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From the TurfNet NewsDesk

  • John Reitman
    Fueled by hot, dry winds and little rain the past several months, the Getty Fire burns recently near Mountaingate Country Club in Los Angeles. Photo by KTLA Two years removed from one of the worst droughts in history in California, a month without rain and wildfires demanding time on TV news throughout parts of the state, some might believe another prolonged dry spell is in the offing. 
    That would be a mistake, say two of California's foremost authorities on water and golf and how the two mesh.
    "What the weather is like in November doesn't preface anything," said Craig Kessler, director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Association, and one of the state's leading water experts. "Some of the wettest years here, El Nino years, have been preceded by dry Novembers and Decembers.
    "You want to start paying attention in January, February and March. That is the rainy season here. Those 13 weeks are the gold standard."
    According to the National Weather Service, about 14 inches of rain has fallen in the Los Angeles area. That's about 3 inches more than the historic average. 
    The area has received less than an inch since June. That includes no rain throughout Los Angeles County, where the average rainfall for the month ranges from one-half inch to an inch throughout the county that covers 4,700 square miles.
    "Is this a sign of the next drought? Nothing is predictable here in November," said Mike Huck, an irrigation consultant and an expert on California golf's water issues. "In fact, this is the most cool and mild summer I can recall, and I've lived here since the late ‘80s. 
    "The superintendents I've talked to have said this is the best summer they've ever had."
    About one-fifth of the state, all a corridor hugging California's southwestern border with Nevada and Arizona, have been officially labeled as abnormally dry or in moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
    The dry conditions throughout southern California and on the state's eastern edge are not cause for alarm, Kessler said. 
    "Why aren't we concerned that there was zero rain in October? It's often zero," Kessler said. "Those other areas are high in the mountains where it is normally snowing now. Early snows often melt, and that precipitation is lost. What we need are the late snows in January and February when it's too cold for it to melt."
    That snow in the higher elevations throughout the winter provides much of the water needed for California's 39 million residents through a storage and delivery system of reservoirs and aqueducts known as the State Water Project.
    According to the California Department of Water Resources, 10 of the state's 12 major reservoirs are at 51 percent to 84 percent of capacity. The other two are at 41 percent and 45 percent of capacity.
    "Those early snows are often followed by warm air, then it melts and we lose the ability to capture it," said Huck, a former golf course superintendent and USGA Green Section agronomist and the recipient of this year's USGA Green Section Award. "Snow during the winter is our slow-release water source."
    So then what's with all those wildfires?
    Blame it partly on nearly 14 inches of rain falling throughout the area during last winter's rainy season that brought a flush of new growth, followed by six months of virtually no rain and regularly occurring hot and dry Santa Ana winds that fan the flames, says Kessler. 
    "Last year was very wet, so there was a lot of growth, a lot of brush. Then there was a long dry season, and no rain in October, which is the normal course of business this time of year," Kessler said. 
    "A lot of that growth dried up. When you have low humidity and high winds, it's like a tinderbox."
  • Stephanie Schwenke of Syngenta, right, presents Carlos Arraya of Bellerive Country Club with the 2018 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year Award during the Golf Industry Show in San Diego. When he came upon a fork in the road that would change the course of his life regardless of which path he chose, Carlos Arraya turned tragedy into triumph.
    That tragedy, the death of his son, Isaih, in a car accident in 2016, was the impetus for some honest introspection and sobering changes to the way he manages his life and his team as the 2018 PGA Championship loomed at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis.
    As a result, Arraya, was named last year's TurfNet Superintendent of the Year, presented by Syngenta.
    "Losing my son gave me a new perspective," Arraya told TurfNet upon receiving the award at this year’s Golf Industry Show in San Diego. "Tragedies really awaken people, or they make them go down a road they can't come back from."
    Today's golf course superintendent must wear many hats to provide the best possible playing conditions for the club's golf clientele with the resources at hand.  
    To do that, he (or she) must be a self-disciplined, multi-tasking agronomist in charge of managing the clubs most valuable asset; a multi-lingual personnel manager; babysitter; therapist; accountant; electrician; politician; hydraulics expert; ditch digger; plumber; arborist; environmentalist; integrated pest management specialist; turfgrass pathologist; entomologist; irrigation expert; and mechanic. One only need look to the abundant seminars and educational programs for superintendents that focus on topics besides agronomy for proof of the evolving role of the golf course superintendent.
    Since 2000, the Superintendent of the Year award has recognized dozens of nominees for their work in producing great playing conditions often during times of adversity. If this sounds like your golf course superintendent, or someone you know, nominate him (or her) for the 2019 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year Award.

    Nominations can be submitted by golf course owners, operators, general managers, club members, golf professionals, vendors, distributors or colleagues, even by mothers and wives. The nomination deadline is Nov. 30.
    The winner, who is selected by a panel of judges from throughout the golf industry, will be named at next year's Golf Industry Show in Orlando, and will receive a trip for two on the 2019 TurfNet members golf trip, courtesy of Syngenta.
    Nominees are judged on their ability to excel at one or more of the following criteria: labor management, maximizing budget limitations, educating and advancing the careers of colleagues and assistants, negotiating with government agencies, preparing for tournaments under unusual circumstances, service to golf clientele, upgrading or renovating the course and dealing with extreme or emergency conditions. 
    To nominate a deserving superintendent for this year's award, visit the 2019 Superintendent of the Year Award nomination page. For more information, email John Reitman.
    Previous winners of the award include Carlos Arraya, Bellerive Country Club, St. Louis, 2018; Jorge Croda, Southern Oaks Golf Club, Burleson, Texas, and Rick Tegtmeier, Des Moines Golf & Country Club, West Des Moines, Iowa, 2017; Dick Gray, PGA Golf Club, Port St. Lucie, Florida, 2016; Matt Gourlay, Colbert Hills, Manhattan, Kansas, 2015; Fred Gehrisch, Highlands Country Club, 2014, Highlands, North Carolina; Chad Mark, Kirtland Country Club, Willoughby, Ohio, 2013; Dan Meersman, Philadelphia Cricket Club, Philadelphia, 2012; Paul Carter, The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay, Harrison, Tennessee, 2011; Thomas Bastis, California Golf Club of San Francisco, South San Francisco, California, 2010; Anthony Williams, Stone Mountain Golf Club, Stone Mountain, Georgia, 2009, Sam MacKenzie, Olympia Fields Country Club, Olympia Fields, Illinois, 2008; John Zimmers, Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pennsylvania, 2007; Scott Ramsay, Golf Course at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut, 2006; Mark Burchfield, Victoria Club, Riverside, California, 2005; Stuart Leventhal, Interlachen Country Club, Winter Park, Florida, 2004; Paul Voykin, Briarwood Country Club, Deerfield, Illinois, 2003; Jeff Burgess, Seven Lakes Country Club, LaSalle, Ontario, 2002; Kip Tyler, Salem Country Club, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2001; and Kent McCutcheon, Las Vegas Paiute Resort, Las Vegas, 2000.
  • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently granted label registration to  Union Fungicide SC, a new dual formulation product from PBI-Gordon.
    With the active ingredients azoxystrobin and cyazofamid, Union SC is a flowable liquid formulation fungicide that provides preventive and curative control of Pythium diseases (blight, damping-off, root dysfunction, root rot), brown patch, anthracnose, cool-weather brown patch, yellow patch, fairy ring, gray leaf spot, red thread, summer patch, and Rhizoctonia. 
    It is approved for use on cool-season and warm-season grasses, such as Kentucky bluegrass, fine fescues, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, bentgrass, Bermudagrass, bahiagrass, buffalograss, centipedegrass, kikuyugrass, seashore paspalum, St. Augustinegrass and zoysiagrass on golf courses, residential and commercial properties, sod farms and sports fields.
    Testing has shown that Union is highly effective in the preventative and curative treatment of Pythium diseases (blight, damping-off, root dysfunction, root rot), brown patch, anthracnose, cool-weather brown patch, yellow patch, fairy ring, gray leaf spot, red thread, summer patch, and Rhizoctonia. 
    It is approved for use on golf courses, residential and commercial properties, sod farms, and sports fields.
    Available in 2.5-gallon jugs, label rates for Union range from 2.9 ounces to 5.75 ounces per 1,000 square feet. It will be available early next year.
  • "We have a good story to tell. We just need to do a better job telling it."
    I hear this, or some variation of it, a lot when talking about the environmental footprint of a golf course. 
    As it turns out, a lot of people in this business actually are very good at telling that story of environmental stewardship, sustainability, establishing and protecting habitat, water conservation and outreach and education.
    What golf, more specifically the turf business, does not have, outside the four walls of its own industry, is a dependable partner to help tell that story. There is a lot of preaching to the choir within the trade, but without that messenger outside the industry, turf does not have a consistent audience to hear its message. The audience golf needs is the consumer golfer, non-golfers, children, women and government agencies.
    The work of superintendents to create a sustainable future for the game is one that should be told. Because of the misconceptions still surrounding you and your profession, and your footprint on the ecosystem, the truth of what you are doing is a tale that must be told. 
    Field days and field trips at the golf course can be effective at educating others about what you do, but if you are waiting for an assist from the mainstream media, good luck.
    It can be humbling if not downright embarrassing to be even loosely associated with the media. It is an industry riddled with gaffes, some of which are a byproduct of a lack of preparation, like this reporter who asked University of Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts to clarify that he actually prefers winning to losing. Others are more heinous in nature, like former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair who was relieved of his duties over numerous allegations of plagiarism. 
    Bangor Municipal Golf Course in Maine recently worked toward renewing its Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary status, which it has held since 2013. Kudos to all involved at Bangor. Regardless of what anyone in this business thinks about the Audubon program, it can be an effective tool in promoting environmental stewardship efforts to those who do not understand this industry.
    When a reporter from the local paper came calling to tell the story, he went where many in his field go when talking about environmentalism on a golf course - to the head pro and then the assistant pro. No mention of the superintendent or if the course even has one. 
    For the record, superintendent John Kelley has been at Bangor as an assistant superintendent and head superintendent for almost 20 years. When it comes to Audubon-specific criteria like environmental planning, wildlife and habitat management, chemical use reduction and safety, water conservation, water quality management, and outreach and education, no one is better equipped than himt to discuss what Bangor has done to retain that status. The head pro and assistant pro know that and so would any reporter who did their homework.
    Instead, the story went on to say that such stewardship efforts are important, because "golf courses can receive some negative attention based on their environmental impact. Whether it be using bad chemicals, using too much water, or destroying natural wildlife."
    There is no evidence offered to support these claims, and shows a lack of preparation, because we know in today's golf industry these problems do not exist.
    Pesticides have less active ingredient than ever, are target specific and are effective at low use rates. Golf courses use historically low levels of water and superintendents have proven to be leaders in developing water-conservation plans on a massive scale. Finally, literally every golf course is a sanctuary for plant life, birds, wildlife and pollinators.
    Talk of sustainability also is being addressed, albeit in an easier-to-understand approach, across the country at Lone Tree Golf and Event Center, another municipal operation in Antioch, California. Lone Tree and the city recently unveiled an array of six solar parking canopies that provide shade for customers and renewable electric power for the golf operation.
    The move to solar power, the city said, will help Lone Tree save more than $1 million over the next two decades. That is specific information anyone can understand. With the rising cost of power and labor in a state with a rapidly escalating minimum wage, finding ways to cut expenses might be the difference between remaining a viable business entity or being one of the many golf courses destined to close as the market continues its slow path toward self-correction.
    The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 was passed with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. That was not enough for the City of Antioch, which 10 years ago established its own plan to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050.
    Real data and facts can help people outside the golf industry understand and get behind what this business is about. 
    The next time a local news reporter comes calling, be prepared with specific data about what you are doing: how much you apply and how often, how little water you use, how clean it is when it leaves your property and an inventory of plant and animal species. Give them and their readers numbers to chew on so they can quantify your efforts. In other words, do their homework for them, because they're giving both of us a bad name. 
  • A renovated shop is a better mousetrap at Medinah Country Club (above and below). Photos by John Reitman When asked to consult on construction of a new maintenance facility, Mike Vogt says one word continues to arise. Flow.
    Flow of car traffic. Flow of foot traffic. Flow of mechanized equipment traffic.
