From the desk of GCM

New look GCSAA website coming next week

After months of behind-the-scenes planning, designing and testing, the face lift to GCSAA's website is about ready for its grand unveiling.

In a letter sent yesterday to GCSAA members, CEO Rhett Evans announced that an "open test" of the new website will launch Tuesday, April 5, with the goal of providing an opportunity for members to provide feedback and identify any potential glitches on both the new website and in the new forums section before the formal launch and give them an advance glimpse of the site's new look and feel.

"I am asking for your help in making this test as successful as possible by visiting the site and offering any feedback you have," Evans wrote in the letter.

Feedback on user's experiences will be gathered using the new forum product that will also be unveiled next week. Topics will be available for opinions on both the website overall, as well as the forums software, for members to post their comments. And if you're curious, the current usernames and passwords of GCSAA members looking to access the site and the forums should work just fine.

The complete letter from Evans is posted below:

In Houston, with an eye toward Augusta

The Final Four won't be the only major sporting event visiting Houston this week. The PGA Tour is making it's annual week-before-the-Masters stop in south Texas for the Shell Houston Open, and GCM has uncovered a couple of ways professionals in the golf course management industry can get an inside look at course maintenance operations at Redstone GC.

First off, official friend of GCM, Randy Samoff, the Class A superintendent at Redstone, has created his own blog focusing on the work he and his team perform not only during tournament week, but year round on the club's Tournament Course. You can check out all that went into preparations for this week, as well as updates as the week progresses, by clicking on this link.

In addition, Samoff worked with free-lance writer Art Stricklin last year on a story of GCM that detailed the maintenance practices they employ at Redstone to simulate some of the conditions players will encounter at Augusta National the week following the Shell. We posted that story, one we called "Sincere flattery," on our blog in two parts a year ago — this link will take you to the first part, while this link takes you to part two.

From Shasta to Augusta

As a youth, spring meant Cub Scout baseball, playing second base and having the difficult decision of choosing Shasta Black Cherry or Root Beer from the cooler afterward.

I loved baseball and basketball as a kid, played until it was so dark that even Mom's superb homemade fried chicken simply had to wait. Golf? Well, in those days, it mostly meant Putt-Putt with my friends. Growing up in the Kansas City area, though, I knew all about Tom Watson. He was "The Fourth Franchise" in those days, right up there with the Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals and Kansas City Kings, our NBA team that eventually relocated to Sacramento. Back in those days, every youth wanted to be like George Brett or Watson. I sure did.

Watson likely won't recall this, but I certainly do. We first met when I was a sacker at Pay-Less grocery store in 1979, and to my delight, and added pressure, I got to wheel out his groceries after sacking them (yes, I made sure to put the bread on top). Although he had put Carnoustie and The Duel in the Sun in his rear view, events that made him larger than life, he was as nice as can be as we chatted en route to his car. Dumb me; I should have asked for tips, based on my next golf outing with a college friend at Manhattan (Kan.) Country Club, when I walked away after nine holes, frustrated, throwing clubs before Tiger was old enough to chuck them around.

Syngenta rebrands turf environmental tool

Syngenta's proprietary golf course environmental measuring tool has a new name — GreenCast EcoMeasures.

The tool, launched last year under the Turf Carbon Calculator name and currently being tested on 12 Marriott Golf properties as a part of a partnership between Syngenta and Marriott, has been designed to measure the amount of cabron dioxide and other greenhouse gasses released into the earth's atmosphere during the course of normal operations at a golf course and is designed to help superintendents document and analyze inputs to help reduce a course's overall carbon footprint.

“We wanted a name that not only reflects our shared responsibility to manage the use of our limited resources but also puts into perspective the major drivers of sustainability, including energy, carbon and water,” said Shawn Potter, marketing head for Syngenta Lawn & Garden. “The tool helps courses and clubs take measures to become more sustainable, both ecologically and economically, which the name communicates.”

Welcome a new addition to the GCM family

It's not often that we get the chance to welcome a new member to the staff of GCM. We haven't been immune to some of the staff reorganizations that have taken place around GCSAA recently, but for the most part, our team has been a model of stability over the years, and we're understandably proud of those lengthy tenures and the experience that we've amassed in this industry.

But a recent game of musical chairs among the publications that cover the golf course management industry claimed one of our own, Seth Jones, who moved over to Golfdom to captain his own ship after nearly a decade with the association and GCM. And while we hated to see him go and wish him luck (although, not that much luck!) in his new endeavors, it did create an opportunity for us to inject some new blood and new perspectives into our operations.

