Sponsored by

As this year’s State of the Industry report once again shows, the golf industry continues to evolve. As it does, Textron Specialized Vehicles is changing with the times and positioning its brands to serve you better.

2018 continued to be a year of transformation, with E-Z-GO®, Jacobsen®, Cushman® and Textron Fleet Management continuing to deliver new equipment and technologies. We are uniquely positioned to be a single-source solution for a course’s equipment needs, from E-Z-GO golf cars, to Cushman utility and hospitality vehicles, to Jacobsen turf-care equipment and Textron Fleet Management.

In 2018 we debuted our ongoing commitment to innovation with the launch of several new products across our brands and product lines. Jacobsen introduced its TR and AR series, delivering Jacobsen’s unparalleled quality of cut and the ability to tackle hard-to-reach areas of your course. Textron Fleet Management launched its new Shield Plus™ technology, designed for professional turf equipment and utility vehicles. Utilizing geofencing and real-time data, Shield Plus offers a wide range of management features focused on driving efficiency within your operation.

Cushman also added several new vehicles to its line of highly functional utility products. The Hauler 800/800X series, available in either gas or AC electric powertrains, was designed to offer heightened versatility, and can be customized with accessories for almost any job your course demands. And Hauler 4x4 models, offered in gas or diesel, deliver an impressive 2000-lb towing capacity and the power and durability to handle the heavy lifting at your facility.

We are proud to sponsor this year’s State of the Industry report and expect that you will find it informative and helpful as you plan for the future. As the industry changes, you can count on our brands to continue to evolve with it, providing a steady drumbeat of new and improved products and services to help you adapt to change, better serve your customers, and grow a larger, more profitable business.

Sincerely,

Michael R. Parkhurst

Vice President, Golf Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc.

INVESTING IN THE NOW AND LATER

Nufarm is a dependable global partner behind thousands of growing success stories. For more than 100 years we’ve been finding effective ways to fight disease, weeds, and insect pressure by turning world-leading scientific breakthroughs into local solutions.

As golf continues to grow and mother nature hands superintendents some real challenges, Nufarm works tirelessly to assure the performance, safety and simplicity of its golf turf solutions. We invest in a proven portfolio of fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and PGRs that can help maximize time and achieve your maintenance goals.

We offer innovations, including Anuew™ PGR, the industry’s highest-performing late-stage plant growth regulator. We also deliver top dollar spot defense with Traction™ and Pinpoint® – two must-have MOAs for your fungicide rotation, controlling even SDHI-resistant strains.

Nufarm is also focused on the bigger picture, taking steps to make the golf course industry and communities we serve better. We developed the EXCEL Leadership Program in collaboration with GCSAA. EXCEL offers leading-edge development opportunities for future golf course management leaders.

Each year 12 assistant superintendents are chosen from many excellent applicants to assemble three times per year for three years. They learn leadership training in areas such as career, community, and industry stewardship. When we announced the creation of the EXCEL Leadership Program in Fall 2016, we believed it would benefit future leaders. We didn’t envision how quickly the positive impact would be realized through new skills, knowledge, alliances, and even career promotions.

Learn more about the EXCEL Leadership Program or connect with our experts any time at NufarmInsider.com. At the end of the day, Nufarm is always here – ready to help solve the turfgrass challenges you face today and support the success you grow tomorrow. That’s why it’s our pleasure to bring you this year’s State of the Industry.

Kind regards,

Cam Copley

Golf National Accounts Manager

Staying Tough

IT’S OVER

Well, at least the calendar portion of 2018 has ended. With images of saturated and seared turf lingering and labor equations not computing superintendents stagger into a new year with one thought: It can’t get much tougher.

Polled in December as part of Golf Course Industry’s annual State of the Industry survey, 90 percent of superintendents indicated the job is tougher now than when they entered the business. Don’t look for that statistic in any GCSAA or turf school marketing campaign.

