Jump to content

From the TurfNet NewsDesk

  • John Reitman
    For those procrastinators who are still busy with last-second income-tax preparations, TurfNet has extended the deadline for nominations for the Technician of the Year Award presented by Toro.   Criteria on which nominees are judged by our panel include: crisis management; effective budgeting; environmental awareness; helping to further and promote the careers of colleagues and employees; interpersonal communications; inventory management and cost control; overall condition and dependability of rolling stock; shop safety; and work ethic.   Use specific examples when describing what he or she has accomplished - the more we know, the better your tech's chances of getting noticed.   CLICK HERE to submit a nomination using our easy-to-use online form. All finalists and the winner will be profiled on TurfNet.    Deadline for nominations has been extended to April 30. After that, heavy penalties will be incurred.   Previous winners are (2017) Tony Nunes, Chicago Golf Club, Wheaton, Illinois; (2016) Kris Bryan, Pikewood National Golf Club, Morgantown, West Virginia; (2015) Robert Smith, Merion Golf Club, Ardmore, Pennsylvania; (2014) Lee Medeiros, Timber Creek and Sierra Pines Golf Courses, Roseville, California; (2013) Brian Sjögren, Corral de Tierra Country Club, Corral de Tierra, California; (2012) Kevin Bauer, Prairie Bluff Golf Club, Crest Hill, Illinois; (2011) Jim Kilgallon, The Connecticut Golf Club, Easton, Connecticut; (2010) Herb Berg, Oakmont (Pennsylvania) Country Club; (2009) Doug Johnson, TPC at Las Colinas, Irving, Texas; (2007) Jim Stuart, Stone Mountain (Georgia) Golf Club; (2006) Fred Peck, Fox Hollow and The Homestead, Lakewood, Colorado; (2005) Jesus Olivas, Heritage Highlands at Dove Mountain, Marana, Arizona; (2004) Henry Heinz, Kalamazoo (Michigan) Country Club; (2003) Eric Kulaas, Marriott Vinoy Renaissance Resort, Sarasota, Florida. There was no award in 2008.    
  • "The transition zone is where we can grow cool-season grass and warm-season grass equally poorly."
    - A.J. Powell, Ph.D.
        When calculating climatological averages over time, it takes a lot of erratic highs and lows to find a happy medium. The winter of 2017-18 definitely qualifies as one of those wild lows.   Exhibit A: When Jim Brosnan, Ph.D., was making applications for goosegrass trials at the University of Tennessee turfgrass research center in Knoxville, lingering winter conditions in mid-April brought soil temperatures of 54 degrees Fahrenheit paired with air temps of 38 degrees and flurries blowing through the air.   Only two months earlier, eastern Tennessee was enjoying one of the warmest Februarys on record. Average temperatures for the month were highs of 62 degrees and lows of 44 degrees, which were, respectively, 8 and 10 degrees above the historic average. A record high of 81 degrees on Feb. 22 was recorded at the Knoxville airport, and overnight temperatures dropped below freezing on only six occasions throughout the month, according to the National Weather Service. Precipitation for the month was double the historic average.   "This is the oddest winter and spring I've seen since I've been here," Brosnan said.    "I've seen the full gamut in my travels this spring. I haven't seen any dead greens, but what I have seen is differential spring green up following stress. . . . By and large, I think everyone will come out fine with good growth. They'll just be lagging."   Last fall, the University of Arkansas released preliminary data on a research project by graduate student Eric DeBoer that helps establish thresholds for exposure of ultradwarf Bermudagrasses to cold temperatures, allowing superintendents to minimize the threat of winter damage and improving spring green up throughout the transition zone.   DeBoer's research tested Champion, TifEagle and MiniVerde ultradwarf Bermudagrasses using covers at 25 degrees, 22 degrees, 18 degrees and 15 degrees Fahrenheit. TifEagle and MiniVerde proved to be more cold tolerant than Champion.   According to the study, Bermudagrass greens covered when temperatures reached 15 degrees survived throughout the winter with improved spring green up. Covered greens even survived two days of extreme cold temperatures where overnight lows dropped to 0 degrees on consecutive nights.  
    The weather has definitely made for a kooky start to everything."
     
    Golf course superintendents throughout the transition zone who have made the switch to Bermudagrass during the past 15 years are covering their greens. Even among those who use covers, conditions have varied as they peeled them off, said Brandon Horvath, Ph.D., turfgrass pathologist at UT.   Some putting surfaces have been greener than others, while some have been more prone to typical spring disease pressure.   "Some turf has greened up under double covers or areas on covers where there is overlap, like along seams," Horvath said. "From a disease standpoint, we've seen all the usual suspects. In greens that have been double-covered, we've seen some pythium because it's been wet recently."   That list of usual suspects includes pythium, spring dead spot, leaf blight, take-all patch and fairy ring.    For those who might be set on a calendar for making fungicide applications, this year might be a good reason to move on from that thinking, Horvath said.   "Application timing is one of those things where it's easy to get into a run. If you're into a calendar-based thing, with the the weather the way it's been - somewhat cold still, but not terribly cold, you have to pay attention to that," Horvath said.   "For fungicides, we don't have indicators like forsythia blooms like you do with herbicides. Soil temperatures trigger when to make applications. When you have soil temperatures around 55 to 65 degrees, that's when you want to pull the trigger on those applications when soil temps are in that appropriate range. But with respect to periods like this when it gets colder, warms back up and gets colder again, you need five or six days of sustained soil temperatures to make those applications."   About 10 golf courses, mostly low-budget facilities, in western Kentucky have made the switch to ultradwarf Bermuda in recent years because they lack the budget to manage bentgrass through the state's hot, humid summers, said Gregg Munshaw, Ph.D., of the University of Kentucky.   "They only contact me if they have issues," Munshaw said. "They haven't contacted me yet this year, which means they're no problems, other than green up is just a little slower this year than they would like."   Like in Tennessee, Munshaw isn't predicting any long-term problems for the courses in western Kentucky, or anywhere else throughout the transition zone for that matter. Any damage occurring on greens should be relatively simple to fix, but will require patience from superintendents - and golfers.   "Unless there is widespread death, it's probably not going to be doom and gloom," he said. "If there is some loss, they might want to consider plugging from outside the greens, but that stuff spreads pretty well. The problem is what will members expect, or if you're a daily fee and you are relying on play coming in the door, are golfers going to come in and play if the grass is not there, or it's patchy? Because it might be late June until they are where they want to be, or maybe later. This isn't football, where you can wait until August. This is golf and you need to be ready now."   What is of more concern to Munshaw is what might happen to turf on the northern end of the transition zone if cold temperatures persist and the turf uses up the precious resources it needs to survive the winter.   "My only concern is the longer the grass stays dormant, the more it will burn up carbohydrates," he said. "If they are gone, and those places will struggle with green up. We need that turf to start waking up now."   The wild temperature swings throughout the transition zone from winter through mid spring have created some challenges for weed control as well, Brosnan said.    Warm temperatures in February led to some early green up and put into question whether it was safe to make applications for Poa control since the turf was beginning to emerge from dormancy.   At a recent Middle Tennessee chapter meeting, superintendents were discussing early damage from Poa control applications, Brosnan said.    "It was so cold in January, then in February the weather broke like there was no tomorrow," Brosnan said. "We had high temperatures and high amounts of rainfall. We exceeded the 30-year rainfall average in just about all the major cities in Tennessee.    "We reached 100 growing degree days in February, and that made for unsettling decision on Ronstar and Roundup. Then we'd have frost for the next four or five days. I know you're no longer accumulating growing degree days when it's that cold, but does that reset the clock? "The weather has definitely made for a kooky start to everything."
