38 Putts

Beautiful, simply beautiful.

Without a doubt the golf course is in the best condition we have seen in many years. The redesign elements have taken hold and are blending in, the greens firm and hard, tees full and lush. That means it must be time for "Stupid Season". That time of year when all members become golf course architects and or green keepers. The brilliance will shine through with ideas like, let's plant some flowers around the tee boxes or water coolers or what ever. Oh even better let's build a fountain in the pond on 17 ! Yeah the golf course is in such good shape that the green keeper must have extra time. Yeah, that's it a fountain. Arrrrgh !!!

Why are all the trees dieing ?

Well let's start with they are not dieing ! Geeez, I went to the club the oter day to get in a little range work. When I got out of the car I was greete with "What's up with all the trees, why are they dieing ? There's a least 10 on the course that are in serious trouble ! " Normally these kinds of comments come along and as a member of the green's committee you you just deal with them with out whining but in this case i want to scream because I did not get a hello, or any form of how do you do just bang BLAH BLAH BLAH !!! Well the truth is we have had a very mild spring and many plants and trees a 2-3 weeks ahead of their normal growth stage while others are not. So the fact that we have trees without leaves (only buds !) was this members major concern. As I write this I'm realizing that's pretty good actually. Last week in April the course is in such could shape that the major consider is some slower filling trees. Hmmm, not bad.

The budget was passed !

After 3 months of haggling with the board the greens budget has been approved. As a member of the greens committee I guess I am supposed to be thrilled. As a member of the club my stomach sunk as there is no way on earth we can cover this budget with the membership we presently have. Before I even had a chance to voice this minor point I was told that the member ship committee as a huge membership drive planned and they expect to attract a large number of new members. Hmmm, clubs are losing members all around the country. Other golf clubs in our region are also launching huge membership drives with both TV and Radio ads with moderate success at best. Part of me can't wait to see how this magic trick plays out.

They can't cut our budget ! Can they ?

It's freezing cold, 25 mph winds and a light snow cover must be green committee budget time. The 2009 golf season gave our club some of the best playing conditions we have had in a long time. The green keeper and his staff took full advantage of what the weather gave us and from spring to fall for the most part gave our members a top notch golf course. This being the case you can imagine how confident the chair and green keeper were when they sat down to present us with their 2010 budget proposal. It reflected an overall increase of about 12% with a few line items reaching 20% increases.

Being the senior member of the committeee I have sat in on many of these meetings and had done a little homework before hand. My discussion with a member of the membership committee  revealed an abnormally high "membership status change rate" that would result in some "disappointing"  budget cuts. A little probing and some quick math a 14% decrease in funds showed its ugly head. So I knew at first glance the green budget will be shredded by the finance guys who will not even look at line items before handing it back with a somber "cut it".

A number of years ago we went through a similar situation that turned really foul and ended up taking a number of years to right itself. Remembering it all to well as I was chair at the time I advised the chair and the green keeper to prepare for a 20% cut to their proposed budget. (Talk about being the skunk at a garden party.) This of course was greeted with we can't which was in turned followed by a chorus of "the golf course is to important" and "and after all the improvements we've made they are going to just let them go" to the newest member of the committee huffing "They can't cut our budget ! "

After sitting and half listening for awhile the skunk had to raise his tail and with a "They can, and they Will." Then addressing the green keeper advised him to have a detailed forecast as to what and how conditions are going to change. For example will the budget cut result in 2 days a week of bunker work instead of 5, or 2 days rough mowing instead of 4. Are there areas on the course that can be let go completely like the surrounds of th #15 tee or the front of # 3 tee, perhaps it will be less flowers, or mowing the range one height instead of cutting the target greens "shorter". How about narrowing the fairways but a cut ? Maybe using last years tee markers, cup liners and flags ? Less hand trimming ?

As expected this was greeted with  "I can't determine in advance what I won't be able to do ! ". Yet when proposing the increased budget he was able to determine what he was going to do. My silence must have communicated what I was thinking because the chair stepped in and said. "It will limit the number of head aches if we present it up front so let's ID the areas we can cut, they prioritize them as a committee so we are ready for the board."

Then almost in a whisper "They can't cut our budget, can they ?"

Let's bury our heads in the sand

Budget time again, That time of year when me make the green keeper dance to a different tune, you know the one. Where we tell him what a great job he did, tell him that we'd like to see improvements here, here and there. Don't worry about the money, that is the boards problem etc etc. This year as budget season approached the green keeper brought up the cost on maintaining our bunkers and the fact that they now cost more to maintain then our greens. What made this a little more interesting then normal is that is the area that we received the most negative feedback on. "The sand was not consistent" "No one is raking the traps" "These bunkers should be better groomed" (once per day is not enough ?) Anyway after hearing him out it was suggested to the chair that we bring up this cost factor at the annual meeting and let the members know in dollars and cents what they are asking for and listen to there feedback. Well the annual meeting has come and gone. Not only was the cost of maintaining our sand bunkers ignored but the bunkers were never brought up at all.