From weather swings – What happened to spring and fall in many cool-weather regions? – to shrinking labor pools, managing pristine playgrounds on budgets struggling to keep pace with inflation required athlete grit, actor charisma and artist ingenuity. But conquering enormous challenges such as recovering from a flood, hurricane or wildfire, preserving greens with shallow roots because spring never arrived, and completing the work of 15 with a crew of 10 provides lasting fulfillment.

“It’s hard to say which years are tougher, because you know how revisionist history can be,” says Jim Huntoon, superintendent at Heritage Club in Pawleys Island, S.C. “But as I have done this longer, I have gotten better at dealing with it. You get better at understanding there are things you can’t control, and you just prepare the best you can and figure it out.”

Results of the survey, now in its eighth year, won’t simplify a tough job. But they should prove reassuring and provide snapshots of budgets and attitudes following a year that has thankfully ended.

“I’m optimistic 2019 is going to be a better year, because I can’t imagine we can have a repeat of 2018,” says Robert Alonzi Jr., a second-generation superintendent at Fenway Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y.

A couple of details about our methodology. Golf Course Industry administered the survey online via SurveyMonkey. The survey, which was demanding because of the budget detail we asked for, generated 186 responses, with 53 percent of respondents working at private golf courses. As an incentive to complete the survey, Golf Course Industry committed to making a substantial donation to the Wee One Foundation, a charity group started in the memory of Wayne Otto, CGCS, that helps superintendents and other turf professionals in need.

Fenway Golf Club Scarsdale, N.Y.

Coping with comparisons

Choosing to become a superintendent in the New York City metropolitan area means hearing and handling comparisons. The region, after all, boasts dozens of clubs vying for Top 100 recognition.

“Expectations for all courses, from the lowest level to the highest level, run high,” Fenway Golf Club superintendent Robert Alonzi Jr. says. “It’s a concern and it’s something you have to balance.”

For Alonzi, a second-generation superintendent, and his Met GCSA colleagues, meeting expectations developed into a soggy, sultry and stressful task in 2018. Fenway received more than 60 inches of rain, with three-quarters of the total arriving after July 1. Fenway lacks wall-to-wall cart paths, so members needed to follow rigid rules implemented to protect vulnerable turf. “It was hard to live up to member and personal expectations,” Alonzi says.

Challenges extend beyond enormous expectations and weather. Being positioned in a community where the median home price hovers around $1 million nearly eliminates the possibility of attracting workers who reside within 30 minutes of the club. And then there’s an impending budget reality: a mandated $15 per hour minimum wage reaches Westchester County in 2021. “There are certainly a lot of things that I don’t recall worrying so much about when I first became a superintendent or even when my father was a superintendent,” Alonzi says.

Even as colleagues and friends leave the business, Alonzi continues to display zest for the profession. Alonzi expects to begin 2019 fully staffed and the club has commissioned architect Gil Hanse to update a master plan developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“Working in the Met is fantastic,” Alonzi says. “It’s a great area of the country. Some of the greatest courses are within that area. It’s hard to stick out sometimes, because you’re surrounded by such fantastic classic golf courses and country clubs. It’s very competitive, but at the same time, very fulfilling.”

The average non-capital maintenance budget has increased by $223,205 since 2012.

Highland Course at Primland Meadows of Dan, Va.

Beauty and the labor beast

Brian Kearns jinxed himself at the Carolinas GCSA Conference and Show last November, telling colleagues the Highland Course at Primland avoided weather-induced hassles other facilities faced in 2018. “A day later,” he says, “we had the worst ice storm I had ever seen here. So, 2018 can go bye-bye!”

The storm damaged tree limbs along the Highland Course, one of several amenities at a majestic resort in southern Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and cleanup continued into December. At least the half-inch of ice arrived at a slow stretch.

With valet parking only at the clubhouse and luxury treehouses along the course, Primland tussles for seasonal business in one of golf’s smallest sectors: the high-end resort market. Kearns has experienced every golf event in the resort’s history, joining the management staff in 2004, two years before British architect Donald Steel completed a course without a par 4 until the fifth hole. Kearns’ duties as superintendent involve attending sales and marketing meetings. Gaining a competitive advantage requires adding amenities maintained by the agronomic team such as a disc golf course and hiking trails.