  • After exhausting its useful life for more than decade as a gravel pit nearly a century ago, a patch of land on the east side of Ann Arbor looked more like something out of a science fiction movie than it did a location for one of Michigan's most environmentally friendly golf courses.
      "If you look at the old photographs, when they finished mining, it was bald," said Corbin Todd, director of golf courses at the University of Michigan. "It looked more like the surface of the moon."   Today, Radrick Farms, a 1962 Pete Dye layout, and its sister course, the Alister MacKenzie-designed Blue Course, are leading the university's campus-wide efforts toward sustainability and environmental stewardship.   "Sustainability is the right thing to do," said Chantel Jackson, general manager at UM's Blue Course. "I don't care what field you're in, or who you work for, if you live here in Ann Arbor, you have to be aware of sustainability. It's a passion here, and it needs to be part of everyday life."   To that end, the courses have implemented several environmental programs that include an innovative construction method for the parking lot that helps manage surface water, conversion of managed turf to naturalized out-of-play areas, an unconventional rooftop on the renovated clubhouse of the Blue Course.   Along the way, each has earned certification from the Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Clean Corporate Citizen Program with the help of the e-Par system. And progress is monitored and audited by the university's office of campus sustainability.   "Sustainability is rooted in our tradition," Todd said.    "We want to leave the property better than we found it. We want to be good stewards of our resources."   More than three decades before Dye converted land in eastern Ann Arbor into one of Michigan's best golf courses, the Cadillac Sand and Gravel Co. sold the mined out property to Frederick Matthei who restored the property from eyesore to pasture and farmland before donating it to the university in 1957. Five years later, it had become one of the first works of a young, up-and-coming architect from Indianapolis.   Today, Radrick is the only course in Michigan to be recognized by the Groundwater Foundation as a Groundwater Guardian Green Site, a program that acknowledges the work of turfgrass managers for their efforts to protect groundwater resources through "practices related to chemical use, water use, pollution prevention, water quality, and environmental stewardship". In 2012, the course received the Washtenaw County Environmental Excellence Award for Water Quality Protection.   "The university always wanted to keep that land natural. That's why they hired Pete Dye," Todd said. "They've always wanted to be good stewards of the environment, and that started way before sustainability was even a thing."   Across town, MacKenzie planted the Blue Course on the edge of the UM campus in 1929. While providing generations of students, faculty, staff and alumni with a classic golf experience, the course also has for many years doubled as a parking lot for the 107,000-seat Michigan Stadium directly across Stadium Boulevard. That hasn't hindered efforts at the Blue Course, as well as Radrick Farms, to lead the way toward sustainability.   Efforts there include an aggressive recycling program with an ultimate goal of zero-waste at the golf course (and throughout campus), converting managed turf to naturalized out-of-play areas, a green rooftop on the renovated clubhouse that includes a native planting program managed by superintendent Scott Rockov and utilizing permeable fill in the parking lot that aids in filtering surface water and minimizing runoff.   The university's golf operation has worked hard to communicate its efforts to customers.   "We have talking points for our staff," Jackson said. "There are enough things we are doing around the golf course to create questions, and we want to make sure our staff has the right information to give back to them."   The program clearly resonates with the university's environmentally engaged clientele.   "In Ann Arbor and at the University of Michigan, it is expected of us to be responsible environmental stewards," Jackson said. "We ask our customers in a survey if they are aware of what we're doing and if it is important to them, and they definitely care."   The efforts of the UM staff extend far beyond the golf course. Objectives such as sustainability and zero waste are campus-wide initiatives that fit into the university's goals of training the next generation of pace-setters.   "Our core value as a university is to build leaders of tomorrow," Todd said. "If we don't challenge them today, we don't have leaders of tomorrow."  
