From the desk of GCM

New greens planned for PGA Tour event

Southern golf courses that switch grass types in order to become heat tolerant has become a trend. At one golf course in North Carolina, they have decided to make the change only a few months before a PGA Tour event.

Is that enough time to get the job done?

GCSAA Class A superintendent Keith Wood, who oversees Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C., welcomes the challenge. The PGA Tour's Wyndham Championship will be played starting Aug. 16 at Sedgefield CC. On May 14, which is about three months before the opening round of the tournament, the task of replacing bentgrass greens with Bermuda grass begins with prep work and fumigation.

Although there appears to be a small window to complete the project, Wood doesn't necessarily view it that way.

"I don't think any renovation is a walk in the park, but the timing of the project has most certainly put us in a position to succeed," Wood, a 15-year member of the association, tells GCM. "The biggest challenge we face with this conversion is the fact that we open to a PGA Tour stop. No room for error."

Tying the knot ...Vegas-style

Surely more than one GCM reader out there has fantasized about abandoning the stress and costly rigamarole involved in planning a wedding in favor of eloping to Las Vegas? GCSAA 2011 Watson Fellow Lindsey Hoffman took the chance to live that dream while she was attending the 2012 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show last month.

Hoffman, a doctoral student studying turfgrass physiology at the University of Massachusetts, received an all-expenses-paid trip to the Las Vegas conference and show along with a $5,000 grant. She and boyfriend Mario Gagliardi had once joked around about running off to Vegas to get married if she won the fellowship, then "never discussed it again," Hoffman swears. That is, until their flight was just a day away and Gagliardi suggested they go pick out a couple of rings.

Mowers ... Memories ... March Madness

His hands remain famous, even two decades after he had a hand in what some consider to be the greatest college basketball game in March Madness history.

Today, those hands that belong to Deron Feldhaus (pictured right, AP Photo) probably are dirty, even greasy. That can happen when you serve as a jack-of-all-trades on a golf course. Feldhaus, 43, is co-owner of Kenton Station Golf Course in Maysville, Ky., a nine-hole facility. There, he does it all.

"We use those old gang mowers that the tractor pulls behind," Feldhaus told GCM by phone this week, "and I even have my chemical license. We operate on a minimal budget, so I do about everything. I work on the equipment, sharpen the blades, even give lessons during the day."

At night, he will partake in what millions of people do annually in March. Like Feldhaus, they will turn on their flat screens, big screens, iPads, whatever it takes to catch a dose of the NCAA Tournament. For Feldhaus, that major event has significant meaning.

He played in it 20 years ago.    

GCSAA world tour continues in Beijing

If you've paid any attention to recent GCSAA news, you'll remember that the association is pushing forward with an expansion of its international outreach, most notably through an agreement with Reed Guanghe that positions the association as an official supporter of both the Asia Golf Show/PGA Merchandise Show, Asia and the China Golf Show/PGA Merchandise Show, China.

The latter of those is taking place right now in Beijing, and GCSAA has solid representation on the ground, including CEO Rhett Evans, 2012 GCSAA president Sandy G. Queen, CGCS and several others who are leading GCSAA education at this event.

The association is also exhibiting on the trade show floor, and our representative manning that booth — Eric Boedeker, the association's senior manager of corporate sales and business development — sent along the photo posted here to give you a taste of how GCSAA is being represented in Beijing.

You might notice the banner in the front right promoting the recently announced addition to the GCM family, GCM China. Although the first official issue of this publication targeting golf course management professionals in China won't be available for a few more months, you can check out a sample edition online right now. A note: it'll be helpful if you can speak simplified Chinese.

NGF: Course closings outpace openings in 2011

The number of golf courses in the United States continued to shrink in 2011.

The National Golf Foundation reported today that last year saw the closing of 157.5 18-hole equivilent (18HEQ) golf courses vs. just 19 new openings. That marks the sixth consecutive year that golf course closings have outpaced openings, and represents the largest number of annual closings during that time. All told, more than 358.5 18-hole equivilent golf courses have closed since the market's peak in 2005.

According to the NGF, this "supply-side market correction" has been long overdue for golf as the growth in the number of golfers and rounds played over the past 20 years was not nearly sufficient to support all of the golf courses constructed during the game's boom that began in the early 1990s. Since 1991, the number of 18-hole equivilents in the U.S. has grown by 30 percent, far ahead of the 6.5 percent growth in golfers over that same span.

GCSAA to launch GCM China in May

Forgive us for acting like a bunch of proud parents over here at GCSAA headquarters, but we've got a good reason. There's a new member of the GCM family coming down the road in a few short months that has us pretty wound up — GCM China.

That's right, the No. 1 publication in the golf course management industry is taking it's show to an international audience. Available in May, GCM China will be a bi-monthly, all-digital publication geared toward superintendents and other golf course management professionals working in China. The publication will be translated in Mandarin, also known as simplified Chinese.