“When you have a membership, you have that cash flow coming in,” Kearns says. “With a resort, you’re relying on day-to-day business. Our budget has remained pretty level for the last several years. It hasn’t declined, but our responsibilities have increased.”

While visitors hail from across the Northeast and Southeast, a rural location makes finding enough bodies to handle the increased responsibilities a tricky task, especially in a prosperous year. Kearns received an unexpected labor gift when a pair of unemployed corporate supervisors needing work joined the crew at the start of the Great Recession. Those days are gone. In 2018, the crew operated at full capacity for less than two weeks.

“Labor is by far our biggest challenge,” Kearns says. “We probably had the best staff we ever had (in 2018). We just need more of it.”

Conway Farms Golf Club Lake Forest, Ill.

Time for tiers

Multiple students have recently contacted superintendent Connor Healy about pursuing internships at Conway Farms Golf Club.

“Before, if we got one, I felt like I was winning the game,” Healy says. “To potentially have multiple interns is winning the game. I feel very fortunate to be in that position.”

A revitalized internship program is one of several tactics Healy hopes will help Conway Farms combat a dwindling labor pool in Chicago’s private-golf-rich north suburbs. Following a 2018 slowed by either record cold or rainfall in the spring months, Healy reevaluated how he approaches labor.

Instead of relying on traditional tenured-based tactics, he’s implementing a performance-based compensation system for workers. Hourly dollar amounts are attached to six tiers of employees and motivated workers can advance a tier as early as three to four weeks after joining the crew. The system is designed to keep the labor budget manageable while dangling the recruiting hook of early advancement. Healy also views the changes as a proactive measure for what he considers the “inevitable” escalation of the region’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.

“A lot of things seem to be coming to a head all at the same point, it feels like for me,” he says. “There’s this dramatic labor pressure out there, there’s wage pressure and there’s also low unemployment. There just aren’t enough people to fill the jobs from the pure labor perspective, but also from the higher skillset, there aren’t as many people out there who want to become assistants. Positively, I’m starting to see a little more from my efforts as far as people getting back to me about wanting to work (in 2019).”

Healy’s crew should be backed by significant resources. The Tom Fazio-designed course, which opened in 1991 and hosted the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship in 2013, 2015 and 2017, is continually examining the condition of its infrastructure. “I feel fortunate to be at a club that’s committed to investing,” Healy says. “I see it pretty readily throughout the area.”

Otter Creek Golf Course Columbus, Ind.

Tough beginnings

Brent Downs didn’t receive much of an opportunity to settle into his new job as superintendent at Otter Creek Golf Course, a public facility in the Transition Zone city of Columbus, Ind. Downs arrived in March. From May 7 until June 28, the course absorbed 20 inches of rain.

“I would describe it as the most difficult year of my career,” Downs says. “Different regions of Indiana got different amounts of rain, but Columbus seemed to be in a rain corridor. On the days it didn’t rain, we were over 90 degrees and overnight temperatures were in the mid-70s. That made it a really difficult environment to grow grass in.”

Otter Creek, a 27-hole facility that debuted its first 18 holes in mid-1960s as a gift from the Cummins Engine Co. to the city of Columbus, supports a variety of golfers, ranging from scratch players competing for state titles to beginners. Unfortunately, there were times in 2018 when nobody played the course. Otter Creek lost an equivalent of 15 full-play days from Memorial Day to Labor Day, according to Downs. Riders account for most of Otter Creek’s play and cart path only rules negatively affect business.

The course possesses six holes within a floodplain. The 11th hole lost a significant portion of its bentgrass/Poa annua fairway because of weather-related damage last season. Through the muck came one of Downs’ proudest moments, as his team needed just two months to reseed and revive the surface. “That took a lot of people, a lot of hard work and a lot of resources,” he says. “In a way, my biggest embarrassment, became our greatest accomplishment.”

