Divot Mix

Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness. - William Wordsworth

Superintendents grow game, not just turf

More than 125 future golfers attended the annual Give-A-Kid-A-Club evening staged by the Piedmont Golf Course Superintendents Association in early August. Kids received instruction at Deep River Driving Range, a hot dog dinner and a club to take home for more practice.

"The night was an outstanding success," Piedmont GCSA president, Mike Duffy, said. "To see the joy on the faces of so many kids really helps you remember just how much fun this game can be. We are really proud to be opening the door to it for so many kids."

This year, the group combined efforts with the Triad Youth Golf Association and the Jamestown Youth League to ensure a big turnout. The Spears YMCA also bussed in kids from their day camps. 

"There were so many kids that we had to rotate positions on the driving range to make sure everybody got a turn," Duffy, GCSAA Class A superintendent at Grandover Resort in Greensboro, said. "There was a huge demand for left-handed clubs that cleared out our lefty inventory. Other hot items were woods and drivers. All the kids wanted to hit the big stick."

Piedmont GCSA members manning a grill served up close to 300 hot dogs and received a rousing cheer from the YMCA golfers before they boarded their bus to head home. The Piedmont GCSA’s Give-A-Kid-Club campaign relies heavily on donations of used clubs to introduce kids to the game. To donate clubs, contact Duffy.

PGA Tour Shot Tracker to debut

This week, Turner Sports and the PGA Tour will debut Shot Tracker, a free, graphical live-scoring application that represents the next generation of online golf coverage with access to the most comprehensive and up-to-the second tournament coverage that is offered online, available on http://www.pgatour.com.

The program takes fans inside the ropes with unrivaled visuals that indicate real-time scores, shot trails, exact ball location and performance of each golfer for every tour tournament. 

Shot Tracker will debut Aug. 21 for the opening round of The Barclays, and will be available the Deutsche Bank Championship (Aug. 29-Sept. 1), the BMW Championship (Sept. 4-7) and the Tour Championship presented by Coca-Cola (Sept. 25-28) – as well as for all future PGA Tour tournaments. For a demonstration, click here.

Key features include:

• Customizable content that allows fans to decide which players they want to follow, how they want to follow them and what they want to see live.
• Live shot trails, ball locations and hole graphics that indicate where players hit their balls and provide the ability to zoom into the greens to see daily pin positions.
• Real-time statistics that provide up-to-the-minute coverage along with predictive stats to determine what a player will do the next shot, based on each player’s in-round performance.
• Replay features ensure golf fans never miss a shot, by allowing fans to look back to see how players performed on previous holes.

Task Force reports on MSMA negotiations

The MAA Research Task Force reports that it is having productive discussions with EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs on continuation of the registration of organic arsenical herbicides, especially MSMA. 

Members of the task force include Drexel Chemical Co. (APC Holdings), KMG-Bernuth Inc. and Luxembourg-Pamol Inc. These companies are global providers of products to the turf care and agricultural industries.

MSMA, the monosodium salt of methanearsonic acid (MAA), is a herbicide used for grass weed control in bermudgrass and zoysiagrass, as well as in some cool-season turgrasses.

According to the task force, MSMA is expected to be available at least for the next several years, and perhaps considerably longer. 

Current discussions with EPA are focused on the issuance of a time limited registration, with the idea of a science review at the end of the negotiated period. This approach recognizes data indicating that inorganic arsenic is a threshold carcinogen, which means that exposure to low doses of arsenic should be of no health concern. 

A change in EPA’s science conclusion would eliminate concerns regarding the possible transformation of organic arsenic to inorganic in the soil and enable the agency to permit the continued availability of these herbicides.

There is no discussion of a phase out or cancellation of MSMA, according to the task force.  However, EPA has invited discussion on several additional mitigation measures to further reduce the exposure to inorganic arsenic possibly resulting from the use of MSMA.  The mitigation measures are targeted mainly at surface water.

Discussions have commenced regarding EPA’s initial suggested mitigation measures and those discussions are expected to continue for the next several weeks or months. The task force is consulting with GCSAA and other user groups with regard to the applicability of the proposed mitigation measures.

"We applaud the task force, the EPA and user groups for working together to resolve issues related to the labeling and use of MSMA," said GCSAA Director of Research Clark Throssell, Ph.D. "By working together, these parties are helping golf course superintendents retain an important tool in providing customers the playing conditions they demand while at the same time ensuring golf’s compatibility with the natural environment."

Emergency H-2B fly-in scheduled for Sept. 10.

Save Small Business, a coalition of small and seasonal business owners, has announced an emergency H-2B fly-in to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 10, to push for passage of the "Save our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act of 2007." This is the one chance before the election to try and move something on the bill before a new Congress takes over in January. For more visit http://www.savesmallbusiness.org/. If you are interested in participating, contact Chava McKeel, GCSAA senior manager of government relations, 800-472-7878, ext. 3619 or cmmckeel@gcsaa.org.