    "We examine the flow of people, from when they park their car and go into the maintenance building. That should be a straight line," said Vogt, a certified golf course superintendent and industry consultant. "Then it should be a straight line to the administrative area or staff room, then to where they get their assignments, then to where they get their equipment or tools should make another straight line."
    Flow also includes the route for machinery out of the shop and onto the golf course, then again off the course, to the wash area and back to the shop.
    "That line continues to the area where they fuel up machinery then go out onto the golf course, then backwards to where they blow off the machine, fuel it, clean it, then back to the storage area and to where they punch out."
    Building a new facility gives everyone involved more flexibility than a renovation when constructing the perfect maintenance building. Still, flow was a keyword when the shop at Medinah Country Club in Illinois was reworked from last December through April.
    Given a finite amount of space with which to work, the folks at Medinah laid out construction paper to scale to simulate work stations and whether everything would fit where they wanted it.
    "When we did this shop renovation, we had a lot of decisions to make - insulation, lifts, equipment, work station set up," said Medinah equipment manager Brian Bressler. "We used to construction paper, the big rolls you can buy at Home Depot, to make sure everything fit in its footprint before we moved anything. What we were looking for was to make sure the shop flowed, make sure everything flowed."

    The end result at Medinah was a shop with two lifts, a new entry way door and multiple work stations. The extra door and spacing of work areas meant a dramatic improvement in workshop flow.
    "We knew we wanted to put two lifts in and we added a new door. We wanted to make sure we could get equipment in, work on it and get it out without interfering with other work stations," Bressler said. 
    ‘We wanted to bring a piece of equipment in, get it on a lift and not take any more footprint than needed. Now, we can literally bring a piece of equipment in, put it on a lift and work on it, drive off that lift and go out the other entry door. The key is figuring out how to utilize space and maximize efficiency without being so cramped that we're crawling all over one another. Right now, we have two tractors in there, two tow-behind Lastecs, a twin-cylinder Kohler engine that is torn apart and we're working on some snow-blowing equipment, and we still have plenty of room to work without being bunched up together.
    "A lot goes into planning this. We used four large rolls of paper. It took a lot of time to put the paper down and tape it together, but it worked out well"
    There is more to a functional maintenance facility than a well-running shop. Areas used by employees, namely kitchen areas, breakrooms and locker facilities also deserve close attention.
    When planning out kitchens and breakrooms, Vogt often looks to an industry outside the golf business for inspiration.
    "A firehouse is a good example," he said. "In what we call industrial engineering, there is a focus on employees to make it as good an environment as possible for them because it's already hard enough to get workers. They want a safe area to store things, a comfortable place to have a meal in air-conditioning and a place where they can change in a safe environment where they won't get ripped off."
    Flow also applies to the parking lot. 
    "It determines where you put dumpsters and how fuel delivery trucks enter and exit so they have the ability to get in and out without disrupting the day to day," Vogt said. "That's a hot topic for employees. They want to park their vehicles where it's safe, and they don't expect their cars to get beat up."
  • Research at Clemson University will focus on developing turfgrass varieties that are more tolerant to heat, drought and traffic stress. As representatives from agri-chemical and seed companies seek ways to feed a world population that is projected to balloon during the next half-century, all indications are that genetically modified foods are the way of the future.
    In the world of turfgrass, GMO is an acronym that probably will become part of the everyday vernacular for turf managers, as well.
    Clemson University's Hong Luo, Ph.D., a professor of genetics and biochemistry, recently received a half-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop genetically improved turfgrass and switchgrass.
    Research will focus on developing new turfgrasses that will require less water and will be more tolerant to stressors, such as heat, drought and traffic. Research on switchgrass will be directed toward developing biofuels. Considered a weed, Luo said switchgrass can grow better in poor soil conditions than other biofuel sources, such as corn, and requires less water. He also believes switchgrass eventually could supplant corn as a leading source of biofuel.
    One of the challenges standing in the way of genetically modified turf has been preventing the unintentional spread of seed into fields nearby or downwind. Remember Roundup ready creeping bentgrass?
    According to Clemson University, Luo’s approach to containing the engineered genes is to integrate two site-specific DNA recombination systems with sterility-induction mechanisms in the final transgenic product.
    When cross-pollinates the two lines in the lab, certain genes will activate and others will be removed, resulting in a new genetic line that is completely sterile and more stress-resistant. These new plants will not produce pollen or seeds, making it impossible for the modified genes to spread in the wild, according to Luo.
    Luo anticipates having a genetically modified new line ready for testing at the end of the four-year research project. If all goes well, the new transgenic line would then be ready for the stringent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field tests before it could potentially be commercialized.
    Luo has prior experience with the GMO process. Before joining the Clemson faculty, he was the director of research at HybriGene Inc., where he led the development of the first genetically engineered, environmentally safe, male-sterile and herbicide-resistant turfgrass. He also helped create a new method for hybrid crop production using site-specific DNA recombination systems.
  • Although being a golf course superintendent was Aaron DeLoof's dream job, it turns out he was preparing for the Plan B part of his career since he was a kid.
    After a quick two-year stint as a superintendent, DeLoof, 30, traded in for a career in the maintenance facility as the assistant equipment manager at Medinah Country Club near Chicago.
    "My dad was always in the automotive industry, so as soon as I was old enough I would go out in the barn with him and help with whatever it might be; lawnmowers, cars, four-wheelers, jet skis, snowmobiles," DeLoof said. "I was doing brake jobs by age 13."
    After prepping under names like John Zimmers, Tim Kennelly and Kyle Callahan, DeLoof finally got that first shot at being a superintendent in 2016 when he took over at Henderson Country Club in western Kentucky.
    Two years later, after a succession of 80-hour weeks and little time off over a lengthy golf season and an overwhelming feeling of isolation, DeLoof had enough. 
    "I tried to go to the gym a couple times a week, but when you get up to go to work at 4:30 in the morning and you're not getting off until 6 o'clock at night, it's hard to make time for yourself. Then by the time you eat dinner, it's 7:30 or 8 o'clock, and you're ready for bed," DeLoof said. "Down in Kentucky, the golf season starts in the middle of March and never really ends until the middle of November, so I had about eight months of 80-plus hours a week and no real life outside of work.
    "Everything together was bringing me down."
