From the desk of GCM

Expansion comes to Super Bloggers list

It has been WAAAAYYYY too long since we've updated the growing list of superintendents who have taken the plunge into the world of blogging and social media. Admittedly, it's a tough group to keep tabs on — so many golf course management industry professionals dive into the pool each week that staying up to date on the additions can become a full-time job.

Still, we've made it a mission to keep our readers plugged in to this group, to shine a bit of the spotlight on superintendents who have taken to the Internet and to give others who are considering trying their hand at blogging a little encouragement that if these guys could do it, they could do it too. And we've failed in that mission as of late.

But no more. Over the course of the next several weeks, we'll begin to make up ground in this department. We'll feature a handful of blogs in each post, and then add them to the permanent list that we maintain on the right side of the blog. So let's get started.

"Don't Fry Day" kicks off Memorial Day weekend

Exposure to the sun — and all the good and the bad that exposure can bring — is an everyday part of the job for superintendents and their staffs. That's why today's "Don't Fry Day" promotion from the EPA on the Friday (get it? Friday? Don't FRY-DAY?) before Memorial Day should be maked on every superintendents' calendar.

The annual event is each Friday of Memorial Day weekend. "Don't Fry Day" serves as a reminder, with hot and sunny days on the horizon,that summer is coming and dangers from exposure to the sun's harmful rays increases. One American dies from skin cancer every hour, according to the EPA program to promote sun safety.

Melanoma, the mot serious form of skin cancer, is on the rise in America and is the most common cancer among young adults ages 25-29, and that is a key reason why the EPA's "SunWise" program and the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention partnered to offer simple tips to protect yourself. They encourage multiple ways to take measures against the sun, including:

• Sunscreen, SPF 15 or higher
• Wear a hat and sunglasses
• Seek shade during peak sun hours between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Check the UV Index when planning outdoor activities to identify times that present the greatest risk of sun overexposure

For more information, go to http://www.epa.gov/sunwise/dfd.html.

More legal maneuverings in Sharp Park case

The twists and turns that have marked the curious case of San Francisco's Sharp Park Golf Course show no signs of slowing up any time soon.

In the latest development, the nonprofit San Francisco Public Golf Alliance filed a motion to intervene in an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Wild Equity Institute against the city and county of San Francisco. The suit seeks to close the 79-year-old Alister MacKenzie design under the guise of protecting the endangered California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake that have long called the property home.

The story is a long-running one in the Bay Area and holds the potential to be a significant one nationally in the sometimes contentious relationship between golf and environmental interests. In one corner of the Sharp Park debate are environmentalists who loudly claim the only way to save those two federally protected species is to shutter the golf course and convert the land into a natural preserve. In the other corner are golf advocates, who claim that these species have coexisted with golf for many years and will continue to do so under an existing plan that renovates Sharp Park and enhances its natural areas while still retaining it as an important recreational asset.

If you're interested in more background on the story, we've written about this case extensively in the pages of GCM, first in this story in February 2010, then again in the current issue of the magazine. Below the jump is the entire news release from the SFPGA about the latest development.

Colonial vet preps for 30th PGA Tour visit

Brian Cloud, GCSAA's field staff representative in the South Central region, tipped us off yesterday to a great story from behind the scenes at this week's PGA Tour stop at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, regarding the club's head equipment technician, Jan Dixon (pictured left).

This year's playing of the Crowne Plaza Invitational is Dixon's 30th consecutive as the club's top mechanic. He started at Colonial in 1981 on his 20th birthday, working as an equipment operator. “I wasn’t expecting to get the job since I didn’t have any experience,” Dixon recalled. “But I was hired and I learned as I went.”
 
Dixon says the advancement in golf course management technology is night and day from when he started.
 
“There are so many pieces of equipment designed specifically for one job now,” Dixon said. “It used to be more general use that had two or three different applications. It used to just be  reels and gears. Now it’s so computerized that the machine tells you what’s wrong instead of troubleshooting to find a problem.”

Open prep gets big stage in USA Today

 

Earlier this week, USA Today published an interesting look at Congressional Country Club's preparations for next month's U.S. Open, a package that included this video featuring the club's director of golf and grounds maintenance Mike Giufffre.

Since we just wrapped up work on the June issue of GCM, complete with my story on U.S. Open prep and the work Giuffre and his team completed in advance of the tournament, it seemed like a perfect time to share this video with you. Enjoy.

Frank Wong joins Bayer Environmental Science

 Bayer Environmental Science, a division of Bayer CropScience LP, has announced that Frank Wong, Ph.D., has accepted the position of Technical Service Specialist for the company’s fungicide business in the northern U.S. 
“We are excited to add Dr. Wong to the Bayer team as he brings an incredible depth of knowledge in plant pathology,” said Laurence Mudge, Technical Services Manager, Environmental Science. “Frank’s insight and experience from his prior research and Extension responsibilities will be a valuable asset as Bayer continues to develop and commercialize leading chemistries.”