  • Part III in an ongoing series about labor issues affecting the golf industry.   Standing in a ditch and covered in muck, Miranda "Moe" Robinson looks the part of a golf course superintendent. As a graduate of the short course at the University of Guelph with nearly 15 years of experience in the golf industry under her belt, she also has the know-how needed to succeed in a man's world.   That still doesn't stop golfers at Summerlea Golf Club in Ontario from reaching some pretty far-flung conclusions about her ability or what she's doing on a golf course in the first place.   "I'm clearly a maintenance worker, but golfers consistently ask me if I have beer in my cart," Robinson (@Moes_cakes on Twitter) said.   "The last time someone asked me, I said 'are you (expletive deleted) kidding me?' If you say that to me once, you'll never say it again."   In all seriousness, Robinson said she can't complain too much. She tells stories of other women who've faced much worse in their pursuit of a career as a superintendent. She also tells stories of other industries where male counterparts were far less welcoming to women than they are in golf, such as the automotive industry.   "That was the worst job I've ever had. It was 1,000 times worse than this industry," she said of her time in the auto industry.    "I feel like I'm one of the lucky one. I haven't had the same issues a lot of women have had. I don't know if that's because my golf course is out in the country."   Robinson is part of a movement of women working to raise awareness of female superintendents and pave the way for others who want to follow in their footsteps.   "When women ask me, my first piece of advice is to be confident in yourself," she said. "You can't worry about what anyone else thinks of you. Everyone has to overcome that. If you're confident in yourself, there isn't anything you can't accomplish."   If Robinson is a pioneer in this movement, Leasha Schwab is its Lewis and Clark.   A superintendent for nearly a decade, including the past three years at Pheasant Run Golf Club in Ontario, Schwab (@LeashaSchwab on Twitter) organized a career-development symposium for women at this year's Golf Industry Show in San Antonio. The event started with a shoutout on Twitter and ended with about 80 women from throughout the golf industry packing a ballroom at the Marriott Riverwalk.   "I'm interested in talking to women who feel like they don't have a voice. That was the whole point at running that event at the Golf Industry Show," she said. "For anyone who hasn't had a chance to connect, it was an opportunity to meet each other and strike up a conversation."   And then some.  
    Schwab has watched as colleagues walked off the job when she was promoted from assistant to head superintendent, and like so  many others, she knows what it's like to have a golfer mistake her for a beer cart operator.   "That happens to me all the time," she said. "I've been at professional conferences when people have asked me 'whose wife are you?' It's not coming from a malicious place. When people say things like this, it can be harmful, but if I just bitch, I'm not going to have much influence. The only way to change people's perceptions of this industry is to educate them."   That all men don't welcome women into the world of golf might point more toward their own insecurities than anything else, says Amy Wallis, Ph.D., a professor of practice at the Wake Forest University School of Business. Wallis' expertise lies in differences of people from different cultures, races and generations and how that can affect performance in the workplace.   "There are certain areas of life that historically have been reserved for particular groups of people, and those people go to those activities because they feel comfortable and safe there," said Amy Wallis. "And when you think about the golf industry, a lot of men of privilege, and particularly white men of privilege are drawn to golf in part because it's a place where white men of privilege hang out. Some of them are there because of the comfort of that. Then you bring people who are different into that environment and it's like 'I don't know how to behave, so I'm going to behave in ways that I pretend that I'm joking, but I'm actually sending these subtle signals that say you don't belong here.' "   That level of discomfort that comes with others invading your space is not reserved only for men, Wallis said.   "I might join a gym that is a women-only gym because I feel more comfortable working out in a women-only gym. And if a man walked in I would probably be somewhat bothered by the fact that there was a man there, and I might treat him accordingly," she said. "I might make a joke about a man being there, because the context is one where I had an expectation where there would not be a man there.   "I think in golf there is still this perception that there is an invasion of people who are different. Some men might say they were drawn to golf because they knew how to behave there. There is a much bigger discussion we need to have about whether we even have the skills to welcome people who are different into our environment, and how do you develop those skills. Most of us don't spend much time developing those skills. We spend our time looking for areas where we fit in, rather than looking for ways to help other people fit in."   Breaking down those barriers is exactly why Schwab organized the event at GIS.   "I know what it's like to walk into a room of 500 men and feel like you don't belong," she said.    Jessica Lenihan credits a lot of men with helping promote her career since graduating from Penn State's four-year turf program in 2016. She worked on Kevin Hicks's crew at Coeur d'Alene until 2011 and is currently the assistant superintendent at Hayden Lake Country Club in Idaho.   "I've met a lot of great, supportive men who are willing to help out," Lenihan (@jklenihan5 on Twitter) said. "I've met a lot of people, too, who are total creeps and don't give you any respect at all. Granted, those have been few and far between.    "You have to work twice as hard to prove you know what you're doing. That doesn't bother me. Everyone in this business knows how to grow grass. Whether people believe you, I think that is the question that comes up for women in turf."   Schwab says she doesn't think a woman should have to work more to prove she belongs. You can do the job, or you can't, and that should be enough, she says.   "One of the reasons for my success is the men who have helped me along the way," Schwab said.    "We just want good people in general in this industry, so how do we change this?"   That means changing people's perception of culture in and out of the workplace, she said.   "People leave their jobs because they feel they don't belong, not because of money," she said.    "I don't have to be rough and gruff to show I belong. I think that's where women go wrong. If I have to pretend to be just as tough as the boys, I lose leadership capability and integrity because I'm not being myself. The alternative is to look at each person as an individual. If we work on that, that's where we can make the biggest impact."
  • As it's nickname implies, Minnesota has a substantial amount of groundwater. That's all the more reason for the state's golf course superintendents association to play a leadership role in helping conserve it - and make sure the industry has a stable source well into the future, says Jack MacKenzie, CGCS, executive director of the Minnesota GCSA.   "Just because Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, that doesn't mean we don't have to be responsible for our water," MacKenzie said.   To that end, the association recently put the finishing touches on four publications that address best management practices for golf courses in Minnesota.   "In Minnesota, there are two kinds of water users: Either you have a permit, or your permit is suspended. Golf is a non-essential water user in Minnesota, so we're the first apple to be picked when it's time to reduce water use," MacKenzie said. "We're trying to make it so that golf has a modicum of protection. We're happy to dial back when it's time cut back. Just don't pull the plug on us. When you do that, we lose viability as a business."   In the works since 2012, the guides include a compilation of the greatest hits of work already completed by superintendent chapters in other states, including Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Rhode Island.   Two events helped elevate the project's status at the state agency level - the Minnesota GCSA's mercury-mitigation program and a state court ruling that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources restrict groundwater pumping from the environmentally sensitive White Bear Lake.   Mercury mitigation has resonated with the state department of agriculture, which regulates water quality in Minnesota, since Dan Stoddard took over as section manager for the department's pesticide and fertilizer management division.   "We'd been trying to push this for years. We were asking what we needed to do get this off the ground," MacKenzie said.    "The interim director, who I knew in college, asked what we can do to partner together. Because of the sudden impact of mercury, how do we work with golf courses so we can develop mitigation procedures for these properties? It opened the door for what has become a blooming relationship."   The same can be said for the state GCSA's newfound relationship with the DNR, since the latter has fallen under direction from the courts to reexamine how it grants groundwater use permits.   The association's "Best Management Practices Water-Use Efficiency/Conservation Plan For Minnesota Golf Courses" actually has presented the state DNR with a template it is using moving forward. Input from golf was welcomed and necessary since, according to MacKenzie, about 80 percent of the state's 500 or so golf courses use groundwater, including several in the White Bear Lake vicinity.   "We're all working together," MacKenzie said. "This will the template of water appropriations changes throughout the state.   "We're here to support the DNR, and we want them to know we are here to help. We are here to help them conserve water. Here is our environmental state, now just don't pull the plug on us."  
