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About this blog

Randy and the gang at Rockbottum Country Club pontificate on Rockbottum wisdom and skeletal golf, among other madness.

Entries in this blog

From The Vault: The 2nd Film From Rockbottum CC

For your entertainment, we present, from deep in the bowels of the Rockbottum Films vault, our second major production:  "Customer Service". The audio in this historic film is clippy at times, even glitchy, (it was pre-Sennheiser) but we didn't think you would mind.  After all, where else can you watch a GCS push a mean old lady golfer into a deep bunker?   You know you've been tempted to do the same thing.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Fred & The Anti-Stress

It’s June.  Most of the tv addled golfers have forgotten April, thanks to a severely damaged attention span, one of the gifts of the modern technocracy.  But the stress merely continues to build through June and then the heat of July.  Some areas will suffer from freight-train rain, while others endure a seemingly endless hot, dry bubble of desert air.   Add in a few members just back from a member-guest with all sorts of ideas they picked up in an entirely different budget climate--or my favori
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Turf Health Is Secondary To Your Health

Working for a big urban muni in the Deep South with monthly floods and a constantly changing command structure had a negative effect on my health.  While the chain of command at a high dollar private course can often be a pressurized environment, the sudden and bizarre reversals of policy on the municipal facility I inhabited regularly produced staff meetings worthy of a Polanski film.  At one point, I was stripped of my authority to issue cart path only edicts, as that power belonged in th
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

News Bulletin From Here At The Rock

Don't miss this year's Turf Field Day at Rivermont, because even if your job requires doing things "the way it's always been done" . . . eventually you will need to be familiar with other ways to get it done. Mark Hoban is the tip of the spear.  Come see what he's up to now.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Mark Hoban Explains Organics

While preparing for the long anticipated Rivermont Field Day, Mark Hoban is forced to explain his organic philosophy to some golfer that wandered in off the street.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Rockbottum Radio: The Birth of Golfzirra

In this tale from The Greens of Wrath on Rockbottum Radio, young Randy relates the story from Burnt Run Country Club, circa 1971, when he employed certain hallucinogenic tactics to get his night waterman job back. Presented by Vinylguard Golf.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Hornswoggled by a Big Shot Hollywood Golf Film Producer

Last week, we loaded our gear and then fought through the horrible Atlanta traffic to shoot a short film with Mark Hoban of Rivermont CC.  It was the usual debacle, with us wandering around lost in Doolooth and Akworth.  At one point, we entered “The Buford Triangle”, a place where road names change instantly and people vanish.  Relying on business signs as landmarks is impossible, because they are written in other languages than whatever it is we speak.  Never trust those fantasy maps on The Go
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

I Did Something Crazy

Last week, a bizarre thought entered my head and I bought my first pair of golf shoes since 1979.  Claire dismissed it as a post-midlife crisis and at least two of my extra personalities cried “Foul!” . . . but I did it anyway.  I have played for decades without spikes.  (Not really played serious golf, just hacked around, not slow and not fast, just sorta half-fast.) I nurture an intense dislike for 8mm steel, as well as the modern plasticized ceramic Mad Max spikes.  The steel, notorious
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

4

Clippings Volume: Legit or Lame?

We conducted small sample Clippings Volume research to determine if weighing, measuring and tasting clippings actually helps with calculating nutrient application rates.   You'll be shocked at our findings.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

11

An Explosive Excerpt From "The Greens of Wrath"

Bowing to pressure from a couple of rabid fans of the novel, "The Greens of Wrath", here's an excerpt.  For those unfamiliar with the work, all I can say is, "It's not Caddyshack". Dynamite Whups My . . . Posterior  (Burnt Run CC     1971) The explosions were blamed on me, even though it was Dwight, Dad’s youngest brother, who produced the dynamite.  It was a cold day in March, the folks were down in Florida where Dad was playing a tournament and Momma had gone with him.  It wasn
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

3

Buddy's Shop

For those wallowing in despair after hearing that Hector took his shop and runnoft . . .  have no fear.  Now you have  "Buddy's Shop".  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

5

Storytime: The Golf Pro, The Carpetbagger and The Slush Fund

In the Olden Times, (or “The Good Old Days" for those immune to PC brainwashing) Dad was the GCS at a wonderful muni* outside Atlanta. *Note:  Although Brad Klein has called for a Social Justice Moratorium on the word “muni”, it is not a derogatory term; it simply means a municipal golf facility.  Those of us who actually worked on a muni are proud of it, much more so than, say, a CCFAD. The muni in our story was a Dick Wilson layout called “Mystery Valley” and it became very popular a
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Buddy Goes To e-Rehab