Connecting with a loyal crew and frequent communication with his bosses, including using drone imagery to document the damage and recovery, helped Downs endure a brutal year.

Heritage Club Pawleys Island, S.C.

Avoiding disaster

Jim Huntoon contemplates aloud 15 minutes into an interview about his 2018 experiences maintaining a golf course in the crowded Myrtle Beach, S.C., market.

“We haven’t even talked about hurricanes,” he says.

After getting walloped by Hurricane Matthew in 2017, Heritage Club, where Huntoon has spent nine years as superintendent, dodged the crippling parts of Hurricane Florence. But that didn’t make 2018 a soothing year.

Snow and below-freezing temperatures closed the course for 10 days in January, unseasonably cool temperatures in March and April hampered spring business, and flooding of the Waccamaw River following Hurricane Florence created uneasiness in September. Seeing his crew and the club’s other departments work in harmony to prepare for a worst-case scenario that didn’t arrive following Florence enthused Huntoon.

“I’m happy we don’t have any natural disasters to pick up after,” he says. “We are getting a lot of stuff done this winter. I try to keep a positive outlook. This thing can beat you down so fast. If I didn’t truly love it, I wouldn’t do it.”

A two-decade veteran of the Grand Strand, Huntoon observed how changes in the region’s golf market are benefitting Heritage Club. Instead of relying on tourists to carry revenue burdens, steady year-round play allows quality facilities to recover from a disappointing March and April. Even in a cranky weather year like 2018, Heritage Club supported 60,000 rounds. Huntoon has adapted his agronomics to fit an evolving business model, bypassing overseeding bermudagrass surfaces and maintaining reasonable speeds on severely contoured greens.

“Myrtle Beach has changed a lot over the last 15 years,” he says. “It used to be that the spring and the fall were everything to business, catering to the package player and tourists. But so many people have moved down here, so wintertime has become more important and certainly summertime has really changed a lot because there’s a lot more business.”

Minot Country Club Minot, N.D.

All alone

Minot Country Club has one constant on its turf team: superintendent Chris Strange. In fact, he’s the North Dakota club’s only full-time agronomic employee.

Destroyed by a flood in 2011, the club unveiled a new course on a different site in 2015. Strange, who arrived in Minot, a North Dakota city on the periphery of the energy-rich Bakken Formation in 2013, worked alongside several different assistants until losing one to an Arizona club in 2017. The position remains vacant.

“We didn’t have a good candidate pool,” Strange says. “That was different from 2013 when we were building the course. When I had that job posted, the rest of the United States was going through a recession. We had a lot of applicants then and people were flocking to North Dakota for jobs. It was a different ballgame than last year.”

Minot CC’s labor situation might be as unforgiving as a hardened landscape where winter temperatures plummet to minus-40 degrees and summer readings soar past 100. Entry-level energy jobs advertise starting wages of $20 per hour and more. Strange prepared to spend another work winter alone as he awaits the annual spring arrival of workers obtained via the H-2B visa program. “They’re my only solution every year,” he says. “I’m always on pins and needles waiting to see if we get our visas.”

Golf is a seasonal game in Minot, with Strange working almost daily from mid-April until the end of the October before receiving a winter respite. Turf stress following a dry 2017 tested Strange in the early parts of the 2018 golf season. Once the crew arrived and conditions stabilized, the course continued to mature, allowing the club to satisfy a young membership that plays the bulk of its golf on weekday evenings. The recent drilling of a second irrigation well should help the club handle wild weather swings. “We will have a reliable water supply in 2019,” Strange says, “and that will be a game-changer.”

Haggin Oaks Sacramento, Calif.

California creativity

It takes more than an accessible and affordable course designed by a Golden Age juggernaut to make a municipal facility bustle these days.

Consider Haggin Oaks, a 36-hole City of Sacramento facility operated by Morton Golf Management. Alister MacKenzie designed one of the two courses, yet modern revenue-generating tactics include a golf expo, “Golf and Guitars” country music festival, FootGolf, and hosting major cross-country races.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on that they don’t teach you in turf school,” says Morton Golf director of agronomy Stacy Baker, who oversees the maintenance of the MacKenzie Course and Arcade Creek at Haggin Oaks. “You have to put your other hat on and think about it as a business and not just 18 greens.”