  • Smithfield Foods Inc. and Anuvia Plant Nutrients have reached a partnership to create sustainable fertilizer from all-biological materials.   Smithfield will supply Anuvia with renewable biological materials collected from manure treatment systems at Smithfield's hog farms throughout North Carolina. This project is part of Smithfield's efforts toward accelerating its carbon reduction while helping create renewable energy.   The project reuses organic matter found in hog manure to create a commercial-grade fertilizer that is higher in nutrient concentration than the original organic materials. End users thus are able to better manage nutrient ratios while using less fertilizer by applying precisely what they need. Because Anuvia's products contain organic matter, nutrient release is more controlled, resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions and a smaller environmental footprint.     Anuvia will utilize remnant solids from Smithfield that accumulate over time at the bottom of the anaerobic lagoons, basins designed and certified to treat and store the manure on hog farms, and to manufacture and sell commercial-grade fertilizer products.  
  • As Henry Ford's attorney, Horace Rackham made his fortune as an original investor in his client's pipedream of making four-wheeled motorized transportation affordable for the masses. Sharing his good fortune with others was important to Rackham, and as a turn-of-the-century entrepreneur and philanthropist, Rackham's name and record of his goodwill are peppered throughout Michigan.    His name adorns buildings at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Wayne State University in downtown Detroit and Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. He donated land on Detroit's northside in suburban Huntington Woods for construction of the Detroit Zoo, and his contributions to science were so vast that a lizard (Xenosaurus grandis rackhami) found only in parts of Guatemala is named for him. Nearly a century ago, he hired Donald Ross to build what is reported to be the first golf course in Michigan open to the public on land adjacent to the zoo.   When Detroit mayor Mike Duggan recently threatened to close the course that bears Rackham's name, along with two other city-owned courses at Chandler Park and Rouge Park, one thing some in city hall seemed to forget was how much each means to its local community.   None of these courses will be confused with Detroit Golf Club or Oakland Hills, but each has a long history of offering affordable recreation to some of Detroit's most underserved communities.    Boxing great Joe Louis played many a round there, and Ben Davis, the first black golf pro at a municipal golf course, conducted lessons at Rackham for more than 50 years.   It's a legacy of which Rackham himself would be proud, said Pat Little, who plays in the women's leagues at all three courses.   "It would have been a shame if this course closed," Little said of Rackham. "All of these courses bring something to their local community."   Like many cities, Detroit is always seeking ways to cut operating expenses, and more than once the subject of closing the golf courses it owns has been thrown out as a potential solution.   Shuttering the city's public golf courses, including Rackham, which hosts about 40,000 rounds per year, seemed, for some, an unlikely place for for the city to cut expenses.   "If you're from around here, you've heard this before," said Jim Uehlman, Rackham Park's manager. "This has happened many times before. Any educated person in Detroit knows they're not going to close this golf course.   "We want golf in the city of Detroit to go up. We don't want it to go down. It's already been going down."   When the Detroit's management contract with Vargo Golf to operate the three courses expired in March and city council was unable to reach decision on a new labor agreement, Duggan threatened to close the properties, giving city council a week to come up with an alternative. Days before the courses could have closed, council approved a bid by North Carolina-based Signet Golf to operate the courses for the next two years. The city said it also received contract bids from Billy Casper Golf, Kemper Sports Management and Vargo.     A local company from nearby Oakland Hills, Vargo hired all employees and even owned the golf cars and equipment used at each course.   Signet's first move was to hire Uehlman to maintain some sort of continuity in the city golf structure. A week later, Uehlman was still busy collecting applications from former Vargo employees hoping to keep their jobs and new applicants seeking employment. Even Little, who plays Rackham several times each month, stopped in to volunteer her services to the course she loves.   "This is exciting," Uehlman said. "We're getting new carts, new equipment, new mowers.    "We've had probably 50 people fill out applications over the past few days."   The struggle over what to do with the three city-owned courses has been a consistent saga in Detroit. Estimates are that it could take as much as $8 million to make necessary upgrades to all three, thus prompting the talk of selling them.   Through the last several months, one option has included renovating Chandler Park and Rouge Park and selling Rackham. The Donald Ross design, however, is protected by deed restrictions that require it to remain a golf course, and there is not much of a market for golf courses in urban areas in need of repair.   And that's just fine with those who consider Rackham a community asset rather than a pawn in city politics.   "Everyone knows this course is here. People come from all over the city to play here," Uehlman said. "There's a lot of history here, from Ben Davis to Joe Louis. It's important to have this as a place for recreation for the community."  
  • Build it, and they will come. Well, sort of.   For the second straight year, the University of Tennessee conducted a workshop on annual bluegrass control, but the public was not invited to attend. Not in person, anyway.   The second-annual #PoaDay Field Day Facebook Live event held March 28 and sponsored by Aqua-Aid, is available for on-demand viewing on the Aqua-Aid Facebook page and Web site.   Targeted toward golf course superintendents, sports turf managers and lawn care operators, the event covers a host of pre- and post-emergent herbicide programs for annual bluegrass control in turfgrass, as well as the different herbicidal modes of action used for annual bluegrass control and how to optimize programs to mitigate problems associated with herbicide resistance.   More details are available on Aqua-Aid's #PoaDay event page, or by following @AquaAidInc or @UTturfgrass on Twitter.