Wong, who received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Davis, and his Ph.D. in plant pathology from Cornell University, has more than 15 years of plant pathology experience. Before joining Bayer, Wong was an associate specialist in Cooperative Extension and a plant pathologist at the University of California, Riverside. He has also served as the American Phytopathological Society’s subject matter expert for the Environmental Protection Agency, providing information on plant diseases and disease management.

Although Wong is a familiar figure to superintendents on the West Coast, he is also well-known to superintendents who have taken the class on warm-season turfgrass diseases that he has taught with Phil Harmon, Ph.D. (University of Florida), and Megan Kennelly, Ph.D. (Kansas State), for the past three years at GCSAA’s education conference. In addition, he has worked with PACE Turf to organize turf tours when the GCSAA Education Conference and the Golf Industry Show have been held in Southern California.

Moving across the country is never easy, but Wong had more than one reason to take the big step. “The move to Bayer Environmental Science is a good opportunity for me on many levels. A lot of people know that my wife Caroline has been working with the EPA in Washington, D.C., and this new position with Bayer is really great for both our professional and personal lives. I've been at the Bayer ES main office in Durham, N.C., all week, and I couldn't ask for a better group. Laurence Mudge (Senior Technical Service Specialist) and Jose Milan (Director of Green Business Operations) and the rest of the Bayer Green Group are going to be great to work with here. I'm going to miss the industry in California, but I look forward to helping out the industry in a different role.”

Wong is currently based in Washington, D.C., and can be reached at frank.wong@bayer.com.

More on The Players Championship

 

With the second round of this year's Players Championship teeing off this morning, wanted to bring your attention to a couple of opportunities to learn more about what superintendent Tom Vlach, CGCS and his team do to prepare TPC Sawgrass' Stadium Course for the event.

The first is posted above, a video from GCSAA TV which details Vlach's preparations for this year's tournament. The second is this link to this story from PGATour.com that details a multi-step plan instituted by Vlach and the PGA Tour's agronomy staff to make sure the Stadium Course weathered the winters in northern Florida well and was ready in time for the tournament.

Vlach steals show on eve of The Players

Despite wearing a tag — golf's fifth major — that neither the club nor the rest of the game likes all that much, The Players Championship returns to the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass today, a course that has been nothing but a gracious host to the event since 1982.

And during the days leading up to this year's tournament, there had been nothing but praise from players and officials alike for the condition of the course, maintainted by superintendent Tom Vlach, CGCS, and his team. Our very own senior director of marketing and communications Jeff Bollig spent a few days at Sawgrass with Vlach and the maintenance crew, and filed this report:

Temperatures in north Florida were toasty on Wednesday, but they could not generate any steam from TPC Sawgrass superintendent Tom Vlach, CGCS. Perhaps that is because he has been hearing rave reviews of the course from almost everyone on the property. Players to a man were complimentary after practice rounds, and PGA Tour staff and rules officials had a bounce in their step and smiles on their faces. They know that happy Tour players will make for a less stressful week all the way around.

Talking TOCA

When I first joined the staff of GCM some 13 years ago, one of the first things that struck me about this business was the way that superintendents, by and large, stuck together and helped each other out.

Even when they came from neighboring golf courses who competed for a slowly shrinking pool of golfers and were intent on putting each other out of business, superintendents have always had a penchant for lending a hand to their fellow supers. Advice, equipment, the name of a good turfgrass consultant ... in my experiences, if one superintendent needed an assist from the superintendent up the road on anything, he got it, regardless of the competitive situation that framed their relationship. In short, they had each other's back.

That may offer up some clues about why the communicators who work in this industry — magazine editors, public relations and marketing professionals, sales people — have embraced the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association the way that they have. The membership rolls of our little group are filled with competitors. There are folks from Toro, John Deere and Jacobsen, representatives from Syngenta, Bayer and BASF. There are rival PR agencies competing for the same green industry dollars. And, yes, there are editors from competing publications such as GCM, Golfdom and Golf Course Industry.

Living the PGA Tour Dream

Bryan Bigley usually does behind-the-scenes stuff at a golf course. Last week, he got busy inside the ropes.

Bigley's maintenance job includes mowing grass and raking bunkers at Raintree Lake CC in Charlotte, N.C. Obviously, he also can play some pretty good golf when the opportunity arises. He paid $400 to enter a Monday qualifier for the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Golf Club in Charlotte, and it proved to be worthwhile. Bigley, who is 26, fired a 4-under-par-66, then recorded birdies on two playoff holes, to earn a spot in the PGA Tour event.

That chance of a lifetime began last Thursday. Bigley, contesting in a field that included Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson, missed the cut, firing rounds of 78 and 76. Lucas Glover beat Jonathan Byrd in a playoff for the title on Sunday.

Bigley played college golf at Siena, where he led the team to its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. He also has competed in mini tour events. Last week, though, there was nothing small about his opportunities. Bigley was given the keys to a silver Mercedes for his courtesy car.