From the desk of GCM

Deere extends sponsorship of PGA Tour event

So, did you miss us?

After last week's time off, I know we're all glad to be back and ready to get after it as we head toward the end of another year. And we hadn't been back in our chairs for more than a few hours when the first big golf course management story of the week emerged — John Deere and the PGA Tour extending their multi-faceted partnerships on two different fronts.

First, Deere extended its title sponsorship of the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic for six years. The equipment company has sponsored this event in its hometown of Moline, Ill., since 1998, and this agreement keeps the tournament at the TPC Deere Run through 2016.

"Sponsorship of the John Deere Classic has been beneficial for our business," said Jim Field, senior vice president and chief financial officer for Deere. "Not only are we able to highlight our excellent equipment and services to a global audience but more importantly, raise millions of dollars for charity in the Quad City area."

GCSAA to offer limited services week of Thanksgiving

Things are about to get a little quiet around here.

That's because GCSAA has instituted a staff furlough for Nov. 23-25 and will observe the Thanksgiving holiday Nov. 26-27. In addition, GCSAA will have another staff furlough Dec. 28-31, sandwiched between the Christmas holiday Dec. 24-25 and the New Year's Day holiday on Jan. 1. The association headquarters will provide minimal services through its call center on the days of these furloughs. Please call 1-800-472-7878 for assistance.

Have a safe and happy holiday, and we'll be back here with new content Monday, Nov. 30.

A tip of the cap from LPGA star

In the cover story for the July 2008 issue of GCM, on the developing relationship between GCSAA and the LPGA Tour, you might remember a short sidebar that told the tale of LPGA star Lorena Ochoa and her efforts to recognize the work of the superintendent and the maintenance team at facility's hosting professional events.

Well, based on an e-mail we received this morning, Ochoa continues to walk the walk. Following her first round at the LPGA Tour Championship at the Houstonian G&CC in Richmond, Texas, Ochoa took time to visit the maintenance facility, chat with crew members and pose for pictures like the one posted above, sent to us by superintendent Thomas Werner, CGCS (in the black shirt on the far right of the back row). "She made our long day better," Werner says.

Bring on the super bloggers!

Time to welcome the newest member of our growing club of superintendent bloggers — Steve Whiting, the superintendent at Pinery CC in Parker, Colo.

Whiting, an 18-year GCSAA member, wrote me awhile back about how he got into the blogging business. "I started my blog more for myself, sort of a living diary or scrapbook of the course's major events and projects," he told me. "I had numerous members, family and club employees that have I shown the blog to say, 'Why keep this to your self?'. So I took the plunge.

It didn't take long for Whiting to see the value in sharing information about golf course management via a tool like a blog. "The blogging revolution is a great tool for superintendents to express there ideas and views on the golf business and management."

So, welcome to the club, Steve! You can check out his blog right here, or reference the complete list of superintendent bloggers that we maintain on the far right side of this page.

Montana super wins Leo Feser Award

In our world here at GCM, the Leo Feser Award is one big deal. Because one of the magazine's driving philosophies is to publish more superintendent-written stories than any other publication in the industry, honoring the very best of those superintendent-written stories each year is important to us (not to mention a great honor for the winner).

That's why we're excited to tip our collective cap to Steve Hackmann, the superintendent at Pryor Creek GC in Huntley, Mont., and a 14-year GCSAA member, who is the winner of the 2009 Leo Feser Award. Steve's award-winning story, "Better Safe than Sorry," appeared in the April issue of the magazine and dealt with safety issues at his club and how they were changing those plans to adapt to different safety challenges in the world of golf course management.

If you'll be in San Diego in February for the Golf Industry Show, we'll have Steve stationed at our booth on the trade show floor (No. 3907) at some point during the week, so stop by to congratulate Steve and if you've ever dreamed about writing an article for a national magazine, pick his brain about he took that leap.

The complete press release about the Leo Feser Award follows:

This just in ...

Just had a reminder pop up on my calendar: "Bug the heck out of readers of the blog to follow us on Twitter." OK, not really, but I'm still going to bug the heck out of you about following us on Twitter.