    For DeLoof, a native of Battle Creek, Michigan and a graduate of the Michigan State University turf program, clearly it was time for a change.
    "I always enjoyed being on the golf course. I enjoyed the work, but not being able to leave work behind was starting to get to me," he said. "It changed me as a person. It's not like I was drinking a lot or anything like that, but I could tell my body wasn't reacting to it well. I was always stressed out, always worried about work. I realized at that point I needed to make a change for myself."
    After a phone call to a former colleague, that was made partly in jest, DeLoof's life quickly changed.

    After preparing for a career as a golf course superintendent, Aaron DeLoof is happy as assistant equipment manager at Medinah Country Club. Prior to getting the head superintendent job at Henderson, DeLoof was an assistant under Callahan at Victoria National in Newburgh, Indiana. There he and equipment manager Brian Bressler became close friends before the former left for western Kentucky and the latter moved up to become head wrench turner at Medinah under Steve Cook.
    "He called me one day just to see how I was doing," Bressler said. "He asked if I needed an assistant. I think he was joking, but I actually needed an assistant. I knew he had been a spray tech and he could turn reels, and I needed someone. That's how it happened."
    Always in the conversation for a major event, Medinah's No. 3 Course was the site of the U.S. Open in 1949, 1975 and 1990, the PGA Championship in 1999 and 2006 and was the host course for the 2012 Ryder Cup Matches. The Tour's now-defunct Western Open was played at Medinah in 1939, 1962 and 1966. In August, the 1928 Tom Bendelow design was home to this year's BMW Championship.
    At first glance, it appeared that DeLoof had jumped from the frying pan into the fryer. A 54-hole fryer - with a PGA Tour event on the horizon and 450 pieces of equipment that includes 70 walkmowers, 13 fairway units, 8 triplex mowers, 12 rough mowers and 25 push units.
    Instead, the change was immediate for DeLoof, who said Bressler was not the only reason he decided to pull the trigger on the change to Medinah.
    "Obviously, I had a history with Brian, and that's one of the big reasons I came here," DeLoof said. "But I also know a lot of guys who worked for Steve in the past, and he's one of the few who can say your family and your life come first, and the golf course, it will be here tomorrow."
    Cook is in his second season at Medinah after a long career at Oakland Hills near Detroit, where he was the host superintendent of the 2004 Ryder Cup. He said DeLoof brings a unique perspective to the shop.
    "His 'superintendent eyes' have been valuable on the golf course," Cook said. "It's like having another superintendent on staff. He brings that turf knowledge into the shop and it makes our operation better."
    That said, DeLoof said the switch has been a welcome change.
    "I miss being out on the golf course, but I still get to be around all the guys on the crew," DeLoof said. 
    "I don't mind working six days a week as long as there are a couple of short days in there. I don't mind watering, but I don't like doing it in the middle of a 12- or 14-hour day.
    "After the BMW, Steve came up to us all and told us to take a week off. He didn't give us the option, he told us to schedule it in the next month because he didn't want everyone to get burned out. It was a grind four three months with not a lot of days off, and we all understood that. But for him to come through like he did, telling us to take a week off to recover, that went a long way with us."
    DeLoof's unique skill set that includes mechanical aptitude, work ethic and management experience put him on the fast track in his new career.
    "He's a quick learner. He's definitely smarter than the average bear," Bressler said. "It's not going to take long before he's ready to have his own ship."
  • Nathan Lis and Andrew Moffitt always knew they had an interest in the science of weather. It took a class at Penn State to convince them they could be entrepreneurs in the field.
    In 2017, the duo helped start Innovation Weather, a company that specializes in forecasting frost, crop heat stress and other hazardous weather conditions. They recently sold the company to WeatherOptics. 
    Moffitt works as an on-air meteorologist in Eugene, Oregon, and Lis is a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma. The two will serve as consultants for WeatherOptics, allowing them to continue improving forecasting tools for use in turf, agriculture, commodities and other industries.
    In an undergraduate class at Penn State, Lis and Moffitt (pictured left to right) met alums who used their meteorology and atmospheric science degrees to begin careers that took a variety of paths. That inspired them to think of how they could do the same.
    They researched ways that weather could benefit a societal need and quickly found there wasn’t anything available for frost or crop heat stress forecasting.
    They used resources such as Penn State Law’s Entrepreneur Assistance Clinic to draft the operating agreement and Happy Valley LaunchBox to get their startup off the ground. The entrepreneurs were invited to present at one of President Eric Barron's presidential tailgates in 2017. A grant from the National Science Foundation gave them the financial means to meet with and assess the needs of their clients.
    Through market research, the team found frost forecasting to be a solution that farmers, turfgrass managers and commodities traders were unaware of. They developed algorithms that combine a variety of weather variables to determine the likelihood that frost will form in an area of interest under certain meteorological conditions. 
    These forecasts, available on an hourly scale up to 60 hours out, are then incorporated into street level data visualization using Google Maps. The frost prediction maps apply color scales to the probability of frost and look similar to temperature maps that depict the weather.
    - Information from Penn State University
  • Frank Siple, below, worked in the golf industry for 50 years, including at Lanier Golf Club, above. Frank Siple's resume does not cite contributions to the profession but his career is full of them.
    After a half-century in the industry, Siple, 70, has been named to the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Hall of Fame.
    During his career as a certified golf course superintendent and later as a sales representative for Corbin Turf and Ornamental Supply, Siple earned wide respect for what he could do with grass and how he treated people. He was renowned for investing in the success of others. Giving both to individuals and the industry, Siple volunteered at nearly 50 tournaments, including The Masters. 
    Siple went to work for Charlie Underwood at Northwood Country Club in Lawrenceville in March 1971 because he “needed a job” after life as an assistant golf pro, then teaching pro, wasn't working out. But he only committed to golf course maintenance after a tough final round in the Kennesaw Open took him from one shot back overnight to a 10-shot deficit behind eventual winner Larry Nelson. 
    Underwood, also a Georgia GCSA Hall of Famer, became Siple's friend and mentor. After three years with Underwood, Siple became golf course superintendent at Idle Hour Country Club in Macon. He later moved to Lake Arrowhead Yacht and Country Club in Waleska, then Royal Lakes Golf and Country Club in Flowery Branch. He became a certified golf course superintendent in 1993.