  • Captains seeking shelter often park their ships safely in the harbor, while those who yearn for a more stimulating experience don't hesitate to take to the high seas during the stormiest weather.   So says Steve Cook, the longtime superintendent at Oakland Hills Country Club.   Cook has never been one to go through life in dry dock, so when he thought he might be getting to point in his career in which he was closer to being more like a dingy than a destroyer, he decided it was a good time to weigh anchor and . After 20 years at Oakland Hills, the 58-year-old Cook recently left the Donald Ross classic outside Detroit to become the head superintendent at Medinah Country Club in suburban Chicago.   "Safe ships stay in the harbor. Sitting on the deck and drinking margaritas is fun, but that's not me," Cook said. "Battleships should be sailing the oceans."   That's the same philosophy that helped Cook navigate through a successful 2004 Ryder Cup and 19 other prosperous seasons at Oakland Hills.   Cook spent some of the early days of his career at Medinah under then-superintendent Danny Quast. The challenges associated with size and scope of the property - three golf courses, 600 acres and 600 members - made Medinah one of the few places that would lead Cook to consider leaving Oakland Hills.   "I wasn't looking for a new job at all. In fact, this is the only job I've applied for in 20 years," Cook said. "I wasn't stagnating, but I thought I needed a change. I could have stayed at Oakland Hills. The club was happy, I was happy. But if there was an opportunity to move to a club where I could make a difference; where it was a step up; where it would be more difficult and offer a chance for professional growth, then I needed to try for it."   The only reason the Medinah position was available in the first place was because Curtis Tyrrell left there earlier this year for many of the same reasons Cook was seeking a change. After a 10-year run that included the 2012 Ryder Cup and a complete makeover of the of the massive multi-course facility, Tyrrell exited Medinah for a similar challenge at the Bonita Bay Club in Naples, Florida.   "I just completed my 10th year at Medinah," Tyrrell said. "In that time, we've rebuilt three courses, built a new maintenance facility and a new practice facility, all for $15 million. And we had the Ryder Cup. It's been an incredible decade."   His mission at five-course Bonita Bay is to replicate the same kind of success he enjoyed at Medinah in the ultra competitive southwest Florida golf market. Never mind that he managed all cool-season turf at Medinah. Tyrrell learned Bermudagrass management under Shawn Emerson at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale and Virgil Robinson at PGA West in the Coachella Valley.  
    I wasn't looking for a new job at all. In fact, this is the only job I've applied for in 20 years. I wasn't stagnating, but I thought I needed a change."
     
    "The goal when I got to Medinah was to rebuild the club into a uniform structure, and it took 10 years to complete," Tyrrell said.    "This club has made a lot of investment in a fitness center and clubhouse, and now they're ready to begin investing in the golf courses. I'm here to organize, develop and execute  projects for the golf courses. It's everything that would entice me to leave Medinah."   While Tyrrell was prompted to leave Medinah by the promise of things to come, Cook said he probably would never have left Oakland Hills if not for some of the life-altering moments from his past.   Throughout his career in golf, Cook, 58, has climbed nearly every rock and mountain in his path, often as a way to cut through the stress that comes with managing a Top 100 classic-era golf course.   Eventually, those excursions took Cook to the Himalayas in 2015 where he climbed Ama Dablam, a 22,349-foot summit in Nepal. Taking on a mountain like Aba Dablam, where one mistake literally can be the difference between life and death, Cook trained for months, exercising, following a special diet and perfecting his climbing skills.   Once the experience was over, it created a vacuum that resulted in a host of personal issues and challenges. In fact, Cook has never climbed so much as a tree since he stepped off Ama Dablam, Cook nearly three years ago.   Still, the experience has helped him confront other challenges, including a move to Medinah.   "I thought about that a lot when I first heard about the opening at Medinah," Cook said. "Going on that climb gave me courage in other parts of my life that I don't know that I'd have if I didn't make the climb."   The team-first culture instilled by Medinah general manager Robert Sereci hasn't hurt, either.   "In 20 years at Oakland Hills, we had two U.S. Amateurs, a Ryder Cup and a PGA Championship. It was a great experience. That's a lot of activity in 20 years," Cook said. "I like tournaments, activity, building teams, goal setting. I don't know if I'm any good at it.   "One of the things that turned me on and interested me in this job was that the general manager has been successful at changing the culture throughout the club. That was attractive to me."   Both Cook and Tyrrell are hoping they can put away their resume for a long time to come.   "I'm 47, and this is my last stop - I hope. I'm here to do what I do, and that's improve facilities structurally and build teams. I always thought it would be nice to go to an 18-hole course and tone it down a bit, but this was an exciting opportunity. It's the world I've been operating in. This was the right move at the right time."  
  • SiteOne has brought back an old standby.
      The Lesco web site features Lesco-branded products for the golf, turf and ornamental markets and an interactive blog where users can find answers to frequently asked questions.   Lesco-branded products for the golf market include pesticides, fungicides, seed, fertilizer, adjuvants, colorants and specialized equipment like sprayers and spreaders.   More Lesco-branded products are due this spring, said John Gertz, vice president of SiteOne.   Product information is available through a catch-all link, or in market-specific sub sites.   The interactive blog is pre-loaded with tips on product selection and timing of application.   Lesco, which was bought by John Deere in 2007, once a staple vendor in the golf turf industry, with a fleet of trucks that made on-site sales calls to golf courses across the country. SiteOne bought Lesco from John Deere Landscapes in 2013.
