vice chairman/treasurer.
The board also added three members — James R. Fitzroy, CGCS at the Wollaston Recreational Facility/Presidents Golf Course in North Quincy, Mass., and a member of GCSAA’s Board of Directors who will serve as secretary of the EIFG board; Rae Evans, founder and president of the Evans Capitol Group in Washington, D.C., and a member of the LPGA board; and Mark J. Woodward, CGCS, president of GCSAA in 2004, who returns to the EIFG trustees as the association’s recently hired CEO.
Retiring from the board are Steve Mona, CAE, former GCSAA CEO; Ricky D. Heine, CGCS, immediate past president of GCSAA; Bill Kubly, CEO of Landscapes Unlimited; and sportcaster Roger Twibell. Also, Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, owner and president of Valderrama Golf Club in Sotogrande, Spain, and the 1999 recipient of GCSAA’s Old Tom Morris Award, has retired from the EIFG’s Advisory Council.
Downing takes issue with Edison dean
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter is in response to a recent article in Southwest Florida’s News-Press concerning an announcement by Edison College that it was discontinuing its golf management program, citing, among other things, lack of interest, costs and “the realization that superintendents do not need a college degree.” The associate’s degree program trained future superintendents on turf management, irrigation, soil science and other course management issues. College officials said the program was producing only about five graduates a year, suffering from students dropping out or changing majors.
Dear Editor:
It is with great sadness that I learned of Edison College’s recent decision to drop its golf management program. It was equally disappointing to read the comments from Edison District Dean Bill Roshon regarding golf course superintendents — “... It doesn’t matter if they have a degree.”
The statement could not be further from the truth and is not supported by any fact, authority or expert opinion. Such a comment makes me wonder if Edison’s leaders truly understand the needs of the marketplace for any of its education programs. A total of 70 percent of our member superintendents have two- or four-year degrees, with that figure approaching 95 percent for the 35-and-under age group.
Roshon’s comments would be similar to us stating he does not have to have a degree to be a dean of a college. To become a Class A or Certified Golf Course Superintendent in our professional organization, a combination of education and experience is required.
Today’s golf course superintendent is a vital cog in an annual $76 billion national industry that delivers economic, environmental and recreational/social value to a community. By the way, golf is a bigger industry in the United States than the motion picture industry! I don’t have to tell anyone in Florida what the golf industry means to that state’s economy.
Golf course management professionals are entrusted with managing the largest asset of a golf facility, the golf course itself. They must have myriad talents and perform managerial duties in the areas of finance, budgeting and planning, labor, resource management, communications and regulatory compliance, to name a few. In fact, a recent Golf Digest magazine survey of golfers lists the golf course superintendent as the most important role at a golf facility.
It should come as no surprise, then, that golfers also indicated the No. 1 reason for golfer satisfaction is the condition of the golf course itself, which, of course, is the responsibility of the superintendent and his/her staff.
Employers are also well aware of the value of the golf course superintendent and the role the professional plays in the economic vitality of the facility. Since 1993, average salaries for these professionals have risen nearly 70 percent. Employers recognize the value of continuing education as they account for 97 percent of dues paid to our association so that their superintendents can remain current on the latest education, science and technology. They realize that golf is no longer strictly a leisure activity and golf course superintendents are no longer “grass growers.” A golf course is a business operation that requires a well-educated golf course superintendent who must have the knowledge, skills and ability to help ensure facility success.
The discontinuance of the Edison program is unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that Bill Roshon chose to denigrate the school’s graduates of the program and superintendents in general. Fortunately, those in the golf industry understand differently.
Sincerely,
David S. Downing ll, CGCS
President
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
Honours Golf Co., a management company based in Birmingham, Ala., with a portfolio of a dozen facilities in the Southeast U.S., recently donated $10,000 to GCSAA’s philanthropic organization, The Environmental Institute for Golf.
In the news
Retirement beckons longtime muny superintendent
A column in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette features the retirement of GCSAA Class A member Mike Hermanson, 36-year superintendent at Gardner (Mass.) Municipal Golf Course.
Safety of pesticides at golf course debated
The Oneonta Daily Star reports on Bernie Banas, GCSAA Class A superintendent at Leatherstocking Golf Course in Cooperstown, N.Y., defending the use of pesticides at the course that borders Otesaga Lake in response to comments about water testing made during a village board meeting.
Paspalum in Grand Strand spotlight
An on-course management feature in the Myrtle Beach Sun News by Trent Bouts covers the renovation at Pine Lakes International Country Club in Myrtle Beach, S.C., which is regrassing the entire course with SeaDwarf seashore paspalum, wall-to-wall, and is scheduled to reopen in March 2009, featuring Alan Jarvis, CGCS.
Long-awaited pipeline lifesaver for SoCal venues
An article in the Palm Springs Desert Sun features the Coachella Valley Water District’s Mid-Valley Pipeline Project, which is 50 percent complete and on schedule to start delivering irrigation water to some valley golf courses by mid-July, featuring Richard Sall, superintendent at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, Calif.
Winter leaves a brown mark in Iowa
The Des Moines Register reports the winterkill on Iowa golf courses, featuring GCSAA members Terry Hannah, Class A superintendent at Jester Park Golf Course in Granger, Iowa; Dave Minner, Ph.D., Extension turfgrass specialist at Iowa State University; Scott Wallace, Class A superintendent at Waveland Golf Course in Des Moines, Iowa; and Chris Doocy, superintendent at Echo Valley Country Club in Norwalk, Iowa.
State, feds to assist geese management
According to the Ocean City Dispatch, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has announced that it is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services on a plan to provide farmers and other property owners across the state of Maryland with the necessary tools to manage the growing population of Canada geese, featuring Tom Akers, GCSAA superintendent at Lighthouse Sound Golf Course in Bishopville, Md.
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