That new blood's name is Howard Richman (pictured here) and we couldn't be any more excited about bringing aboard someone as talented and as experienced as Howard in the position of associate editor. Howard has more than 25 years of publishing experience under his belt, including a two-decade stretch as a sportswriter with the Kansas City Star.

Comeback begins following FarmLinks fire

By now, you've probably heard about the devastating fire a few weeks back that completely destroyed the maintenance facility and all of its contents at FarmLinks, the innovative research and demonstration golf course in Sylacuaga, Ala.

Earlier today, FarmLinks released its first formal communique about the March 9 fire that tore through the 10,000-square-foot facility that housed several offices and a fleet of maintenance equipment, an event that FarmLinks president Eric Fairly described as a "surreal" for the tight knit group of employees that man the facility on Pursell Farms, about an hour southeast of Birmingham, Ala.

Fire officials have not determined an actual cause of the fire yet, but lightning is suspected. A fierce storm hit the area that night, and an on-duty security guard noticed the flames and reported the fire shortly after receiving a message about a power outage at around 4:30 a.m.

"We're still in the process of gathering the facts," Fairly said in a press release. "We're working closely with the fire investigators and with the insurance representatives. But it seems pretty apparent that lightning was a factor."

Rounds 4 Research tees off in April

The 2011 version of Rounds 4 Research — the innovative online auction program that raises funds for turfgrass research through an auction of tee times at some of the Southeast's best known golf courses — is right around the corner.

This year's auction will run from April 10-17, a compressed auction period compared to the auction's previous two years that organizers hope will result in "a shorter, sharper experience for bidders," according to Tim Kreger, the executive director of the Carolinas GCSA which administers the auction.

"(Bidders) asked for it, and we're happy to oblige. This will be our third year, and a lot of golf lovers know the drill by now. They want to bring the bidding to a head quickly and get out on their course."

Already, Rounds 4 Research has commitments from almost 300 golf courses in the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia for this year's auction. Prospective bidders can check out a list of those courses, which is updated daily, and register for e-mail reminders as the auction launch date nears, by visiting Rounds4Research.com.

Hawaii superintendents dodge tsunami woes

Like many of you, we've been watching closely the coverage of the terrible events unfolding in Japan. The huge earthquake. The devastating tsunami. The evolving nuclear disaster. It's been a sobering, terribly sad experience.

We also kept a watchful eye on the Hawaiian islands and, later the West Coast of the United States as those tsunami waves made their way across the Pacific Ocean late last week. And in a rare bit of positive news where this story is concerned, we were happy to see little, if any, major damage in those locales from the waves.

Still, we were interested in the story from the ground in those regions, and how they reacted to the threat of a tsunami. So Bill Newton, GCSAA's manager of media and public relations, reached out to several GCSAA member on the islands to get their stories on what took place on their golf courses in response to the tsunami warnings. His report follows:

Turfgrass Science Division of the Crop Science Society honors Stiegler

Sometimes when you work on a magazine, there’s a news story that touches the heart of everyone who reads it. For the GCM staff, that story was the news of the death of James Christopher (Chris) Stiegler and his wife, Jenny, who died in an automobile accident on Dec. 24, 2010. Their infant daughter survived.

In August, only a few months before his death, Stiegler started his academic career as a newly minted Ph.D. and assistant professor of turfgrass ecology and physiology at Texas A&M in College Station. He had received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in turfgrass management at Oklahoma State University and had worked as an assistant golf course superintendent at Wichita (Kan.) Country Club and as a Cooperative Extension Agent in Oklahoma. He completed a Ph.D. in turfgrass science at the University of Arkansas in May 2010. He was also a longtime GCSAA member.

Turfgrass Tour 2011 hits Rhode Island

Somewhat bleary eyed after a late-night arrival but still fired up, I'm in Providence, R.I., right now for a whirlwind visit to the New England Regional Turfgrass Conference and Show. I'll hit a couple of interesting educational sessions today, catch up with some official Friends of GCM that I've known for years and chase a few story ideas ... should be a big day.

In the past, GCM hasn't made many appearances at regional turf shows or other industry events like them. I've been to the Carolinas GCSA conference and show a few times, and have been to this show once before (I think it was three years ago). There really was no master plan behind that; for the most part, GCSAA as an organization has been well represented at regional shows, so we did have our bases covered in that regard.

But as a rule, that will be changing this year. As GCSAA begins to expand its touch at the local and regional level through its growing field-staff program, GCM will be doing the same and putting itself in front of association members and magazine readers at gatherings like this one whenever possible. We want you to see us, we want you to talk to us and we want you to tell us what you want to be reading about in the pages of the magazine or in cyberspace via one of our many digital options.