  • Part II in an ongoing series about labor issues affecting the golf industry.   Gleneagles and Highland Meadows are separated by 2,500 miles, and the spaces they occupy in golf's unspoken hierarchy are even farther apart.   Gleneagles Golf Course at McLaren Park is the San Francisco muni that, if not for the vision and efforts of manager and operator Tom Hsieh, probably would have been cast onto the ever-growing heap of closed courses years ago.   Located in the Toledo, Ohio suburb of Sylvania, Highland Meadows is the longtime home of the LPGA's Marathon Classic, formerly the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, and occupies the other end of the spectrum.   Despite the economic differences between Gleneagles and Highland Meadows, the courses share a common bond - a struggle to attract enough hourly talent. And both have looked to some unique sources to fill that void.   At Highland Meadows, superintendent Greg Pattinson figured there is strength in numbers, and that's why he's partnered with a local park to attract workers who, throughout the golf season, spend time at both facilities.   Since 2015, Hsieh has been working with a local labor union in the Bay area to provide unskilled labor in a pre-apprentice program that provides training and hope for at-risk residents from one of the city's worst neighborhoods.   In Sylvania, Pacesetter Park encompasses 138 acres of trails, practice and game day soccer fields and eight baseball and softball fields.   Together, the park and Highland Meadows, which has been the site of Toledo's LPGA tournament in its various iterations since 1989, have targeted five area schools in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan that have agriculture or horticulture programs.   "It's helped us target people who already are interested in our field," Pattinson said. "There's not a lot of weeding out. Whether it's turf, farming, greenhouses or something similar, at least 50 percent of the people we target are interested in working for us."   In year one of the program last year, the park and golf course split the workers and traded them back and forth every couple of weeks. This year, the entire group will spend more time at one location then shift en masse to the other.   "We tweaked the program this year to leave them at each facility for a month at a time," Pattinson said. "It just wasn't enough time before."   Similarly, the training program at Gleneagles in San Francisco provides Hsieh with much-needed help. It also gives workers, many of whom come from the local community on San Francisco's downtrodden southeast side that was a 5-iron away from where Candlestick Park once stood, with a second chance to lead a productive life.   The principal of Gleneagles Golf Partners, which holds the management contract on the golf course, Hsieh's roots are in San Francisco politics, namely as a campaign advisor. He knows enough about golf that he doesn't want historic Gleneagles, which doesn't receive financial support from the city like its muni siblings Harding Park and Sharp Park, to go away.   "I'm winging it. I'm not a golf industry insider," Hsieh said. "There are no boundaries for me except to be open-minded. If something doesn't work, we change and move on to the next thing."   Fortunately for Hsieh, the pre-apprentice program works for parties on both sides.   Named for a local union leader, the Mario de la Torre Training Academy at Gleneagles provides pre-apprenticeship training for up to a dozen low-level city workers, most of whom come from a past that is, at best, sketchy.    Those accepted into the program learn how to work on a golf course in incremental steps. They start with pulling weeds and clearing debris to raking bunkers and operating equipment. After each six-week session,graduates receive a union pre-apprenticeship certificate that allows them to apply for apprenticeship training so they can compete for other union jobs that offer better pay and benefits and a chance at a real future, which is something most of them didn't have before.   A storage facility at the golf course has been repurposed - thanks to union-provided labor - into a classroom to help facilitate training.   The program is a joint effort that includes the Northern California District Council of Laborers, Local 26 and a host of city and county agencies (parks alliance, public utilities commission, public works, housing authority, department of environment, chief administrator's office, board of supervisors, mayor's office, unified school district).   The academy's goal is to equip at-risk residents with training and skills needed to be successful at work and in life. Two managers employed by Local 261 handle all training.   The program, which provides on-the-job training for as many as 70 people per year, lost one of its staunchest allies last year when San Francisco mayor Ed Lee died unexpectedly.   In the meantime, interim Mayor Mark Farrell and others renewed the city's support of the training program and what it means for golfers and San Francisco's at-risk community when they visited the site in February to honor the latest group of graduates from the training program.    While it's important for Hsieh to help his neighbors, his ability to do so means saving the golf course first.   "We're helping individuals and their families," Hsieh said. "But this golf course is important too. If it doesn't make it, we're not able to do that."
  • Each year at the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation Turfgrass Research Field Day, the plant pathology team of Joe Rimelspach, Ph.D., Todd Hicks and Francesca Peduto Hand make available the latest version of the handy guide entitled "Families of Fungicides for Turfgrass".   The guide includes information such as the name of the active ingredient, FRAC code, trade names, mode of action and concerns about resistance on dozens of fungicide products, including chlorothalonil, iprodione, mancozeb, new products like mandestrobin, and more than 30 others.   There are some updates to this year to the guide that also is available as a printable, downloadable PDF.   The single greatest concern surrounding fungicide use, besides efficacy, is the threat of resistance. The latest version of the OSU guide includes information on combination fungicide products as well as FRAC codes for each to help superintendents make more informed decisions.   "This way, people can quickly know what families are in those combination products," said Rimelspach. "The guide can help them understand things a little better and make better choices. They can manage rotation to help manage resistance, so they're not using the same family of product over and over again. Rotation to help manage resistance, not using same product over over again and make better choices and understand things."   Some of the dozens of combination products included on the guide are chlorothalonil plus acibenzolar-S-methyl and pyraclostrobin plus pyraclostrobin as well as chlorothalonil plus iprodione plus T-methyl plus tebuconazole, which includes active ingredients from four different fungicide families.
  • Part I in an ongoing series about labor issues affecting the golf industry.   One step forward; two steps back.   That's how Scott White feels every winter when it is time to hire seasonal help at Urbana Country Club in Illinois.   Whether it's finding high school workers with some semblance of work ethic, or helping Hispanic workers successfully navigate the physical exam process, White spends a lot of time looking for temporary help. And he's not alone.   All over the country the story is the same: superintendents are struggling to find qualified seasonal help, interns and even assistants. White is trying to get creative in finding high school students to round out his seasonal staff that includes Hispanics and retirees.   "It used to be I'd hire just anyone," said White, who is in his third season at Urbana. "Now, I'm looking for kids who want to be here because it excites them. I want kids who want to be outdoors, not just kids who need a job. I'm trying to find kids who are a better fit. That's the culture I want to create here. It seems I'm working four or five times harder to find the right employees who even want to be here. Eventually, robotic mowers will be a necessity because of labor."   Three years ago, White began working with a local high school to recruit summer help. Rather than get kids excited about the prospect of working outdoors all summer, he was getting the exact opposite.   "I was getting kids who didn't even want to be outside," he said. "It was like they were being forced to do it. They were not what I needed, and they didn't want to be here anyway."   This year, White ventured out of town to Mahomet-Seymour High School about 15 miles northwest of Urbana. Located in a more rural area, Mahomet-Seymour has a horticulture program stocked with kids already leaning toward a career spent outdoors.   White is scheduled to speak there next week, but already has hired a player off the basketball team who reached out when he learned a local golf course superintendent was coming to talk about careers in golf.   He is replicating that recruiting tactic at Fisher High School 25 miles north of the Champaign-Urbana area.   "I think I can establish a nice pipeline to Mahomet and Fisher," White said. "Once I get started, through word of mouth I can get their brothers and friends and round out my crew."   Every time I placed an ad, about 30 people would respond; I would schedule interviews for about five and only one of them would show up. I was spending a lot of time for very little return." Conrad Pannkuk, assistant superintendent at Wynstone Golf Club in North Barrington, Illinois, said he and superintendent Ben McGargill are having similar challenges finding help, especially since his employer, Century Golf, started using the e-Verify system.
