For the final time in this blog, I have an announcement to make -- I have posted new photos to the "Sunday photos" album, including a neat shot of the storms that eventually put an end to play on Sunday, forcing a Monday finish to the 2005 PGA Championship.
It's tough for me to mask my disappointment at not being able to see this tournament through to the finish. As I posted earlier, like many of the volunteers who have been helping this week, I won't be able to stick around for the final few holes of play tomorrow morning. For those volunteers, their real jobs are calling. For me, a flight back to the Midwest is calling. I can't say I will miss sleeping in a hotel room or riding shuttle buses or suffering through temperatures near 100, but I will miss the people I've met while here in New Jersey, the members of the maintenance staff that I've gotten to know and I will definitely miss watching that last group walk up the 18th hole tomorrow morning.
Although I do plan one more post here later next week to recap what took place here this week, I did want to take this opportunity to thank some folks for their assistance and hospitality during the past week. Clearly, the senior leaders of the maintenance staff here at Baltusrol -- Director of Grounds Mark Kuhns, CGCS; Lower Course Superintendent Scott Bosetti; and Upper Course Superintendent Doston Kish -- were unbelievably gracious with their time this week, open to sharing information that might not normally be shared with the media and at least pretended to not be annoyed when I asked to tag along with them as they hit the course each day.
Thank you to Janet Kuhns, who went out of her way to help me out during times when Mark, Scott and Doston couldn't. Thank you to the two assistant superintendents at Baltusrol, Jason Grode on the Lower and Jason Dorn on the Lower. Thank you to Ken Kubik and Doug Vogel, the masterminds behind the GCSAA/GCSANJ hospitality tent for never feeling the need to kick me out of that area when I'd worn out my welcome working on their computers. And thank you to the many full-time staff members and volunteers I met and spoke with this week. The names are too numerous to mention, but the assistance and information you willingly provided was invaluable.
For the staff of GCM, blogs continue to be developing technology. We're new to this game, but I can promise you that we're going to continue playing it. Blogs are a tool that has tremendous potential to communicate with and educate GCSAA members, and we will be committed to putting that tool to its best uses. In addition to blogs for special events like the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, we will be developing strategies over the coming months to make our primary blog -- http://gcm.typepad.com -- a must-visit Web site for superintendents each week, featuring the latest news and information from the golf course management industry.
For now, though, I will sign off and encourage you to check back later in the week for one final, wrap-up post from the 2005 PGA Championship.
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