Baker leads a crew ranging from 18 to 22 workers during the peak summer season. Pulling workers away from agronomic tasks to help with event setup is a common – and accepted – practice. Haggin Oaks supplements its crew with volunteer labor, a sign of the facility’s value as a community asset.

The golf statistics are jarring: Haggin Oaks occupies 593 acres and its 42 greens cover more than 300,000 square feet. The two courses receive a combined 70,000 to 100,000 annual rounds depending on the weather and offering starting wages of $14 per hour yields few job candidates. Operating a crew of 18 in 2018 cost the same as a 24-person crew a few years ago because of California’s rapidly escalating wages, Baker says. To handle the increased workload, Baker has developed a versatile team.

“We don’t have titles here,” he says. “We don’t have an irrigation tech, we don’t have a spray tech, we don’t have three assistants. Besides myself and my equipment technician, nobody has a title. We all pitch in and we all can do most of the jobs.”

As the scope of Haggin Oaks evolves, the weather also changes. Smoke from the Northern California wildfires of 2018 reached the course, forcing employees to wear dust masks for multiple days. Despite the formal end of the most recent California drought, water remains a concern. “Whether it’s a drought, whether it’s El Niño, whether it’s smoke from fires … it just seems like every year you need to be prepared for some sort of weather event,” Baker says.

Jason Friedman mows so many tee boxes he could count them instead of sheep to fall asleep at night. There are 126 in all at Longleaf Golf and Family Club in Southern Pines, N.C. On the face of it, that sounds more like a nightmare for a golf course superintendent than the stuff of dreams. But Friedman has tweaked his operation to a point where the extra tee care is “effectively net neutral” from a maintenance perspective.

His facility is home to the Longleaf Tee System, a joint initiative of the American Society of Golf Course Architects and U.S. Kids Golf. In short, the system provides tees suited to a golfer’s driving distance so that long and short hitters are more likely to play the same club into a green. Colored markers on the driving range help players determine how far their drives carry and, therefore, which tees they should play.

The Longleaf system, with seven tees per hole, was one of the stars of a recent ASGCA Foundation symposium on “Forward Tees and Other High-ROI Ideas” in Pinehurst, N.C. Along with short courses, putting courses and courses with fewer holes, speakers reported that concepts like the Longleaf system are resonating with busier and younger golfers.

“I don’t have people coming into my office telling me they play here because we have tees better suited to their game,” Friedman says. “But in the pro shop, we are hearing that people are enjoying their time on the golf course and we can see that with increased rounds.”

Longleaf’s owner and instigator of tailoring tees for how far golfers hit the ball, Dan Van Horn, told the symposium that rounds increased 20 percent in the year the system was installed and another 17.5 percent this year. “We’re trying to revolutionize how kids are brought into the game,” he says. “Other sports scale their playing arena for kids.” The Longleaf system allowed those kids and their much longer-hitting dads to play the same course at the same time.

Kids may be the primary audience, but they’re not only ones attracted. “In our first year, 93 percent of rounds played by women were played on tees that did not exist on the golf course previously,” Van Horn says. “People are asking for scorecards at the end of their round because they want to take them back to their course and get the same thing introduced there.”

To keep his budget “net neutral” despite maintaining so many extra tees, Friedman made savings in two key areas. The first was in reducing heavily maintained acreage in out of play areas, about 10 acres in all that are now “sandy, natural” expanses planted in part with lovegrass, wiregrass and broomsedge. “We’re not just saving money and labor, these areas now provide a contrast and help highlight the golf course itself,” Friedman says.

He has also trimmed about eight acres of fairway mowing across the course. Many of the forward-most tees are simply rectangles mowed at tee height in what was formerly the start of fairways. Allowing the bermudagrass around them to grow to rough height, not only reduces mowing but helps distinguish the tees, which Friedman paints in winter.