    This year, Pannkuk spoke to an FFA group at a recent Barrington High School job fair about the careers in turf, including golf course maintenance, sports field management and sod production.   "I spoke about what the job entails, expected salary and what the job entails," Pannkuk said. "I want to show them what career options are available to them. If I'd known about this when I was in high school, I would have been all over it."   In the past, when he worked at the Biltmore Country Club in Illinois, Pannkuk relied on Web sites like Indeed or Craigslist to find temporary help. Results were sporadic at best.   "Every time I placed an ad, about 30 people would respond; I would schedule interviews for about five and only one of them would show up," he said. "I was spending a lot of time for very little return."   Finding new ways to attract talent, he said, is more important now than ever.   "We're working with local community colleges. You have to be creative to get your name out there in as many places as possible," he said.    Making his case to local high schoolers has been a good fit for Pankkuk, and much better than relying on generic help-wanted Web sites.   "Looking for help through Craigslist and Indeed was tedious and depressing," he said.   "Going out and speaking to high school groups is fun. It's like going out and teaching, and I enjoy teaching."    
  • A bad day for a caddie at many clubs might mean schlepping two bags for five hours for a pair of notoriously chintzy tippers.   At the Retreat and Links at Silvies Valley Ranch in east-central Oregon, a bad day for a caddie might mean getting fired and ending up on the menu in the restaurant.   Silvies Valley Ranch is a 140,000-acre working ranch in Seneca, Oregon that is home to about 4,500 head of cattle and more than 2,000 American range goats. Situated in a high mountain meadow, the ranch also includes the Retreat & Links that is billed as an eco-tourism destination comprising a hotel and spa, a host of western-themed activities and four golf courses designed by Dan Hixson, including the seven-hole McVeigh's Gauntlet course, where the steep terrain makes golf cars obsolete and goats that serve as caddies a necessity.   The best part, they don't talk back or dole out bad advice.   "How did we come up with the program? We'd like to take credit for it, but the goats wanted a different career opportunity," joked Colby Marshall, vice president of livestock and guest services at Silvies Valley Ranch.   "For a goat, working as a caddie is a better career path than working in the restaurant."   A new Hixson design, McVeigh's Gauntlet will open this season, and not just any goat will do for the caddie program.   Goats are handpicked, range in age from 2-8 years, undergo training with a livestock handler and get regular veterinary checkups to ensure their health and satisfy the animal-rights community.   When Marshall says the goats work for peanuts, he means it. A specially designed pack allows the goats, which can weigh in at a beefy 150 pounds, to carry a limited number of clubs, refreshments and goat treats.   There are four goats in the program, Mike, Bruce, Peanut and Roundabout, and three more will join them this spring as McVeigh's Gauntlet preps for its official grand opening.   "There is a lot of interest in it. They start thinking about it as kids," said Marshall, the resident Henny Youngman of eastern Oregon.   Each goat will work about six hours per day, and handlers make sure they don't stray from their golfers.   Although goat is a popular menu item at Silvie's Ranch, Peanut and Roundabout and their colleagues won't really be served up as the nightly special when it's time to put them out to pasture.   Instead, they'll be eligible for adoption.   "There are none ready at this point; they're all in the prime of their careers," Marshall said. "They'll be placed as pets.    "They're going to have the good life."   Silvies Valley Ranch has been a working cattle ranch since the Craddock family homesteaded the property in 1883. After a succession of owner spanning some 60 years since the 1950s, Scott and Sandy Campbell bought the ranch about a decade ago.    The property also includes the Hankins Course, the nine-hole Chief Egan layout and the Craddock Course that was built to be fully reversible with the routing reversed each day to create a unique golf experience, said superintendent Sean Hoolehan, who thought highly enough of Silvies Valley Ranch that he recently came aboard after 21 years at Wildhorse Resort in Pendleton, Oregon.   "There is nothing clumsy about the reversible layout. It feels like you're playing two distinctly different and unique golf courses," Hoolehan said. "Nothing makes you think on course you played the day before."   Hoolehan said he was attracted by the scope of Silvies Valley Ranch property and the unique experiences it affords guests.   "The top environmental practices we use here have helped turn the ranch into a thriving operation," Hoolehan said.    "I jumped at the chance to come on board. The ranch is not the whim of a wealthy family. This is a thriving business, and it's something I wanted to be part of."