Why aren't we overseeding again ?

Five years ago our previous green keeper began an annual bent grass overseeding program involving our fairways and tees. When we hired our new green keeper one of the things he emphasized was that this program was a waist of money and not necessary.

Fast forward 9 months and our golf course takes a terrible beating from summer path. (See earlier post)  I have the chance to play a golf course in a nearby town. I bring up to the chair that they did not have any signs of summer patch. He in turn brings the info to the new green keeper he replies  that he knows the green keeper there and the lack of summer patch is because they have all bent grass. Now I forget, why aren't we overseeding with bent again ?

This can never happen again !

Summer patch, a fungus that can and does appear seemingly out of no where has attacked 3 of our tees ! After a summer of perfect growing and playing conditions we ran into our first steamy stretch of weather and try as he might our green keeper missed one, and the three tees we have that sit tucked in the woods at the edge of the marsh, and a dreadful lack of circulation were struck by summer patch. Needless to say the insanity that had been lurking, just looking for a spot to show its ugly head is having a field day. Rumors have been flying fast and furious, most with not a thread of truth. "It was sabotage you know, the feritlizer guy put down the wrong mix. " "The new green keeper clearly doesn't know what he is doing, why he didn't even see this coming" and on and on it goes.

Anyway the first thing I did and try to do when we have encountered a situation like this is learn something about what is being talked about. (And Google makes this quite easy.) So the 1st thing this morning I did a search on "summer patch" and right at the top of the results was a page from Cornell.edu ( A fairly good authority don't you think.)

"It can be difficult to diagnose this disease by symptoms alone in the early stages. The disease begins as scattered small round patches of thin, wilted or slow growing turf. Initially, affected patches may be only 3-8 cm in diameter..."

".....microscopic examination is often necessary to determine the cause of the problem."

"In the cool weather of autumn, the grass may begin to grow into these dead areas again. The disease, however, is likely to reappear in previously affected areas the following summer, and to increase in intensity. "

Ok so these are the highlights from Cornell's summer patch article.
1) It is hard to detect
2) The grass will grow again given time and cooler temps 
3) Some preventive action should be taken next summer with particular attention paid to this season's effected areas.

Life goes on right ? WRONG ! We must beat this to death ! Every committee member must express his outrage at such a thing happening on our watch ! "This is an embarassment to our club !" "You can only feel shame ! " "We are the only club suffering from this !"  (Oh really this from the USGA dated 9/1/2009 "Most of the damage seems to be a result of the aeration and clean-up practices, and from the heavy rains that followed, but summer patch also was involved at some locations.") and of course my all time favorite, the one that let's may know that insanity has once again taken over

 "This can never happen again !" yeah right.

We've had an almost perfect growing season.....

"We've had an almost perfect growing season.....", these are the first words uttered by our green keeper at the last committee meeting and I hate to say it but I think he is about to regret them. Although all went well at the meeting you can start to hear some undertones now."If the growing season is so perfect then why the troubles on 17 tee, or 15 tee or # 3 green or # 10 green." "Have you noticed the clover in the 1st fairway, the 1st of all places." "I understand he had the green speeds at 11.5 for he city open, why are they never that fast for the members." Off hand I'd say it's tap dancing time for the committee.

Superb playing conditions, insanity lurks.

Mother nature has provided perfect grass growing conditions and our new greens keeper has taken full advantage of them with fast and firm greens, fairways that invite bare feet, manicured tee boxes and groomed bunkers you hate to step in. So why is insanity lurking about ? Simple really, we have no ready made excuses for those "horrid little shots" we hit.

Green Keeper pulls off miracle, members demand another !

Much to my surprise the golf course was in impeccable conditon for our tournament this past weekend. Tees smooth, lush and fresh. Fairways frim and fast. And the greens smooth and quick. After my last post it was like walking into the twilight zone as I walked around some of our greens. No holes, limited burn spots and small patches of near perfect sod. All through out the tournament the green committee heard praise for the conditioning and the green keeper who just last week had recieved a vote of no confidence from a very senior committee member who prior to the tournament was both shocked and dismayed at the condtion of the 15th and 16th greens as well as the committee for "tolerating such lack of effort" on the green keeper's part. When I approached the committe member on Sunday his only reply was " it should be like this everyday" and the chant began as one after another amatuer argronomist stepped forward with the same or familiar demand.

With this in mind I arrived at the green keeper's barn early Monday and as I was expecting I found our new green keeper in a mild state of shock. You see the, the week prior to the tournament he personally put in about 70 hours and had an additional 120 staff hours as well. And now attached to each compliment was the "everyday" demand. The truth betold even if the board provided the extra funding (LOL) our course with its 18 postage stamp greens simply could not with  stand the stress.