     
    From 1997 to 2011, he was at Lanier Golf Club in Cumming. He joined Corbin Turf when Lanier GC was sold to a real estate developer. He retired in 2018.
     
    Siple will be inducted Nov. 4 at the Georgia GCSA's annual awards banquet at Jekyll Island Resort.
  • Lee Butler (left) and Jim Kerns, Ph.D., say the business of turfgrass pathology is pretty good thanks to golfer demand to produce increasingly faster putting surfaces. Below right, Kerns discusses some of the current trials under way at North Carolina State University's Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory. Photos by John Reitman When the turf pathology department at North Carolina State University recently surveyed golf courses throughout the Carolinas about their agronomic practices, Lee Butler was in such disbelief over one of the responses he read that he had to call the superintendent for confirmation.
    "We saw on one of the forms someone mowing at 0.065" said Butler, turfgrass extension coordinator at NC State. 
    "I had to call the superintendent and confirm is this real. I guess with tournament bed knives you can do that."
    When it comes to pushing turf to please golfers, Butler and Jim Kerns, Ph.D., associate professor of turf pathology, believe that science and superintendents have gone about as far as they can go. The demands that golfers place on superintendents to produce championship conditions every day - or else - are a threat to the sustainability of the turf and the game itself.
    "I don't think we can push it any farther," Kerns said. "It used to be with bentgrass that we only sprayed through June and August. The golfer and the demands they are placing on superintendents have made the game more expensive, because now we spray all the time.
    "I started my Ph.D. in 2004, and back then people weren't talking about fungicides in Florida. Now, Florida is the No. 1 fungicide business in the country; one state, where growing Bermuda should be perfect. But they expect the same conditions they see on Long Island or in Chicago in July, they want that in Florida in December. The industry needs to do a better job of communicating that we are asking way too much of the turf."
    Marty Parish, the turfgrass manager at NC State's Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory research farm and a former golf course superintendent, said the conditions demanded by golfers today are much different than when he was a greenkeeper and are completely unsustainable.
    "When I started, greens were running at 9 or 10, and that was fast," Parish said. "Now, they're 12 or 13, and some greens aren't puttable at that speed."
    As a result of what is required to coax such conditions from putting greens, nematodes are more problematic than ever and are becoming an issue in places that are unaccustomed to dealing with then, like New York, Colorado, Nevada and Ohio.
    "They've always been there," Butler said. "We're now creating an environment that is not sustainable."
    Other problems that are relatively new and once were only seasonal in nature are now becoming more chronic. 
    "Bermuda decline used to be something that happened in July and August along the Gulf Coast when we would get those afternoon thunderstorms, so nobody really cared about it," Kerns said. "Now, it's a bonafide problem all year long."
    To keep up with the demands of professional turf managers - and golfers - there are 200 or more turf research trials, including at least 70 by the turf pathology department, under way at the Lake Wheeler Road farm. Once a privately owned peach farm, the 1,500-acre Lake Wheeler Road facility is about 4 miles from the main campus and is home to all of NC State's agriculture and horticulture programs, including turfgrass science, which occupies 35 acres. 
    Parish jokes that he prefers life at the farm over the golf course for one reason: "There are no golfers," he said.
    Sometimes, Parish's greenkeeping instincts take over and researchers remind him it's a 35-acre laboratory, not a golf course.
    "Finding Marty was a lifesaver for us," Kerns said. "But we still have to tell him that we only want turf at 60 or 70 percent. We don't want it that good; we still need weeds and disease. We need crappy turf."
    While discussing the projects ongoing at the Lake Wheeler Road farm, Kerns said the industry also must do a better job at communicating that the ever-increasing demands of golfers are not sustainable in the long term.
    "In my opinion, we make it too much about the superintendent. We need to make it about the science of the turf. I think people would get that," Kerns said. "In ag, we are our own worst enemy. We don't know how to market ourselves. 
    "I think we could be more successful in receiving federal funding if we could convince people that turf is the best model system to study. It's high maintenance, things turn over quickly, but it's perennial, but there is the perception that since you don't eat it, it's not important."
  • GreenKeeper University is designed for "students" who, for one reason or another, are not able to enroll in a traditional university turfgrass experience. Photo by the University of Wisconsin For aspiring turf managers who do not have the time or means to attend traditional turf school, or for those who already have gone that route but just want a refresher, GreenKeeper University will be offering a series of online courses about practical turfgrass management taught by the top experts in the field. 
    The online program begins with four courses starting January 6 and continuing through March. Another four courses will begin in January 2021. 
    Students can work at their own pace and will earn a Certificate in Turfgrass Management from GreenKeeper University after completing all eight courses. Students can take one course at a time, or all four. Additional courses will be added as the program grows. Course work is graded on a pass-fail scale and must be completed by December 15 in the year it is begun.
    The revenue generated by the courses will be put back in to developing the GreenKeeper site, so your support of GreenKeeper University is really an investment in GreenKeeper App.
    GreenKeeper University was created for turfgrass professionals who might already have a job or family - or both - and are unable to make the sacrifice that a university degree demands. It also is intended for those who may already have a degree in an unrelated field but are considering a career change. GreenKeeper University is intended to help these people begin or advance their careers despite a lack of a traditional university education in turfgrass science. It is not intended as a substitute for associate's and bachelor's degrees at accredited universities.
    Although GreenKeeper University courses are taught by turfgrass specialists with many years of experience teaching accredited university courses, the courses are not affiliated with an accredited university. Still, there is a definite University of Wisconsin tie. All instructors of the four programs offered next year - Paul Koch, Ph.D., Doug Soldat, Ph.D., Jim Kerns, Ph.D., and Bill Kreuser, Ph.D., attended or worked at Wisconsin. 
    The courses are designed to be rigorous and useful to advancing the careers of turfgrass professionals and were structured to require about four hours of work per week. Students will need a laptop or desktop computer and Internet access to take a course. 
    GreenKeeper University is designed for students that want to go beyond the introductory material. For example, the Great Lakes School of Turfgrass Science spends two weeks on turfgrass fertilization and soil management (including two, two-hour lectures, a handful of readings, an activity, and two quizzes). GreenKeeper University will offer a 12-week course that focuses on turfgrass fertilization and soil management.
