Sometimes, a brush-with-greatness will strike at the strangest of times. Such was the case on Wednesday when we got to meet NBA legend Julius Erving during a tour of the sprawling HQ of equipment maker Jacobsen in Charlotte, N.C.
Yep, we (and, by we, I mean myself and Brian Wingerd, one of GCSAA's business development managers) met Dr. J ... inside the offices of Jacobsen, one of golf's leading equipment manufacturers ... in Charlotte, N.C. ... nearly completely out of the blue. It was a bit of a drive-by — a quick introduction and a hand shake in a conference room before the Basketball Hall of Famer scooted out the door — but it happened nonetheless.
All that begs the obvious question ... what?!?!?! What in the heck was Dr. J doing visiting a golf course equipment manufacturer? It's actually a good story, one that we'll tell in more detail down the road (don't want to scoop myself, because I think we have something brewing here), but Erving is the newest member of the golf course ownership club, having recently purchased a course in the Atlanta, Ga., area. He's outfitting the layout with Jacobsen equipment, and worked a visit to the plant around his appearance in Wednesday's pro-am at the Quail Hollow Championship, where he played (in a Jacobsen shirt, mind you) with former president of EZ-Go John Garrison, now Textron's president of its Industrial Segment, and PGA Tour star Stewart Cink.
But enough about a two-minute chat with Dr. J — again, don't want to spoil the bigger story to come. The real reason we're here in Charlotte is to check in with the folks from Jacobsen. In all my years with GCSAA, now totaling 11 overall, I had never had the opportunity to visit Jacobsen's HQ and production facilities. I knew most of the players with the company from meetings at various Golf Industry Shows or during their trips to Lawrence, Kan., but had never met with them on their own turf. We decided that would change this week.
It was an enlightening trip. During tours of their main U.S. production facilities*, it's easy to see the much-publicized challenges the company faced in recent years are largely a thing of the past. Employing performance-improvement techniques ranging from Six Sigma to kaizen, the company has streamlined production, ratcheted up quality and, most impressive to me, transformed its parts fulfillment efforts to the point that what took eight-and-a-half days just over two years ago now takes less than eight hours. Those upgrades, plus equipment developments such as the Eclipse line of greensmowers (in gas, hybrid and electric versions) and the Classic XP line of reels, are clearly something company officials are proud of and amount to changes that superintendents in the field should definitely notice.
* Editor's note: I do have photos I want to include here, but in my limitless brilliance, I brought the wrong camera cord with me, so I currently have no way to get photos from camera to computer. I'll add them later.
Jacobsen is also playing a key sponsorship role in this week's Quail Hollow Championship, so it's no coincidence we picked this week to visit Charlotte. The course conditions provided by superintendent Jeff Kent and his staff that you'll see on TV this weekend are provided largely by a fleet of Jacobsen equipment (bet you didn't see that one coming), and during our time at the course yesterday, we stopped by the maintenance facility to chat with some of the workers and volunteers on hand to prepare the course for this tournament.
We're heading back out there later today, so stay tuned for more. I'll try to ratchet up (yep, second time I've used that in one post!) the Twittering to give you a sense of what we're up to, then offer more on the blog down the line.
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