Nicholas Carr, a technology and modern culture genius, wrote the book, "What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains".   Although I don't usually quote folks who went to Harvard and got nominated for that Pulitzer thing, I am doing it now.  Why?  Because no matter how hard I work at warning the golf world about tech and AI and microwave signals cooking our brains, nobody listens. So I thought maybe golf might listen to this little gem from Nicholas Carr: For those unwilling to heed the w
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

6

Showdown At The Cart Barn

From deep in the Rockbottum CC film vault, we offer this classic short film. Trigger Warning:  This film contains implied violence, stereotypes and blatant anti-screen propaganda.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Force Multiplication Through Cross-Training

In what will surely be our last outburst of serious ranting, Rockbottum Country Club offers a Skeletal Golf Theory segment on a tried and true method for adapting to economic changes. It's like Judge Smails said, "I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber.  Didn't want to, but I felt I owed it to them." I didn't want to do this film, but I felt I owed it to you.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Why Are You Doing This?

Do you remember the real reason you got into the golf course business? I frequently ask that question and the answers can range from positive outbursts of Pavlovian Pollyanna-isms to covert confessions of discomfiture.  “I don’t know”, is usually followed by nervous laughter.  The recently graduated will go into interrogation mode, searching for the “correct” answer, as if their career is at stake.  A few admit it was to play more golf, while others claim it was the appeal of the science. 
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

7

Randy Wilson: Prophecies for the Next Decade of Golf (REQUIRED LISTENING)

Time for the last and final "Rockbottum Prophecies for the Next Decade of Golf". This is required listening for all those with a stake in the future of golf. Also... ANTIGOLF protesters show up to riot and protest at Rockbottum CC... The gang figures out what's been digging up #13 green and organizes a posse of vigilantes to hunt it down, Momma handles a customer complaint in a new way and Booferd resists Third Wave Feminism by telling Momma that dishwashing is woman
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Forest Therapy

Our favorite method for suppressing "The Noise" is Forest Therapy.  You can practice Forest Therapy with a simple, short hike, or go on an epic adventure lasting several days.  At Rockbottum Country Club, we self-medicate with Forest Therapy when we've had too much holiday feasting or too much family togetherness or too much screen time. We just grab a pellet rifle or a slingshot and go into the forest for some big game squirrel hunting.   It's similar to raccoon hunting; if you come h
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

4

The Dangler Will Get You!

Warning!  We’re about to go all Mickey McCord Safety Meeting on you, so pay attention and learn about one of the most dangerous things on your golf course.   No, it’s not a chainsaw, the dimpled projectile, nasty, slippery restrooms, hovering mowers or crocodiles.  It’s THE DANGLER. The Dangler has caused several of those injuries that still reside in my gray matter hard drive, no matter how often I delete them. (That’s saying a lot, because I have witnessed quite a few injuries.)
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Rockbottum Radio: The Noise (and how to get rid of it)

In this episode of Rockbottum Radio, the usual cast of idiots, oafs and varlets keep interrupting me as I try to pass along my proven techniques to skirt The Matrix and suppress the stress-inducing Noise in our lives. Most are simple, easy to do, and... cheap! The TurfNet Maestro has proclaimed that this is me pontificating at my finest. Maybe he found that the shoe fit a little bit.
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

The Demise of Ludell

Last week, somebody demised Ludell on the practice tee and police suspicion immediately fell upon the various Alphabets.  (They had the strongest motive to see Ludell silenced.) A huge mob of Ludell's betrothed (all three of them) formed outside the courthouse and demanded justice.  Minutes before the Sheriff boarded the Greyhound bus for Kansas, a shocking video surfaced, claiming to show what really happened. We will show you the footage, but keep in mind, a skillful editor can twist
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Workplace Therapy?

Everyone should read Paul MacCormack's "Afterglow".   It's a new direction in dealing with life on turf.   It also proves TurfNet is still the leader in adaptive metaphysical approaches--and just plain leading from the front.  Great minds like Peter McCormick, Dave Wilber and the big names who gathered with Paul MacCormack at the Mindful Leadership and Wellness Retreat have been pushing us in this direction for years.  But way out front, so far ahead that they got a little behind-
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Old Roy's Halloween Story

I was working on a piece about how modern country club boards resemble the leadership of Rome in their last days—you know, lounging about in togas, unaware of the reality building outside the wall—when I remembered it was almost Halloween.  So, from deep in the Rockbottum vault, a previously unreleased Halloween story:  Way back in ’73, on a cold afternoon in late October, I was splitting a mountain of firewood with Old Roy—not to be confused with just plain Roy, the AM radio preacher—and w
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Rockbottum Radio: The Empire's CEO Makes How Much??

In this episode of Rockbottum Radio -- rated IM for Immature Audiences Only -- the Pro shop gets raided by the Empire's Praetorian Guard, Willy visits with Buddy at the Turf Care shop, and Momma takes the gang to the feed store, leaving Old Booferd in charge of the golf course... and Momma's good Scotch. Presented by VinylGuard Golf.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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