It takes a total of 16 hours to mow every tee – eight yards wide by 10 yards long – twice weekly in the growing season. Friedman mows with triplex units in straight lines. He tried rounding the corners to save a little time and money, but found the inside wheel, even with no tread, was wearing and tearing the turf. “It was just too tight a turning radius so now we back up,” he says.

Scott Brown admits he “wasn’t too enthused” by the idea of installing new forward tees at Surf Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, S.C. He felt he had enough on his plate. In two years as superintendent at the club, Brown endured an ice storm, flood and greens renovation. Then, six days after reopening, Hurricane Matthew arrived, bringing a direct hit from a tornado.

“Someone’s got it in for me,” he told the symposium in Pinehurst. “Besides famine, I think I’ve got it covered!” But with significant areas on the nearly 60-year-old course opened up by resultant tree loss, the club engaged architect John LaFoy. “When he started talking about putting in forward tees, I wasn’t too enthused,” Brown says. “But I started looking at the demographics of our club.”

What he found was that just 2 percent of the membership was between the ages of 16 and 35, and about 80 percent of men were 65 years or older. “Maybe I was part of the problem,” Brown says. “They’d come to me saying they couldn’t get on the green in two on some holes, and I’d just tell them to find another tee box to play.”

You could say those aging men “saw red” at that suggestion, the red color of what they had always known as “ladies tees.” When LaFoy installed new forward tees, creating a new course option of about 4,000 yards Brown learned he could entice some of those male members forward if he painted the tee markers silver or, on some holes, a mix of half silver and half red.

“We now actually have eight different tees and combination tees to help put the fun of golf back into play,” he says. “We see kids out there now with their grandpas on same tee boxes enjoying themselves … This forward tee stuff is awesome. It’s been a real eye-opener for me.”

Trent Bouts is a golf writer and editor based in Greer, S.C., and a frequent GCI contributor.

#SBI18: Everybody’s different

Before reading any further, update your resume. Start brainstorming ideas for a 250-word essay describing why three days of business training will help you, your crew and your course.

Done yet? Chill. Time is your friend. Applications for the 2019 Syngenta Business Institute won’t open until the spring. Attendees of the previous 10 versions urge colleagues to devote tremendous effort, energy and enthusiasm into applying. Who can’t learn more about the most important shade of green at any golf operation?

When two-dozen superintendents gather at Graylyn, a throwback hotel and conference center owned and operated by Arnold Palmer’s alma mater later this year, the same part of the program will generate animated conversations like it did last month.

Topic: Leading across cultures & generations

Presenter: Amy Wallis

Get your ice cream – a bountiful SBI perk – ready.

Wallis is the organizational behavior expert who stands in front of the room and listens to supervisors reeling from a challenging year lament the work habits, attitudes and lifestyle choices of younger generations. To the surprise of some superintendents listening to Wallis, managing a golf course maintenance team isn’t much different than leading workers in other industries. Success hinges on motivating people hailing from diverse backgrounds.

Supervisors in all fields flop because they can’t connect with others who aren’t like them. Learning how to prevent managerial implosions takes longer than one continuing education class. “We’re not going to come to conclusions in a couple of hours,” Wallis says.

But quality discussions spark engagement and this one had plenty, with superintendents revealing the makeup of their respective crews during the culture portion of Wallis’s presentation and their bewilderment with millennials in the generational part. Don’t know what bewilderment means? Your phone will tell you. Phones, expectedly, crept into the generational conversation and superintendents are as split on their role in the workplace as they are on robotics and other technology-themed topics.

The American workforce, Wallis says, has shifted from an industrial economy to a service economy to a knowledge economy. Golf course maintenance touches all three segments, expanding the potential for workforce diversity. Some employees enjoy physically producing a daily product such as a well-conditioned course; satisfying members and guests motivates other employees. Data and design might attract another segment of employees, making a golf facility part of the knowledge economy. Imagine an automaker placing the assembly line, dealership and corporate offices on the same plot.