    Courses for 2020 are:
    > Understanding the weather and how it relates to turfgrass growth, stress and pest management - Bill Kreuser, Ph.D., University of Nebraska.
    > Integrated pest management and responsible pesticide use - Jim Kerns, Ph.D., North Carolina State University, and Paul Koch, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin.
    > Turfgrass disease identification and management - Kerns and Koch.
    > Turfgrass fertilization and soil management - Doug Soldat, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin.
    Courses planned for 2021 are:
    > Turfgrass irrigation and drainage.
    > Turfgrass weed management.
    > Turfgrass business management and communications.
    > Turfgrass insect management.
    For more information, visit the GreenKeeper University Web site.
  • It appeared that another link to Las Vegas' brief-but-colorful history was lost forever two years ago when the Wynn Golf Club closed its doors.
    Built 14 years ago on the site of the old Desert Inn course, Wynn Golf Club reopened last week after a 10-month renovation by Tom Fazio that brought the wow factor back to this course on the north end of the Vegas Strip. Fazio designed the original Wynn layout in 2005. From the start, the Wynn course was considered a temporary stop gap until a more profitable use for the land could be determined.
    "Well, certainly it's kind of good news/bad news," Fazio said of Wynn's closing in 2017 in a recent conference call celebrating the club's reopening. "I knew the news, it was originally planned to be there for a period of time; no real designation that it was going to be five years, 10 years, 15 or 20. It was just known that the golf course would be built initially and at some point, some day, and it's only obvious when you look at the location site is perfect, usually golf courses do not exist in such a perfect, expensive location. So I understood it. I knew it was going to happen someday in the future. That day showed up, and it was a disappointment obviously because the golf course was so well received and it was such a great environment and a great setting. And personally for me, some of the great memories in creating it, because I go back to in my career, my uncle was a tournament golfer in the Ben Hogan era, Sam Snead era, so all those players that played on that original golf course on that property, the old Desert Inn, I knew many of them personally. Although I was a youngster, but I knew them. So when we built the new Wynn Golf Course initially opening, I was so excited it, obviously closing something is not logical. It doesn't seem like - in your brain, it doesn't seem to work that way, but all of a sudden within a short period of time, here we are back and we're operating and it's better than ever. So it's a unique thing, that's for sure."
    The Wynn is a mix of two worlds. Lush and green with undulations and elevation changes everywhere, it stands out as a slice of the Pinehills of North Carolina on the Las Vegas Strip. But rather than blot out views of the Stratosphere and other iconic Vegas landmarks, the Wynn embraces them.
    "(T)he interesting part about the Wynn for me, most of the time we're trying to block the views of surrounding areas, we're trying to block the views of buildings and it kind of puts you in a golf total setting. In this particular case, we're in Las Vegas, we're on the Strip. We have these magnificent structures all around us and this magnificent environment of buildings and fun and excitement, there's no way to hide them or frame them out, but also you're going to get the best view you can from there," Fazio said. "But step one was grading the land. Based on the corridors, we were forced with our golf holes to be in locations, because we saved much of the vegetation that existed. In fact, there's even some vegetation from the original Desert Inn Golf Course where we kept some of the huge big trees. Now, we cut the land around it, away from it, behind it, which put these trees on higher elevations, but it gave us the opportunity for mature framing and definition. Basically, the shaping evolved to whatever view we had. We put the best shape into the frame of the golf hole and not try to manipulate the shape of the land to what was in the distant view."
    The Desert Inn opened in 1950 as one of the first five resorts in Las Vegas. Entertainers who performed there included Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin and Wayne Newton. The golf course opened two years later in 1952. The only golf course on the famed Las Vegas Strip, the course was the site of the PGA Tour Tournament of Champions from 1953 to 1966. When the Desert Inn closed in 2000, the posh Wynn Las Vegas resort went up on the site. The golf course was retained but was the constant subject of redevelopment plans. When it closed in 2017, it was supposed to be for good as a $3 billion development deal was announced for the site.
    In the days of the PGA Tour, the course also was a Senior Tour stop from 1986 to 2001, the Desert Inn course was noted for its tight corridors. Today, the resort course commands some of the highest green fees in daily fee golf ranging from $375 to $550. Fairways are more wide open now than they were then to help push golfers through a little faster.

    Brian Hawthorne, the club's director of golf operations defended the greens fees in the larger context of the Wynn/Las Vegas experience and noted that it might even be a bargain compared with other forms of entertainment.
    "If you keep somebody from gambling for four and a half hours," Hawthorne said, "we might be saving people money."
    The course, where Jason Morgan is superintendent, is unique in that it has six par-3 holes rather than four, including one on No. 18.
    "The interesting part about the Wynn Golf Course, it's not unusual, it's not out of the ordinary per se to finish the golf round on the 18th hole with a par 3. It's been done before with some famous golf courses," Fazio said. 
    "The first time I've actually built and designed a golf course with an 18 hole par 3. You normally don't do that. Not that it's not accepted overall, but usually you have lots of other choices and opportunities. We had choices and opportunities; none was as good as the 18th hole and where it's placed. So that's the great part about golf design, there are no rules, you can go do whatever you want. 
    "Usually the one word you want to hear when a person walks up on the tee, it's a three-letter word with two Ws in it, and it's "wow." That's the word you want to hear because that says everything. It says so much about the environment, says so much about the hole, says so much about the experience, and that in itself gives the overall feeling."
    Throughout the duration of the project, which he completed with son Logan, the 74-year-old Fazio field questions about retirement. 
    "I've even had questions of people say, 'I heard you retired.' Of course, I say, 'That's competition spreading rumors,' " Fazio said. "Why would you retire from the business of designing golf courses? It's easy, it's fun, people pay you a lot of money and you work in great, exciting places for great people. Who would retire from that? Nobody. So that's a false rumor that's out there. But the only thing I retired from was going to meetings. I don't go to meetings anymore, because I don't have enough time for meetings. When you get older and there's only time for going, doing the things you want to do, so my son goes to the meetings and deals with the details."
  • Concerns around whether there were enough women and enough interest to hold a networking and career-development conference for women in turf were alleviated this year at Bayer's Women in Golf event. Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories focused on Bayer's Women in Golf event held recently at the company's facilities in Clayton and Cary, North Carolina.
