From the desk of GCM

So about Pebble Beach's greens ...

On the Saturday of U.S. Open week, just a few hours after I had returned from my blogging duties at Pebble Beach, I found myself at a neighbor's house for a backyard barbecue. And before I could even get my hands on a plate of food and an ice-cold beverage, the questions started.

"What the heck is wrong with the greens at Pebble Beach," they asked.

So in the most complete yet non-technical way possible, I explained that there was nothing wrong with the greens at Pebble Beach, and in this instance, there was really no correlation between appearance and conditions. I talked about Poa annua, what happens to it when it's maintained as intensely as it is for a U.S. Open, why it discolors, why it's bumpier in the afternoon than in the morning ... I covered it all. Sure, I would have rather given my undivided attention to my burger and beer. But since the avid golfers in my neighborhood were asking me about it, I felt I owed it to them — and, frankly, to superintendent Chris Dalhamer, CGCS and his team at Pebble Beach — to explain exactly what was happening on the ground and why in this case, seeing wasn't necessarily believing.

The pick 'em winner is...

Clark Throssell, Ph.D.

His group of Ernie Els (3rd), Tiger Woods (T-4th), Jim Furyk (T-16th) and Lee Westwood (T-16th) edged out Todd Bohn's group of Phil Mickelson (T-4th), Dustin Johnson (T-8th), Lee Westwood (T-16th) and Jim Furyk (T-16th).

For his awesome picks, Throssell scores himself a 2010 U.S. Open golf hat and a free pitcher of beer at Rick's in Lawrence, Kan. Congrats, Clark!

It was sad to see Dustin Johnson fade on Sunday, wasn't it? That guy was so dialed-in on Saturday, only to get off to a terrible start on Sunday. His four rounds went E, -1, -5, +11. DANG. No fun.

Thanks to all the people who participated. Sorry for the delay in getting the winner posted! We'll try to get more action going for the PGA Championship in August!

GCSAA tournament heading to Palm Beach, Fla.

The 2011 GCSAA National Championship and Golf Classic has found a home in Palm Beach, Fla.

Next year's event, set for Feb. 4-6 and presented in partnership with The Toro Co. for the 17th year running, will be contested on four of the courses at the PGA National Resort and Spa as well as the Rees Jones Course at The Breakers. Almost 600 competitors are expected to take part in the event in one of the various levels of competition offered at the tournament.

"We are looking forward to bringing our tournament to these five high-quality golf courses in Palm Beach next year," GCSAA president James R. Fitzroy, CGCS, said in a press release. "Coupled with excellent accommodations at PGA National Resort and Spa and the great support of Toro, we expect a wonderful experience for every participant."

The National Championship portion of the event will take place on PGA National's Champion Course, which annually hosts the PGA Tour's Honda Classic. PGA National's Palmer, Squire and Haig courses, along with the Rees Jones Course at The Breakers, will be the sites for the Golf Classic portion of the competition.

The complete news release from GCSAA follows:

Locust Hill preps for second LPGA major

The second major of the season on the LPGA Tour — the LPGA Championship — tees off today at Locust Hill CC in Pittsford, N.Y., and we've got a man on the inside, LPGA Tour agronomist John Miller, CGCS. He's been working with superintendent Rick Slattery and his team to get the course ready for this week's action. John filed this report Wednesday night on conditions at Locust Hill, in addition to providing the accompanying photos:

In the photos (clockwise from top left): Crews roll off one hole after mowing fairways; approaches being mowed; and Locust Hill assistant superintendent Andrew Eick changing a hole location.

Locust Hill Country Club and superintendent Rick Slattery are hosting the LPGA Championship Thursday through Sunday. Rick and his staff have worked very hard getting the golf course ready, adding one new tee and expanding three others while narrowing a number of fairways. Rick was able to do all of this work early in April with a short period of good weather. It is fortunate that he and his staff were on top of things as the weather in May was cool and wet.

Sustainability the word at BASF summit

The concept of sustainability is not new to the golf industry, where GCSAA's Environmental Institute for Golf is now leading Golf's Drive Toward Sustainability, an effort on behalf of multiple golf organizations to create Best Management Practices that encompass the entire golf facility.

However, GCSAA/EIFG isn't the only player in golf to take a sustainable approach to its business, and that couldn't have been emphasized more than at the recent BASF media summit, "A Grounded Approach to Agricultural Sustainability," held in Chicago.

