From the desk of GCM

Thankful for a cool job

Got some great news this morning, a great way to head off for Thanksgiving and a 4-day weekend...

The fine folks at Bernhard and Co.have invited me to join their group of GCSAA delegates and attend the 2009 BIGGA British Turf Management Expo in Harrogate, England.

How cool is that? I'm giddy. On the tentative agenda along with the show will be trips to the Celtic Manor Resort (host to the 2010 Ryder Cup Matches), Formby Golf Club (an R&A sustainable golf course case study), Royal Lytham & St. Annes (a frequent British Open venue) and Manchester United Football Club.

Is this your copy of the November GCM?

And if it is, may we please mail it to you?

Turns out, there was a problem delivering the November issue of GCM. In the eloquent words of Christina Slape's "GCSAA This Week":

November GCM delivery notice. The U.S. Postal Service has returned about 30 copies of the November issue of Golf Course Management magazine. It appears that some of the address labels have become detached or partially ripped, leaving the USPS unable to complete delivery and GCSAA unable to identify who has not received the magazine. The problem does not appear to be widespread, but if you have not yet received your November issue, please call GCSAA at 800-472-7878 to request a copy.

The official word on 'Zinger

In my previous post on Paul Azinger agreeing to be the keynote speaker during the Opening Session at the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show, I mentioned the crack communications staff at GCSAA putting together the official news release. Well, that release came out this morning, so thought I'd give those hard-working folks a little love by posting the release here on the blog.

PGA Tour professional and captain of the victorious 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup team Paul Azinger will deliver the keynote speech at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) 2009 Education Conference Opening Session, 9-11 a.m., Feb. 5 in New Orleans.

“This will be a fantastic way to open our education conference,” GCSAA President David S. Downing II, CGCS said. “I am sure our members will be interested and excited to hear his insights on the game, especially the Ryder Cup. His understanding of golf course conditioning and course setup clearly indicates his appreciation of golf course superintendents. When we approached Paul about speaking to us, he was enthusiastic in his response. We have been fortunate to have quite a run of outstanding keynote speakers and Paul Azinger will be no different.”

Azinger is coming to GIS!

Victorious Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger has been in the news plenty in recent days. He was featured in a story in the Golf Plus section of the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated. He talked with Bob Harig of ESPN.com about his willingness to reprise his role as U.S. team captain, should he be asked. He led the way as the victorious U.S. team — at least the team members who weren't playing in Europe at the time — visited the White House and President Bush.

And the biggest news of all — well, at least for this audience — is this: we've just received confirmation that Azinger will be the keynote speaker during the Opening Session of the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in New Orleans in February! The crack communications team at GCSAA is putting the final touches on the official news release, but 'Zinger is all but signed, sealed and delivered. You can bet that GCM will have his visit to New Orleans covered like a blanket — magazine story, blog posts, maybe a podcast or video interview — but for now, this gives us another opportunity to post the video we shot during Azinger's stop at the Valhalla maintenance facility during Ryder Cup week.

In other news ...

Wild hogs attack turf in Texas

I just read this story about wild hogs -- about 15 of them -- doing some damage to Ward County GC in Monahans, Texas. Hogs travel in packs, I assume? Chad Thummel is the superintendent member at the course.

 What's going on here? I was out yesterday with a sick daughter, so I don't really know -- I'm playing catch-up right now. But I can tell you all about the new Shrek movie, "Shrek the Halls." I only watched it about five times yesterday...

Friday afternoon musings

Editor's note: Although my name appears below this post, please note it was actually written by Seth Jones. Our pals at TypePad have made a few changes to the template we use to post on the blog, and to put it kindly, the changes are not good. Like "New Coke" not good. Like "Microsoft Vista" not good. Through no fault of his own, the formatting for Seth's original post was a train wreck, so messed up that I had to simply start new and repost. So read on knowing that Seth, not Scott, wrote the following.

The December issue is almost done ... it didn't go down without a fight though, people, let me tell you.