    When the folks at Bayer Environmental Science tossed around the idea of a multi-day, networking and career-development summit specifically for women, they weren't sure if there was enough interest to even get such a program off the ground. Two years and two events later, the concept appears to have limitless potential.
    With women comprising just 1-2% of all superintendents, it appeared, on the surface anyway, that those concerns were well founded. As it turned out, those concerns were completely unwarranted.
    Recently, Bayer wrapped up its second such event, this one held at its facilities in Clayton and Cary, North Carolina. The event, which attracted 50 women from across all facets of the North American golf industry, came a year after the inaugural summit held in 2018 in Toronto.
    "That was what we were worried about, that there wasn't enough interest and there weren't enough women, frankly," Pat Morrow, senior marketing manager for Bayer ES, said as this year's conference was concluding. 
    "We were nervous."
    That a meeting like this is necessary - in 2019 - says a lot about how far the golf business, namely the turf side of the industry, has come and how far it still has to go. The good news is that women in turf finally have coalesced to form a united front. The bad news is that they have to, and kudos to Bayer for recognizing that. 
    The two-and-a-half-day networking and career-development event that attracted 50 superintendents, assistants, university professors and industry professionals included advice from industry pros on how to get ahead in this male-dominated industry that requires much more brains than brawn, tips on mindfulness and maintaining mental health and perhaps most importantly a chance for each of the attendees to realize they are not alone in their struggle to build a career in a field in which the odds often are stacked against them.
    "Things happened in this room because you got (things) done," Kelly Lynch, regional manager for Pure Seed said to her fellow attendees. "You are my superheroes. I cannot wait to see what happens next."
    Many of the topics were similar to those faced by men, such as how to promote environmental stewardship efforts of golf course superintendents and the role of the greenkeeper in growing the game.
    Others stories were more unique to women, including how to promote greenkeeping as a career option for women and war stories from the field that would curl your hair, such as boorish behavior by golfers and others that would turn your stomach, like claims of inappropriate emails from male counterparts.
    The opportunity to meet other women facing their own unique challenges and working to overcome them moved Sally Jones to the point of sharing her own story of personal tragedy and triumph.
    Jones began working at Benson Golf Club in rural west-central Minnesota as a range picker at age 15. She has been superintendent since 2003 and for the past three years has held the dual role of head greenkeeper and general manager.
    Shortly after taking on that dual role, and unable to find harmony between her life at the golf course and at home, she turned first to the bottle and later to painkillers to find help. She was unsuccessful. 
    "Spring is the busiest time in Minnesota for superintendents. I was also coaching the girls high school golf team, then my parents got sick," she said. "It was a lot coming at once.
    "I drank a lot. I found myself drinking enough to self-medicate. It wasn't casual; it was too much.
    "My husband and I decided it would be easier if we just stayed at work. It hurts we got to that point."
    Her life began to unravel, resulting in two failed suicide attempts.
    With the help of a patient board of directors and husband, she completed treatment and a successful comeback to the golf course. Jones, and so many other women in the room, left North Carolina with the comfort of knowing she now has dozens of other newfound friends, mentors and colleagues willing to offer advice or more importantly just listen.
    "The timing of this was perfect," she said. "I feel so empowered, not only by everyone who organized this, but by all of you."
    Where the event goes from this point forward has not been determined, but make no mistake it is not likely to go away any time soon.
    Plans might include a regional event next year, followed by another international summit in 2021.
    "There is a possibility it could go global," Morrow said. "We just don't know yet."
  • Career coach and consultant Susan Hite realized she couldn't be on 24 hours a day in her former career in marketing when she was pulled over for running a red light at 2 a.m. Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories focused on Bayer's Women in Golf event held recently at the company's facilities in Clayton and Cary, North Carolina.
    Susan Hite remembers vividly the moment it struck her that she was focused too much on her job and not enough on herself.
    She had been stopped by a policeman at 2 a.m. for running a red light. The officer thought for sure she was a candidate for a DUI. Instead, he learned he pulled over a workaholic, not an alcoholic. That was some two decades ago when Hite was working in the marketing industry. Today, the principal, consultant and career coach at Hite Resources, she now helps people market themselves, not others.
    "Anyone working at 2 a.m., that's just crazy," Hite said. "That was a turning point in my life."
    Hite was the clean-up batter, closing out the recent Bayer Women in Golf event held in September in the Raleigh, North Carolina area.
    After that fateful run in with the law, Hite immediately sought clarity in her professional life.
    "I went to my boss the next day and asked 'Where do you need me to be great? And define what that is. Where do you need me to be good? And define that. And where do you need me to be just good enough?' she said. 
    "Surprisingly, his top five were not my top five."
    To be truly successful in one's professional life and also enjoy a life outside work, Hite recommends creating a professional scorecard of where you have to be great, where you have to be good and where you can be just good enough. Knowing those things can help anyone, including a golf course superintendent, manage their time and resources more efficiently.
    "Know where you have to be great. Know where you have to be good and know where you can just be good enough," she said. "Nobody wants to be associated with just being good enough, but some things you just don't have control over so sometimes some things just have to be good enough.
    "Surrender doesn't mean giving up. It means doing the best you can with the resources you have and accepting that."
    That scorecard will include things you have to do and also should include things you want to do.
    "What do I enjoy doing that keeps me engaged? Just because something is not on a boss's list doesn't mean it can't be on mine," she said. "It has to include things I enjoy doing that keep me engaged, but maybe it can't include all of it.
    "You have to have that talk and have your boss clarify that for you. And for the people who work for you, clarify it for them."
    Hite asked attendees of the conference to fill out a survey of things that were important to them. 
    To no surprise, many of the challenges cited by female superintendents are the same as those their male colleagues voice concerns about: labor, scheduling, training, weather, effective communications, club politics and managing work-life balance.
    Where women and men differ boiled to the top immediately when Hite asked what the group would like to see in the golf industry in the future. Topping the list was training for men on how to work with women.
    Beth Guertal, Ph.D., of Auburn University sees herself and others like her in a unique position to mentor female students early in the careers.
    "I work so much in golf and my audience is pretty much the same, because almost all superintendents are male," she said. 