GCM has been utilizing Twitter on a regular basis since August 2008 when we began to post updates from our live, behind-the-scenes coverage of golf course maintenance activities at the Ryder Cup competitions at Valhalla GC in Louisville, Ky. Since then, we've built our presence by pushing breaking industry news, updates about new blog posts and information about upcoming stories in the magazine. Right now, our account boasts 294 very engaged, very intelligent, industry savvy and ruggedly handsome (what? too much?) followers.

There are two ways to keep up on what we're doing on Twitter. If you're really not a joiner and would prefer to lurk and observe from afar, that's cool. All you need to do is point yourself to http://twitter.com/GCM_Magazine whenever you want to check out what we've been posting. If and when you decide you're ready to make a commitment and officially "follow" GCM, you can sign up for your own Twitter account on the site (it's free), click the "Follow" button on our page and you're set. Whenever you visit the Twitter Web site or utilize any of the various Twitter clients available for most mobile devices, you'll find our most recent posts along with others from folks you've decided to follow. It's that easy.

Back to the future

I spent a few enjoyable days at the end of last week in Orlando, Fla., playing the role of fly on the wall at the third annual Future Leaders Forum, presented by The Toro Co., The First Tee and Walt Disney World. The event brought 50 students from First Tee chapters all around the country to Central Florida for a series of experiences designed to enhance leadership skills and explore potential careers in and around the game of golf.

You'll be able to read much more about the event in the January issue of GCM, but suffice to say that the world of golf course management and the job of the golf course superintendent got significant billing. Robert Waller, CGCS, who is Marriott Golf's director of grounds operation, was one of the headline presenters during the first day of the event, while Gary Meyers, CGCS, who heads golf course operations for Walt Disney World's four courses, led a demonstration of golf course equipment and management techniques on day two.

Again, much more to come in the magazine (and also a GCSAA TV feature!), but for now, I wanted to show off a few photos I took during the event.

Raleigh's November rain

The old saying goes that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade ... or something like that. If that's true, the lemonade was definitely on the menu for the second day of Bayer Environmental Science's Plant Health Symposium.

For the superintendents, landscape contractors, tree care experts and media members gathered in Raleigh, N.C., for this event, today was to be spent patrolling the grounds at Bayer's research facility in nearby Clayton, checking out a few demonstration sites designed to highlight some of the research being conducted at the facility and touring the entire 280-acre property.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. The remnants of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ida had been pushing their way north up the Eastern Seaboard since Monday morning, and the rain arrived in Raleigh during rush hour Tuesday night. It rained all night, was raining this morning when we left the hotel for Clayton and was still raining when we departed Clayton for the airport. And if there were any momentary breaks in the steady moderate-to-heavy rain, we never saw them.

Here's to good (plant) health

When officials from Bayer Environmental Science and North Carolina State University discuss the winding path both took to the formation of the collaborative Plant Health Initiative, there are plenty of smiles and chuckles when revisiting the many trials and tribulations they encountered along the way.

Although working relationships between industry and higher education are not new, at least in the world of golf course management, this particular relationship is different. It's much more involved, much deeper, much more intimate. And because of that, the initial negotiations were somewhat tricky, with plenty of hand-wringing over issues like intellectual property — in essence, who owns what information and when do they own it — and publishing rights to research results — in essence, who gets credit in the research stories you read in GCM.

They all laugh now, but it's clear those issues and many more were not laughing matters as the partnership was being forged. But if the initial results of the partnership, some of which were revealed during day one of Bayer's Plant Health Symposium, are any indication, all of those hours huddled around a conference table hammering out an agreement were worth it.

On the road again

I'm working superintendent hours this morning (alarm went off at 4:45 a.m.) as I take to the road for a pair of industry events this week.

First comes Bayer's Plant Health Symposium in and around the Raleigh, N.C., area, where media, researchers and superintendents will explore Bayer's research facilities in Clayton, N.C., (yep, going there again) and the campus at North Carolina State, and the burgeoning working relationship between the two.

Then, it's off to Orlando (Tropical Storm Ida willing, of course) for The Toro Co. 's Future Leaders Forum, which brings First Tee participants from around the country to Disney World and the PGA Tour's Children's Miracle Network Classic to learn about potential careers in the golf industry.

You'll be able to read regular updates about both events here on the blog and also by following my Tweets through our Twitter account. Just head over to www.twitter.com (do it now!) and sign up to follow @GCM_Magazine.