Most of the leadership of the Ludwigshafen, Germany-based company was on hand to give print, Web and broadcast media an overview of BASF's 14-year-old sustainability efforts, and to discuss producer and industry collaboration on sustainability, as well as measuring it, continuous improvement in it and the differing public and industry perceptions of the word.

Woodward steps down as GCSAA's CEO

Mark Woodward, CGCS, who has served as GCSAA's CEO for the past two years, has resigned his position with the association, effective immediately.

Woodward is a longtime golf course management professional who served as GCSAA's president in 2004. He spent more than 30 years overseeing parks and recreation in Mesa, Ariz., and was the golf operations manager for the city of San Diego for three years — a stretch that included playing host to the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines' South Course — before accepting the GCSAA post in April 2008. He officially began his CEO duties in July of that same year.

GCSAA will launch a nationwide search to fill the open position. In the interim, chief operating office Rhett Evans has agreed to lead the organization until a permanent replacement is named.

The complete news release regarding Woodward's resignation follows:

While one tourney ends, another major crew continues prep

While the crew at Pebble Beach might be taking a well deserved sigh of relief with the conclusion of another awesome U.S. Open, the crew at Whistling Straits is just getting more excited for their event -- the 2010 PGA Championship.

I'm currently at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., doing interviews for the August PGA preview story. I've spent time with Michael Lee, manager of golf course maintenance; Chris Zugel, superintendent of the Straits Course; Emily Shircel and Joe Sell, Straits Course assistants; and Cliff Henning, lead repair tech.

I'm trying to think of the theme of my story... I'm still miles away from figuring it out, but one thing that's interesting is that everyone here believes the person they work with is the most hard-working person at the property. I asked Lee about Zugel: "Dedicated, hard working." I asked Zugel and Sell about Shircel: "The hardest working person from Blackwolf Run." I asked Zugel about Sell: "I saw him digging 1-inch rock... he did the whole job by himself... the hardest-working guy out here."

Final-round conditioning, set-up notes

As the final day of the 2010 U.S. Open tees off, it appears the status quo rules, at least when it comes to the conditioning and maintenance at Pebble Beach.

The USGA's official update on course conditioning and set-up is out, and the information on green speeds, rough and water management reads almost the same as the notes on the third round. The set-up portion of the notes are interesting, at least to me. The highlights:

• The par-3 seventh (shown here from the top row of the bleachers, courtesy of the USGA) will play just 92 yards, with an extremely wide teeing ground to give players options on the angle they want to take at the flag
• A "player-friendly" hole location on the treacherous 14th
• The tee on 18 was moved up in the hopes of encouraging more players to take the same route that Tiger Woods did on Saturday and go for the green in two.

Here's the full report:

Third-round course conditioning, set-up notes

I landed in Kansas City to find the official USGA update of course conditioning and set-up for the third round of the U.S. Open waiting for me in my in-box. Here's what they had to say:

COURSE SETUP: ROUND THREE OF THE 2010 U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP, PEBBLE BEACH

The following are details on the course setup for Round 3 of the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, from Mike Davis, USGA senior director of Rules and Competitions:

Weather Forecast for Saturday (provided by Greg Quinn with Thor Guard Weather) — Winds this morning should be light and variable, mainly from the north at less than 8 mph. As midday approaches, we should see more of a northwest wind of 8-12 mph and this will be the case through mid-afternoon. We should see our strongest winds from the west-northwest at 10-18 mph, with the highest gusts (possibly up to 25 mph) between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

We will still see a good deal of cloud-cover today, with a bit more sun than yesterday, mainly during the mid-to late-afternoon.

Settling in and heading out

It's like clockwork: When one of golf's major championships heads into the weekend, you can be sure any moaning and complaining about golf course conditioning and set-up that might have dominated the early part of the week will begin to fade into the background, the grousing about bumpy greens replaced by grousing about wayward swings.

That held true to form following Friday's second round of the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where I noted just two notable comments about the topic. Certainly, other players were asked about and responded to questions about conditions, most notably on the putting surfaces, but the answers by Dustin Johnson and Alex Cejka were really the only ones that caught my attention:

Dustin Johnson: The golf course is in great shape. The greens were rolling really well, and playing in the morning it kind of helps with that. But the greens were rolling great all day.  It was a little easier to get putts in the hole and the golf course is set up really fair.

Alex Cejka: Yeah, yesterday the greens were really firm and really bouncy.  So it was tricky to make your 3-, 4-footers on bouncy greens like this. Today it was a little bit smoother, the greens were holding a little bit better, so you can approach the greens and kind of one hop and then kind of it stops.