    "Women in this industry come from all different routes. In my role, I can mentor them from the beginning as they come through this classical route of going to turf school."
    The event wasn't just focused on the differences between men and women in the golf business. Much of what Hite discussed focused on the common challenges men and women face as superintendents and what this group of 50 can do to meet and overcome obstacles, like growing the game.
    "I think we've made some progress in helping grow the game, but I don't think there is an end-all campaign. It is an ongoing process and we have to weave that message into everything we do," said Kim Erusha, Ph.D., the recently retired USGA Green Section director. "We have to come up with other ways to talk about it. In an economic sense if we can put actual numbers to it we connect with community leaders in a business sense. Then we are talking on their level."
    The group also recognized that the game needs new blood if it is going to thrive in the future.
    "We have to change the perception of golf at the grassroots level," said Renee Geyer of Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. "It is still viewed as an elitist sport. We have to change the perception that 'it's not for me.' It is for you."
  • No doubt, someone would have recognized the void and filled it eventually, but it is difficult to imagine where the job of turfgrass maintenance might be today without the foresight of John Kinkead.
    The founder of Turfco Manufacturing nearly 60 years ago, Kinkead died Oct. 1 at age 89. 
    Kinkead had a passion for old, classic cars and old, classic republicans, and worked on the presidential campaigns of Dwight Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater.
    His passing prompted an outpouring of condolences on social media.
    Alex Stuedemann, CGCS at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois said of Kinkead on Twitter: "Truly a leader and innovator for our industry."
    While working at National Mower, which was started by his father, Kinkead founded two companies, Kinco and Turfco. The latter, the Minnesota company Kinkead founded that today includes topdressers, overseeders and blowers, started in 1961 with the first mechanized topdresser on the market - at the request of golf course superintendents.
    That same company has grown into a manufacturer of several products with 16 design patents all aimed at helping superintendents do their jobs better and faster while also improving turf quality and playability. 
    And virtually all of those innovations were developed based on superintendent feedback. For example, the company’s TriWave 60 Overseeder had floating heads that follow the contours of the ground and deposit the seed directly into the slit maximizing seed-soil contact. Its Wide Spin 1550 Topdresser delivers more seed over a larger area with increased dispersion precision.
    The company also grew to eventually include a line of products for the commercial lawn care market that also includes sprayers, spreaders, edgers, sod cutters and aerators.
    Chris Barnacle, a construction industry professional with JCB TC Harrison, said on Twitter that Kinkead and Turfco represented "a well-respected name of great products in the turf care industry . . ."
  • Nancy Dykema of Michigan State University, left, listens in as Carol Rau offers up some career advice to attendees at Bayer's Women in Golf Event.
    Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories focused on Bayer's Women in Golf event held recently at the company's facilities in Clayton and Cary, North Carolina.
    When offering career advice to a group of women in the golf turf business, naturally, it makes sense to draw upon examples from the oil industry.
    That is the example Carol Rau, a human resources specialist with Career Advantage Golf, used when discussing career development and growth to attendees at Bayer’s inaugural North American Women in Golf event.
    “Oil companies all do the same thing. They drill, take oil from the ground and sell it. When you see commercials, do they talk about that? No. They talk about what they do for the environment. They are trying to show how they are different and why you should invest in their company instead of a different one,” Rau said. “Think of yourselves that way. When you conduct a search, give them a reason to invest in you, not another candidate.”
    The practice of influencing where and how people allocate resources is known as variant perception, and it is something that actually started in the financial industry, but now is widely used in every sector of the economy.
    "If you all make a list of your tasks, they're all going to be pretty much the same," Rau said. "There will be a few differences, but they're going to be pretty much the same. What can you put on that list to make you stand out from others?"
    Rau suggests focusing on duties that fall outside the normal pall of the job of a golf course superintendent.
    "Golfers love golf, not turf. Your job is to grow the best turf possible and make it look fabulous, but that is just a means to an end," Rau said. "The ultimate goal is to provide the best golf experience for whoever sets foot on your property. 
    "Are you someone who is truly customer focused, or do you just grow grass?"

    Carol Rau, left, of Career Advantage Golf, says it is important to set yourself apart from others during the application and interview process. The answer, for those who want to get ahead in the careers, had better be the former, Rau said to her audience at this networking and career-development conference for women in golf turf. The conference, held last month at Bayer's facilities in suburban Raleigh, North Carolina, attracted about 50 superintendents, assistants, sales professionals and academics.
    "When hiring managers are interviewing people for a job, they are deciding where to invest their resources," she said. "Give them a reason to invest in you."
    That could mean serving on industry committees, being a leader not only on the golf course, but between departments, said Rau who then did a whip around, asking attendees to share what they did in their job or could be doing that would increase their value to their operation.
    "Be the first one people call. Not just in an emergency situation, but in the context of daily operations," said Renee Geyer, in her 11th year at 54-hole Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, including the past three as a superintendent. "You don't want to work 80 hours a week, but being available and relatable shows true character. Are you someone who will be there and support others who you don't necessarily have to support? If the phone system goes out and they're trying to figure out where to dig outside, be that person who has the answers and at the same time makes you important to others."
    Pinehurst's Bob Farren, CGCS, said pretty much the same thing while leading a seminar at the 2013 Green Start Academy for assistant superintendents also sponsored by Bayer - and John Deere Golf. 
     
    "Position yourself every day, with every question from any department that comes to you as a resource person. Be the go-to person at your facility," Farren told Green Start Academy attendees six years ago. "No matter what happens, if a car runs into something in the parking lot, whatever it might be, position yourself as one of the first people they call if something needs to be done. The way to do that is to be accommodating. You typically have the most resources and people available to you at any given time. It's just a matter of redirecting resources or changing schedules to become that go-to person.
    "If they have to land a helicopter on the golf course, I want them to have to call me to figure out how we do it."
     
    That advice has worked out pretty well for Farren. 
    But it is not enough to just focus on what sets you apart, you have to upsell it to those responsible for hiring for a position, Rau said.
    "Think about your resume and interview answers," Rau said. "Elevate what you are thinking. It's about your team, your overall organization and how you are driving success. It's a bigger picture than just what you are doing in your maintenance department. It's not just you. It's bigger than you."

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