Understanding the differences between cultures and generations takes years of unwavering practice, and the process involves a tenuous start. “Unless proven otherwise, we assume everyone is like us,” Wallis says. The slides, words and activities Wallis crafts for her SBI presentation nudge superintendents toward considering a customized form of management. Different cultures and generations possess distinct values and motivations. Handling a 19-year-old who wants a summer job on a golf course because it fits an outdoorsy lifestyle like somebody striving for a superintendent job at an elite club is a modern managerial blunder. And good luck fielding a crew if you force employees to work every weekend and holiday.

Superintendents needed their employees more in a challenging 2018 than most of their employees needed a golf course maintenance job. Historically low unemployment rates and soaring wages mean hourly workers should have incredible leverage and options again in 2019.

Agronomy degrees are more plentiful than psychology degrees in the turf business. But people are changing faster than turfgrass varieties or irrigation practices, and higher cultural and generational learning must be incorporated into any continuing education strategy. “When you chose this career path, you probably didn’t know how much you’d be managing different generations and cultures,” Wallis says at the beginning of the session.

Enter the business for the turf or the sport. Establish longevity because of the different people you will lead.

Now about Arnold Palmer’s alma mater and Wallis’s place of employment …

Wake Forest is an enchanting place to learn for three days, even if the school doesn’t sit in the same location as it did during Palmer’s college days. Get a customized essay ready.

Guy Cipriano is GCI’s senior editor.

Tartan Talks No. 30

Harder assignment: Designing a golf course or writing a book?

“Designing a golf course is far easier than writing a book,” Dr. Michael Hurdzan says. “And writing a book is far easier than finding things to illustrate the point that you are making.”

Hurdzan wrote enough words and found the proper images to recently release, “Golf and Law,” the seventh book in a storied design, writing and speaking career. The book examines golf course safety, security and risk management, a trio of topics Hurdzan discusses with tremendous zest in a Tartan Talks podcast.

“Safety, security and risk management on golf courses is something that’s not taught in any turf program,” Hurdzan says. “It’s something that you have to be mentored in, or something you have to want to study and learn.”

Hurdzan collaborated with friend and Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten, a former trial attorney, on the book. Besides describing the impetus for the book, Hurdzan offers suggestions in the podcast for superintendents and other managers looking to create or bolster safety programs. Enter https://goo.gl/veYSr5 into your web browser to hear Hurdzan’s ideas.

Social media superstars

Sun. Sand. Coastal serenity. And social media.

The industry’s brightest indoor show returns to San Diego as GCI and Aquatrols will present the eighth annual Super Social Media Awards at the 2019 Golf Industry Show.

The awards recognize individuals and organizations who do the best job of using social media to communicate about their programs, practices and industry at large. Winners will be honored during #GCITweetUp19 at 3 p.m. PDT Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019 at Aquatrols both #3845 inside the San Diego Convention Center. The celebration begins at 2 p.m. with a happy hour and live music in the expanded booth. Use #GCITweetUp19 to follow live coverage of the event.

And the winners are …

Kaminski Award

Jason Haines, Pender Harbour Golf Club, Pender Harbour, British Columbia

Best Overall Use of Social Media

Craig Boath, Carnoustie Golf Links, Carnoustie, Scotland

Jessica Lenihan, Hayden Lake Country Club, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Best Twitter Feed

Paul Van Buren, Kanawha Club, Manakin-Sabot, Va.

Scott Ramsay, The Course at Yale, New Haven, Conn.

Best Blog

Tyler Bloom, Sparrows Point Country Club, Baltimore, Md.

Kevin Komer, Stowe Mountain Resort, Stowe, Vt.

Best Use of Video

Ontario GCSA

“Today in Ontario”

Conservation Award

Matthew Gourlay, Colbert Hills, Manhattan, Kan.