  • As a college instructor who tries to help her students better understand behavioral differences between people across cultural and generational lines, Amy Wallis, Ph.D., loves her job. After all, as a professor of practice at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she is immersed in a field that is relatively new and poorly understood.   Every December, Wallis brings her message to 25 or so golf course superintendents at the annual Syngenta Business Institute.   "We're not going to learn everything we need to know about leading everyone," Wallis told the 2017 class at the 2017 SBI. "We can't allow ourselves to fall into stereotyping and thinking there is some cookie-cutter approach to working across differences.   "I'm going to equip you with the tools and concepts to dig a little deeper."   That's just a slice of what attendees are in for at the 10th annual SBI, scheduled for Dec. 3-6 at Wake Forest.   In its 10th year, the Syngenta Business Institute is a 3 ½-day event held on the Wake Forest University campus in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is part of Syngenta's ongoing effort to grow the professional knowledge of golf course superintendents and assist them with managing their courses. Through a partnership with the Wake Forest University School of Business, the program provides graduate school-level instruction in financial management, human resource management, negotiating, managing across generations and cultural divides, impact hiring and other leadership- and professional-development skills.   Registration for the 10th-annual event is open through Aug. 14.    Applicants must complete an online application that includes writing a short essay on why they should be selected for this unique career-development program.     "Superintendents have the opportunity many times a year to learn about agronomy. But what they don't get to hear about or understand is how to work with their teams and how each person in their team can be different," said Stephanie Schwenke, turf market manager for Syngenta, "hat can be based on age. It can be based on gender. It can be based on culture, and it can be based on the way they were brought up and what they were exposed to in their lives. So i think the culture and the generations session opens everyone's eyes that everyone is not just like me. And not everybody grew up the same way I did with the same culture or the same skillset. So it's understandable that there are different motivational factors for their team if they can understand how to work with them. That has been the one piece superintendents have walked away with saying, "I wish we could get more of this.' "   David Groelle of Royal Melbourne Country Club in Long Grove, Illinois, applied for the 2017 SBI because he was eager to learn ways to improve communications with his team and help them be more effective.   "It was a rewarding and educational experience, and they're not selling anything," Groelle said.   "I've been to every type of turf event imaginable. This is so off-the-wall different.    "The biggest take home for me has been dealing with cultural and generational issues and trying to understand that better. Understanding how people from the U.S. differ from people from other cultures - I think it would help with retention, and efficiency on the golf course and how they work and what is going through their heads vs. what is going through mine. I never really thought about it that way, but when I heard it, it made sense."
  • Before administering the naturalization oath of allegiance to a recent class of new U.S. citizens, federal judge Stephanie K. Bowman reminded them never to take for granted what she was about to bestow upon them.
      "She told us that that Americans often forget how important U.S. citizenship is, and that we have to remember how great it is to be a citizen of this country," said Pat O'Brien, superintendent of Hyde Park Golf and Country Club in Cincinnati, and a U.S. citizen since January. "I agree with her.    "This country is phenomenal. It's the best place to be, and we forget sometimes how great it is. That's the moral of the story for me anyway."   A native of London, Ontario, the 47-year-old O'Brien has been living in the U.S. for most of the past 20 years. On Jan. 12, he closed the book on a 2-year naturalization process when he and 67 others took the oath in Bowman's courtroom in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati.   The experience was a life-altering moment for O'Brien and his wife, Jen, and even for the couple's daughters Brynna and Maeve, who, after the ceremony, were enlisted by the League of Women Voters to distribute voter-registration cards to the group of newly minted citizens.   "My wife even had tears in her eyes," said O'Brien. "She's a tough woman. Our kids call her the ice lady."   Throughout the naturalization process that began in 2016, O'Brien has had to develop a thicker skin, as well.   "I get a lot of ribbing from Canadians," he said. "They don't like it when Canadians become U.S. citizens. They don't get it."   There was a time when O'Brien and his wife were open to moving wherever his career took him, even if it meant returning to Canada. Those days are gone.   "As we started to have kids, we realized this is the place and it didn't make sense anymore to look elsewhere," he said. "A couple of years ago, my wife told me 'I feel bad for you, because we're not moving.' That's OK. This is a great city with great schools."   He decided two years ago, when President Trump was elected on a platform that included promises of a crackdown on immigration, that it was time to start the naturalization process. Despite cable TV news claims of a loose immigration policy, O'Brien said, the process is exhaustive. So much so that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services delayed the date of his swearing-in while they checked out his travel history that includes numerous crossings of the border between the U.S. and Canada.   "I was in limbo for a couple of weeks," he said. "I really thought I had messed up, because I had forgotten to document some travel.    "There is so much scrutiny. They make sure your marriage is legitimate and not just something to get you into the country. They go through everything. The vetting is phenomenal. A lot of people are immigrating here, and immigration (services) does an incredible job."   For O'Brien, it has been a long journey to Hyde Park, a century-old Donald Ross design on Cincinnati's upper crust east side, where he has been superintendent since 2004.   
    I was in limbo for a couple of weeks. I really thought I had messed up, because I had forgotten to document some travel."
     
    He's been working on golf courses since 1993, and it was a career path that happened almost by accident.    O'Brien had been working on a cousin's dairy farm in Ontario when a spot opened closer to home on the grounds crew at Westminster Trails Golf Club in his hometown.   "The superintendent asked me what I could do, and I told him I knew how to drive a tractor, you know, because I had been working on a farm," he said. "He hired me to run a mower.   "The last year I was there I was the assistant. I think there were only six of us working there. It was a different world. It was all I'd ever seen, so I didn't know any different. I enjoyed working there. Some of the best times I ever had was as a night waterman."   By that time, the golf course had become O'Brien's passion, and he realized the bachelor's degree in geography he had earned at the Western University in Ontario wasn't going to help him much. It did, however, help him find his way to State College, Pennsylvania, where he enrolled in George Hamilton's two-year turf program.   "George was very soft spoken and humble. But he was also very direct," O'Brien said. "He talked in class about real-life things, like club politics. As students, we get hung up on grass and don't know how to relate to the real stuff."   O'Brien's long-term plan to stay in the U.S. almost went off the rails after a return to Canada nearly 20 years ago. During his Penn State days, O'Brien interned at Kirtland Country Club in suburban Cleveland and was hired on as Todd Bidlespacher's assistant after graduation in 2000.He went back to Canada, but after some self-reflection, realized he belonged in the states.   He made some calls to look for work in the U.S., and that's when he connected, through Matt Shaffer, with Doug Norwell at Camargo Club, a 1927 Seth Raynor classic in Cincinnati's ritzy east side suburb of Indian Hill. But securing a work visa that allowed him back into the U.S. was a hard process, and Norwell recalls completing a lot of paperwork to guarantee O'Brien's return.   "They want to make sure you're not writing up a job description with just that person in mind," Norwell said. "The visa process seemed pretty difficult at the time, but the years have a way of making things less painful.   "It's worth the hassle for a good assistant."

×
×
  • Create New...