• The inaugural Lorena Ochoa Invitational is going on right now at the Guadalajara CC in Jalisco, Mexico. Long-time blog readers will remember that I made a trip down to the course back inLorena 017 December of 2007. It's hard to believe that the tournament is already here. Lorena's got some work to do on her home course, last I saw she was five strokes off (+1) the lead. Annika Sorenstam was tied with seven others at -4 after the first day. You can catch the tournament this weekend live on The Golf Channel. Anyway, it sounds like the players are THRILLED with the conditions they're seeing at the Guad'. I know last December, there was a lot of anxiety about the tournament... this would be GCC's first LPGA event, and they really wanted to impress. Well, check out this quote from opening round co-leader Nicole Castrale:  "The greens are in great shape and a lot of the pins are in tough locations. The greens have a lot of subtle breaks, so you can hit it to six feet, but you have to be cautious of making sure you don't have another 4 footer coming back. But overall, the golf course is in great shape, and hats off to the superintendent. He's done a great job and it's just really one of the top five golf courses we play all year on Tour. It's a great course." Wow! Some kind words! Congrats to GCSAA international member Fernando Varela and all his staff for a job well done. That's a truly beautiful golf course they have there.

Time for a coffee break

  The staff of GCM got a surprise in the mail yesterday -- boxes jammed full with a four-cup Mr. Coffee coffee machine, a pretty porcelain mug, packets of Starbucks coffee, a box containing six scrumptious (and long-gone) gourmet cookies and even coffee filters! That's a good day when something so yummy and unexpected falls onto your desk at work.

The package of treats was all part of Pace Turf's promotion of its new Pace Turf Information Center designed for superintendents who are members to access critical weather alerts, a photo gallery of insects, weeds and other turf damage problems, an online archive of research results and plenty of other benefits intended to help superintendents save time and money and prevent turf problems before they occur. Us media folks learned about the newly improved service through an online press conference today that carried the theme, "Coffee and Cookie Break."

Ed Hiscock, GCM's editor-in-chief, asked me what types of goodies were sent to the newsroom of my previous gig writing about fruits and vegetables. We regularly got packages of pineapples, mangoes, golden raspberries, pistachios and trendy new fruit drinks from companies eager for some editorial coverage. And while good, those snacks were far too wholesome for my liking. I'll take warm cookies and a mug of steamin' joe any day over produce.

The Village People visit GCSAA HQ

We take membership retention pretty seriously here at GCSAA. How seriously? So much so that we'll get dressed up as the Village People and perform "YMCA" for the entire staff to celebrate a job well done!

 Check out the photos of some GCSAA brass showing off their Village People moves. And yes, that's Dave Fearis rocking a black leather GCSAA jacket!

We asked our Finance and Member Solutions team to work hard on making a tough membership goal, and they pulled it off. Their reward was this performance during a recent all-staff meeting. I think Mark Woodward, GCSAA CEO, had the best line after the performance. "I don't know if that's a proper way to thank people or not," he laughed. Well, it was definitely a sight to see, I'll tell you that.

Klauk gets a PGA Tour promotion

When Fred Klauk Jr., the former longtime superintendent at the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., announced his retirement earlier this year following a 22-year stint at the PGA Tour's showpiece property, one of the things he said he looked forward to most was caddying for his son, Jeff, a Nationwide Tour player.

Well, if pops wants to experience that again next year, he's going to have to do it on a bigger stage because Jeff Klauk is heading to the PGA Tour. The 31-year-old finished second in last weekend's Nationwide Tour Championship to secure third place on the tour's season-long money list and earn himself a promotion to the PGA Tour for the 2009 season. The top 25 players on the Nationwide money list at season's end earn their PGA Tour cards for the coming season.

Klauk enjoyed a strong 2008 season, with six top-10 finishes and one win, at the Melwood Prince George's County Open in Mitchellville, Md. You can read more about the players who are graduating from the Nationwide Tour — and trust me, some of them are familiar names — right here.

Congrats to Jeff on the promotion. It will be fun following someone on the Tour next year who clearly knows one end of a cup cutter from the other.

Golf's greening enters national spotlight

Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal is a weekly publication that covers the business of sport, from corporate sponsorship deals and television contracts to stadium and arena construction. It also covers the business of golf (which is why I read it when it crosses my desk), and in the most recent issue, it has a couple of golf takes in a package of coverage about sports and the environment.

Unfortunately, the story most applicable to our business, with discussions of GCSAA, the Environmental Institute for Golf and the USGA Green Section is available online only to subscribers (if you're interested, you can sign up for a free trial subscription and access that story here), but two other stories that you can read touch on the game.

The first is this one that examines the steps that golf's major professional tours are taking to reduce the environmental impact of their activities. The second takes on the issue of artificial turf in golf. But don't let it get your blood pressure up — it cheer leads the concept quite a bit, but the message gets diluted when the lone example of a regulation course attempting to go all artificial is one in Colorado that has been dead in the water for more than a year because of funding issues.