At about 8 a.m. Pacifc this morning, under crystal-clear desert skies, some 250-plus golf course management professionals from around the world drew back their clubs, swung from their heels and sent their tee shots flying to officially begin the Four-Ball Competition at the 2012 GCSAA National Championship and Golf Classic in Palm Springs, Calif.
And with those collective bombs, dribbles, snap hooks, power fades and worm-burners, it meant that, finally and officially, GIS 2012 Week is here. Today's fun event bleeds into the real action over the weekend, with nearly 350 players in either the stroke-play National Championship or the flighted Golf Classic, which in turn blends into a full week in Las Vegas for the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show.
There will be plenty of time for talk about Vegas as the entire GCM team begins descending on the city this weekend to begin our full-tilt coverage of conference and show, so for now we'll focus on the golf being played in the desert. Later today, I'll post results from the Four-Ball, and I'll have live updates from the National Championship through both days of play on the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West.
For now, a few notes from my first few days here and some photos to take you behind-the-scenes in Palm Springs:
- First, I just need to say this — if you have never had the opportunity to visit the Palm Springs area, especially at this time of year, I can't recommend it more highly. It's just stunning. Maybe it's because I'm a Midwestern boy to whom the desert landscape is completely foreign, but between the weather, the environment, the mountains, the grounds at LaQuinta Resort and Club, the golf courses we're using for the tournament, this is one fantastic place to visit. Wish we weren't all working so much, but there are worse offices you could have than Palm Springs.
- There are eight past champions in the National Championship field this year, including defending champ David Brown from Flatirons GC in Boulder, Colo. In that group is Dick Stuntz, CGCS, who won the event back in 1993 and has been a longtime friend of GCSAA and GCM as the general manager at Alvamar GC in Lawrence, Kan. Dick recently announced he was levaing Alvamar after 29 years to pursue other opportunities, so I'm hoping to catch up with Dick for a quck Q&A about his plans for the future, his golf game and that 1993 championship.
- Other past champions in the field include three-time champ Seth Strickland, Adam Hess, Jason Regan, Tommy Robinson, Joseph Pantaleo and two-time winner Todd Barker.
- There is an international flavor to this year's National Championship, as the winner of the Australian Golf Course Superintendent Association's national tournament is on hand to test his game against the best superintendent golfers in the states. Brent Hull, the superintendent at the Morauya Golf Club in New South Wales, and the 2011 AGCSA champion, is playing this week in his first-ever trip to America.
- Finally, below are a few photos to give you a flavor of the scene that has been set here for the 2012 GCSAA National Championship and Golf Classic.
The first thing most competitors see is the registration area.
Quiet now, but the ballroom that will host all of the post-competition receptions and scoreboards for the week.
Tee prizes for competitors this year were a gift certificate to be spent in a mobile pro shop set up onsite, with gear from TaylorMade, Ashworth, Adidas and many more.
Finally, we together a little photo shoot with the crew at LaQuinta's Mountain and Dunes courses Thursday morning. You'll see these photos pop up in various GCSAA publications and marketing pieces, but here's a little inside look at the work of our crack photographer Montana Pritchard (laying down on the job), his assistants and our subjects for this particular pose — Mountain and Dunes superintendent Cody Swirczynski and Chris Bien, his new assistant (been on the job four days!).
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