| The annals of the American marriage – and divorce for that matter – are riddled with dark, shadowy passages where a man’s love for his wife is tested by his love of golf. Most husbands with a set of clubs in the garage know only too well that a “Honey do” list presented of a Friday evening is an implicit “Honey don’t” when it comes to golf on the weekend. But with tee-times and buddies begging, the tension between opposing forces is not always easily resolved. Reconcile that reality then with the dream experience enjoyed recently by the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Association’s new golf champion, David Noto. It wasn’t just that Noto’s wife, Jennifer, agreed to let him play golf two days in a row. It was that she let him do it on their honeymoon or, more accurately, for their honeymoon. Noto, superintendent at Mossy Creek Golf Course in Cleveland, GA, proposed to his sweetheart on her birthday this past New Year’s Eve. She accepted and they set a date. All was well in his world until Noto received a package promoting the Georgia GCSA’s summer conference and golf championship. A talented college golfer at Central Alabama and Georgia Southern, Noto had played only sparingly since arriving at Mossy Creek in 2008. But after two years of solid grind to get the golf course where he thought it should be, he allowed himself - even quietly vowed to himself - that he was going to play more golf this year. The Georgia GCSA championship was one event he dearly wanted to contest. His appetite had been whetted in part by victory alongside Lanier Dudley, from Field and Fairway Unlimited, in the association’s annual superintendent-vendor tournament in the fall. But when he checked the championship dates on his calendar his heart – all a flutter since New Year’s Eve – suddenly skipped a beat. His wedding was set in stone for a Saturday with the golf championship starting the very next day, a six-hour drive away. “I thought about it,” Noto recalls. “We had planned to take a weekend away for our honeymoon after the summer, so I asked her what she thought about making the conference and golf weekend the honeymoon instead. She said, ‘Yes,’ so I said, ‘Alright! I’m definitely marrying you!’” Thus, Noto, 43, and Jennifer became Mr. and Mrs. on schedule then jumped in the car for the 400-mile drive to Jekyll Island. They opened cards and wedding gifts along the way eventually checking into their hotel around 2am. Soon they were “on the road” again, this time Jennifer driving Noto’s golf cart as his unofficial caddy. He shot a three-under par round of 69 on the Indian Mounds course at Jekyll Island Golf Resort to be the clubhouse leader overnight. The next day he bogeyed his last two holes for a 76 on The Retreat Course at the Sea Island Golf Club – maybe fatigue was setting in – but his two-round total of 145 was still three strokes better than anyone else and the championship was his … or theirs, really. “Jennifer had told me, ‘You better win.’ So it was pretty exciting to pull it off,” Noto says. “We had a great weekend. I can’t imagine anything better than marrying the woman you love and then winning a golf tournament.” For the record, it wasn’t all just golf. Given the circumstances, Georgia GCSA administrators waived their requirement that tournament golfers participate in conference activities and education as well. So the Notos “rode bikes all over the island” and wandered through gift shops when they weren’t on the course. They also enjoyed a classic open-air Lowcountry boil on the hotel’s riverfront lawns, which, in the dim light and ocean breeze, might have qualified as romantic except for the fact they were dining in the midst of nearly 100 golf course superintendents. Still, two months later, Noto remembers those 72 hours as something pretty special and he thinks of his wife in the same light. “We couldn’t be happier,” he says. In the dead of summer, it helps that the bentgrass on his 50-year-old push-up greens is equally cheery and full of pep. “When I got here eight greens were basically gone,” he says. “They were just burned up, riddled with a variety of diseases but mainly brown root rot and pythium from too much water the summer before.” When Noto tried to run an aerifier over one of the greens the top layer of turf, which turned out to be mainly decayed plant matter, simply crumbled and broke right off. So he stripped the top from each of the problematic greens and replanted, toiling to present playable temporary greens in the meantime. The course reopened in December, 2008 but it wasn’t until this summer that Noto felt he could be anywhere else but the golf course. “The greens were wilting a lot in their first two summers but they have gotten a lot deeper this summer,” he says. To get them there, Noto concentrated less on nitrogen and more on potassium and potash. He may not be pulling as much grass off the greens when he mows but the surface is considerably healthier and more resilient than before. “My nemesis now is goosegrass on the fairways,” he says. He instituted a heavier pre-emergence schedule and has made progress but three years later, “I’m still spraying goosegrass,” he says. “It’s such a nasty grass.” While the goosegrass remains a hurdle, Noto’s next major golf challenge looks like being the Georgia State Mid-Amateur Championship. Symbolic of the strong relationship shared between the Georgia GCSA and the Georgia State Golf Association, the latter grants an automatic exemption to the Mid-Am for the champion superintendent golfer. Ironically though, there’s a chance Noto might face yet another tough moment when next year’s golfing calendar is set. The Mid-Am, like the Georgia GCSA championship, is generally played in May and right now there’s no guarantee they won’t clash. That would make for a tough choice, although Noto “would love to be able to defend the superintendents championship.” Maybe his wife will have something to say about it, should the need arise. She seems to have plenty of faith in her husband’s game and knows what she wants. Truth be told, her confidence probably exceeds Noto’s own. “I’ve tried explaining to her that shooting a 65 at Mossy Creek is not the same thing as at a lot of other places,” he says. “We’re a pretty short course, only 6,200 yards and obviously I know my way around it pretty well by now. But she still expected me to win (the superintendent championship). I think that’s why she was prepared to go on that trip for our honeymoon. That’s what she wanted.” Now there’s a “Honey do” any golfer would be delighted to take care of. Postscript I: Noto actually added another memorable moment to his diary from 2011 during an interview for this story. When GCI called he was on the golf course at Mossy Creek during the weekly Wednesday dogfight. “It’s okay,” he said, when asked if it would be better to call back later. “The group in front is a bit slow so I’ve got some time.” Eventually, his group was able to move to the next tee where his voice dropped to a whisper while a playing partner teed off. Then came a burst of shouting and cheering – including from Noto himself – as everyone watched the ball take a bounce or two then roll smoothly into the cup for an ace on 150-yard ninth hole. “Oh, my gosh! Butch just holed out,” Noto yelled. “Great shot, dude!” He called back several hours later to finish the interview. Postscript II: If the calendar cooperates and Noto can play in the state Mid-Amateur next year he might encounter Jerry Witt, turf equipment technician at Towne Lake Hills Golf Club in Woodstock. Witt finished a very respectable 40th in this year’s Mid-Am after setting out with the primary goal of simply qualifying. He achieved that mark comfortably with rounds of 72 and 78 to make the cut with seven strokes to spare and tied for 19th. |