Tee Maker Ventilation

The five sets of decorative aluminum tee markers at the Westlake Golf and Country Club in Jackson, N.J., are moved daily throughout the season. Black, blue, white, yellow and red colors are used. There are two spare sets for each color. They are manufactured by National Golf Graphics and cost approximately $77 each. Anthony Johnson, superintendent, noticed there was quite a bit of heat generated onto the turf causing a yellow appearance even when they are moved daily. Johnson had his staff drill one ½-inch diameter hole in each one using a titanium drill bit. He estimated the tee markers generated about a 20-degree cooler temperature after the holes were drilled, thus they did not yellow the turf even when moved less frequently. It took about two days on and off labor time using one drill. The labor was completed during the winter off-season when the course was closed.

Recycled pallet

A North America standard size 48 inch by 40 inch by 6 inch used wooden pallet is conveniently storing a new Lely L1250 three-point hitch PTO operated fertilizer spreader, which has a capacity of up to 930 pounds. Four Shepard rubber swivel casters were installed at all four corners at $15 each in about 10 minutes labor time. The used wooden pallet was left at the club from a recent delivery. The fertilizer spreader is moved with ease when storing and when mounting and dismounting from the tractor. Jesse Metcalf, superintendent, and Doug Meir, equipment manager, makeup the creative team at the Bonita National Golf Club in Bonita Springs, Fla.

Without any begging or bribing, Carlos Arraya sent us an article. Carlos is the talented, engaging and enthusiastic director of agronomy and grounds at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis. You might have seen Carlos a few times in 2018.

His team hosted a PGA Championship won by Brooks Koepka and invigorated by Tiger Woods, navigating Transition Zone booby traps and creating a canvas for a pulsating tournament. By keeping turf alive in a year when environmental factors suggested it should die, the Bellerive team boosted civic, club and industry pride.

Carlos made himself visible and accessible before and during the championship. He chatted turf, but he preferred discussing culture, leadership and people. The tournament ended with Tiger awkwardly hugging Koepka’s model girlfriend following the final putt. Since that made for social media moment, Carlos has further used the spotlight hosting a major championship provides to positively shape the industry.

His desire to reach a wide audience convinced him to send us an article about his biggest work passion: managing people (page 34). We immediately threw more work on Carlos and he responded with a sidebar about Bellerive University, an internal program designed to enlighten and empower club employees.

We love Carlos for thinking of us and we’re hoping more superintendents, assistant superintendents, equipment technicians, crew members, researchers, architects, builders, owners and general managers use Golf Course Industry as a platform to reach their peers in 2019. You don’t need a major championship pedigree to write for us. You simply need to put your ideas in writing and email them to gcipriano@gie.net. And don’t just save them for our annual Turfheads Take Over issue in December. We love unexpected gifts in the other 11 months. Don’t feel restricted by topic or length. This magazine is about you and your peers, so we’ll work with you to find the proper print or digital avenue to tell your story.

The second part of our holiday exacta arrived two days after Carlos clicked send: We received the first of what will be dozens of columns from Matthew Wharton.

While our quest for professional utopia isn’t as weather dependent as yours, we are always seeking to elevate our product. Sometimes that quest drives us a bit zany. Sound familiar? Our assessment led us to a weakness. The industry’s best columnist lineup lacked a current superintendent.

Thousands of turflicious people exist, yet we conducted a quick and decisive search to find our newest columnist. We offered the gig to Matthew, the superintendent at Carolina Golf Club in Charlotte, N.C. He accepted the offer less than an hour later.

If you have read Matthew’s contributions to our past three Turfheads Take Over issues, his blog entries and tweets, you understand why he’s now formally part of our team. His knowledge, dedication and passion, and folksy writing style, resonate with turf managers at facilities of all levels. We’re calling his column “America’s Greenkeeper,” a play on his fabulous blog, “The Greenkeeper.” The title foreshadows the relatable columns Matthew plans on producing.

His debut column (page 56) will spark conversations about decorum and generational differences. Managing different generations perplexes superintendents everywhere. Data from our annual State of the Industry survey (page 15) proves people are causing superintendents more angst than disease, finances or awful weather.

At least one of Matthew’s colleagues feels he’s conquered generational divides. Fortunately, he reveals his secret on these pages.