The content in GCM China will be a mix for newly created stories written specifically for a Chinese audience along with stories previously published in GCM that have been deemed to be of particular interest to golf course management interests in China. To help us with those content decisions, we are enlisting the assistance of communication experts, superintendents, university researchers and industry representatives who have extensive experience working with Chinese golf course management professionals or in the country itself.

The complete news release from GCSAA announcing this exciting new publication is posted below:

In Vegas, GCSAA education packs 'em in

Official statistics from last week's GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in Las Vegas are beginning to trickle out, and the first wave of those numbers is nothing if not encouraging.

Despite the obvious distractions available in a city like Las Vegas, GCSAA members continued to show their dedication to furthering their careers through education, filling a total of 5,338 seats for 106 seminars focused on golf course management. In addition, 63 hours of educational sessions, forums and panels were available.

Those numbers represent a 1.4 percent increase over last year's event in Orlando and a 14.6 percent increase over the 2010 event in San Diego. The number of educational seats sold was the largest since the 2008 conference in Orlando.

“The feedback on the education program has been tremendous,” GCSAA President Sandy Queen, CGCS, said. “I am heartened by the enthusiasm of GCSAA members to pursue professional development activities. Continual learning is a necessity to keep up in the ever-changing profession. The ultimate benefactors are facilities and their customers.”

The complete news release from GCSAA on the statistics from the education conference is posted below:

GCSAA elects Queen as new president

Sandy Queen, CGCS, manager of golf course operations for the city of Overland Park, Kan., became the association's 2012 president at the annual meeting and election today at the conclusion of the 2012 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show in Las Vegas.

Acknowledging the board's teamwork through tough decisions necessitated by the economic downturn, Queen noted, "If we work together, we can do anything — that is the trademark of the golf course superintendent." Queen added that his goals as president for the coming year included a strengthening of the association's philanthropic organization, the Environmental Institute for Golf, in order to "make a difference in the world we live in"; supporting the PGA of America's Golf 2.0 initiative; and serving as a passionate advocate for the professionals who maintain and manage golf courses.

USGA Green Section improves your odds

The USGA's annual program at GIS focused on how superintendents can improve their odds at work, even if the house always wins when they play the slot machines. Northwest director Larry Gilhuly hosted the program.

The USGA Green Section also presented its 2012 USGA Green Section Award to Wayne Hanna, Ph.D., for a lifetime of outstanding work in turfgrass (particularly, bermudagrass) breeding. Hanna developed the "Tif" bermudagrasses, including Tifsport, Tifeagle, Tifdwarf and the new TifGrand. The award is presented annually as "special recognition for distinguished service to golf through work with turfgrass." Hanna said that he was "embarassed for getting rewarded for something you love so much." Patrick O'Brien presented the award on behalf of the Green Section.

Special guest David Zuberer, Ph.D., from Texas A&M spoke about "Turfgrass Microbes: Some Practical Perspectives," telling superintendents that soil microbes are the least of their worries. Sports fields and golf courses typically have many millions if not a billion microbes per gram of soil and do not require additional applications of microbes. In addition, many claims for biostimulants do not hold up — they will not loosen compacted soil or make depleted soils come alive. And just in case you were wondering, molasses, karo syrup and sugar do not enhance your soil or your turf. Zuberer's final tips were to read USGA TERO and to remember that agronomy comes first!

Pinehurst No. 2 comes to Vegas

This morning inside the Las Vegas Convention Center, golf course designer Bill Coore's thoughts drifted back to that moment nearly two years ago on the outskirts of a North Carolina clubhouse.

Coore and his co-designer, major golf champion Ben Crenshaw, were embarking on a major restoration of Pinehurst No. 2. They were tinkering with history, and its treasured spot among famous golf courses. A member spotted Coore as he was exiting the clubhouse at Pinehurst Resort and wanted to make a point, and got in his face to do it.

"He confronted me and said, 'You better not mess this thing up. What happens to this golf course happens to this entire town.' The single biggest risk of this project was pointed out to me by a member," Coore said.

Key figures involved in the restoration, which was completed almost a year ago, are convinced the reward will be worth the risk.

Coore was among those on a panel at GCSAA's Golf Industry Show and Education Conference, a session titled "Recognition of a Classic: The Restoration of Pinehurst No. 2." Brad Klein, architecture editor at Golfweek, was the moderator for the session that also featured Bob Farren, CGCS, director of golf course and grounds management at Pinehurst Resort; and Mike Davis, executive director, of the USGA.

Pinehurst No. 2, originally designed by legend Donald Ross, will be front and center in the golfing universe in two years. It will be the site of back-to-back men and women U.S. Opens in 2014. For all of those golfers, No. 2 will not resemble what they have come to know in recent years.