I enjoyed watching last week's coverage of the PGATour's Major Event-The Players Championship. As a Turf Geek - a'la Dave Wilber - I am obsessed with any talk of turf conditions and especially when they ask for player comment and now with Shotlink Data - It is a GEEKS Dream! I wish the discussion included how nimble the Tour Officials and Agronomy Staff were at adapting to the situation at hand.

The focus of the talk was the weak putting surfaces. The commentary had so many angles to it from Tour Commissioner Finchem's full throated support of the "Agronomy Staff" to the inquisitive reporters trying to find out the "lawn" chemical attributed with causing the damage. I agree with the former and see no purpose in the latter.

I can sit and speculate like everyone else inside and outside the ropes, however if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say a colder than normal winter, combined with significant golfer traffic (Sawgrass gets a lot of play) set the plants up for an uncommon biological response to a product application. No one is to blame; we have to adapt and move on.

For me this is another story in the long tale of how technology can only take us so far. Ultimately we are subject to the climate in our area. We better start to learn the ending of this tale soon and begin to adapt or this will be a weekly occurance. Just take a look at the National Climate Assessment, If you don't believe me. In fact, the front page of the Wall Street Journal (the newspaper for old-fashioned Republicans) featured a study that predicted the Antarctic Shelf is melting at an alarming rate and we are adding 1 trillion gallons of water to atmosphere every year!

So what can we all learn from Sawgrass, devastating winter damage across the US, and the increasing intense rain events?

First, Sawgrass. A close look at the Shotlink data for those greens, even when they were about 10ish on Thursday demonstrated they played the same as the previous 15 years! The expert course set-up by Tour Officials gave the players a chance to score and some did, others did not. It reinforces the old adage that in the end they all play the same golf course. Adaptation at its finest... go figure.

Now for the climate. How many will adapt to the devastating winter damage and try and manage a different grass or adjust terrain to avoid bird baths on predominantly annual bluegrass putting surfaces? How many will never let another drop of snow or ice persist on their putting surfaces?

How many in the Central Plain States are considering burying their irrigation lines below the frost line to supply water during winter? How many are making adjustments to their courses as increasing volumes of stormwater are channeled to large greenspaces like golf courses? Ask Tony Gustaitis at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club on the Main Line in Philly. He's a miracle worker!

In the end, golf is played outside on natural surfaces. If we don't want these problems with climate, consider synthetic turf and a large dome! Sawgrass was a great example of adaptation to climate issues. If their success is any measure of how we can do as an industry, then we can all have some hope.....

Unless the scientists are right and the oceans rise 10 feet when the entire Antarctic melts in 200 years!