I had the rare experience of being able to watch golf over Mothers Day weekend. The Players is not my favorite event for two reasons. One the golf course is quirky and two for me it is to golf what Arena Football is to real football-a total "air game"

 

I guess I am old-fashioned and like to see more football and golf played closer to the ground. The spectacle of flying the ball high in the air and the drama of seeing plunk off a retaining wall and land in the water. I bet when Pete Dye drew up the Island Green he imagined a whiney pro plunk it in the drink twice!

 

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You can be a lousy golfer and still play well on soft, green courses. Firm and fast conditions that generally require less fertilizer and less water to produce is too challenging for the average US-trained golfer.

 

The PGA Tour specializes in Arena Golf. I believe Arena Golf takes the golf industry in a direction away from being more sustainable. In fact, I feel that in many ways Augusta is more sustainable then Arena courses such as Sawgrass.

 

When the ball flies high in the air it assumes it will have a soft landing. For the landing to be soft you need lots of biomass (more fertilizer) and plenty of water, not just for color, but to forgive a crappy shot. Of course the Tour players can adjust and hit high (unless there is some wind), for the average golfer a soft green course is all that prevents them from shooting 125!

 

Here is my theory. The challenge we have to become a more sustainable industry involves the way courses play as much as how they look. Instead of saying brown is the new green we should be saying get low-play a ground game.

 

The new mantra should be Its not how it looks it is how it plays.

 

You can be a lousy golfer and still play well on soft, green courses. Firm and fast conditions that generally require less fertilizer and less water to produce is too challenging for the average US-trained golfer.

 

I believe that if we would be permitted to allow the course to become firm and dry the entire industry would change. Beyond just the change in maintenance is the potential to have the equipment industry design clubs for the ground game. Sell new balls for play closer to the ground. A golf industry financial bubble!

 

 

I think The Players creates more challenges for golf than any other major championship because the Tour has truly mastered the art of golf as a spectacle. It is this spectacle that keeps the focus on green and soft. It is the air game the Tour players can make the same swing arc, have the same finishing pose and provide the perfect suspense for the TV audience.

 

It seems to me we need to develop an industry-wide strategy to distract golfers from seeing green and soft to wanting firm and fast. The new mantra should be Its not how it looks it is how it plays. The US Open at Chambers Bay and seeing how Chris Tritabaugh is beginning to transform Hazeltine is giving me hope golfers can be distracted for the good of the game. Maybe we can get Tiger to reach for a club!

Low and slow is an excellent strategy for cooking meats that need time to tenderize. I'm sure the Maestro has a good recipe to insert here. Low and slow also describes the season we have had to date with low temperatures that are keeping the bentgrass from pushing along and slow describes the speed we see on the putting surfaces.

 

It may not be exactly what the the golfers want this Spring, especially if we did some coring and greens are bumpy AND slow (see figure). But just like preparing the meat that gets better with time, our putting surfaces will benefit from the slow Spring unless we "RAISE the temp" and start pushing them too hard too early.

 

The Spring is the time to use environmental conditions, especially low soil moisture, to manipulate plant growth and precondition for summer stress periods. Allowing some drought stress, going easy on the N, and minimizing other forms of disturbance such as vertical mowing and coring will help select for perennial plants more able to deal with the season ahead. The challenge with using stress is always how much is too much?

 

Allowing some drought stress, going easy on the N, and minimizing other forms of disturbance such as vertical mowing and coring will help select for perennial plants more able to deal with the season ahead.

Last season with the dry Spring many allowed the greens to dry at the surface knowing moisture was present deeper in the profile. Of course grasses that are deeper rooted will benefit from this approach. But if you have had any catastrophic loss in the last few years and annual bluegrass has recolonized the surface, rooting will be shallow and stress tolerance low. Many let it get too dry and the "anthracnose treadmill" begins. Use your soil moisture meter and dial in the numbers.

 

Spring management is about starting the conversation with golfers about YOUR goals for the season. Explain the slow start, that is if you are using it to prevent having to "RAISE the temp", in terms of season long goals. Talk about the golf calendar and how not pushing the surface now will insure greater success later. Just like in cooking "low and slow" prepares you for a great season!

 

Anyone who has been in the golf business for more than a few years knows the excitement about Masters Week. This marks the beginning of the golf season for many in spirit. For many superintendents it is also the beginning of the whining season.

 

It is not just the golfers who whine about the massive difference between Augusta National and their course, but many superintendents will lament that this week is the root of all the complaints they receive. It is such an important aspect of our lives in golf turf, we have name for it: The Augusta Syndrome.

 

Stop whining and start talking.

 

The golf turf industry has what we call in the education business a 'teachable moment'. Typically these are moments of great joy or great sadness, but often they present opportunities to "move" people from one point of view to another. I can tell you with great certainty that the Augusta Syndrome is among the most important teachable moments of the year.

I can tell you with great certainty that the Augusta Syndrome is among the most important teachable moments of the year...

Golfers are getting geared up. A survey from Golf Datatech found that 40 percent of all the club sales occur in the next three months starting now. In fact, more than 50 percent of those sales come from my beloved Northeast. Now is the time to talk to them or in other words "sell them" on the idea of why providing Augusta-like conditions on our course, even for one week is not sustainable. "Sell them" on the idea that if they do want those conditions, here is what it takes financially in labor and resources.

 

I love the Masters. It is appointment TV for me over the next few days. It is time we as an industry embrace Augusta not that we think everyplace should be like that, but that for one week, one place can be. Marvel at the technology we all know goes behind it and I believe we should speak of it unabashedly. Stop whining and start talking, there are no victims of the Augusta Syndrome, only volunteers.

What a difference a year makes across most of the US this Spring. Last year two-thirds of the continental US had already set at least three to as many five daily high temperature records. Some had even made their second app of annual bluegrass seedhead suppression. Obviously management by the calendar is not way to operate-we must pay attention if want precision.
 
Growing degree days (GDD) as a measure of heat accumulation is an easy way to add precision to your management. In simple terms, establishing a "base-temperature" when biological activity commences, often 50F or 32F (0C), then monitoring the average temperature. Subtracting the average temperature from the base temperature provides a measure of biological activity. These numbers accumulate and over the last few years we are experiencing 15 to 20 percent more heat than normal (10 year average).
 
It's not like plants see the sun in the morning, turn to their desktop calendar and think, "Oh, it's April 15th, I better send out this tiller today." Or if an insect, "Ah, March 22nd, time to emerge from leaf litter and begin my trek to the fairway." Rather they respond to heat that partially drives their development and could provide insight into improving our management precision.
 
We use this strategy for pests with some success, mostly because we lack a concerted effort by our research community to study this more closely for other aspects of management. This type of research or "modeling" can be tedious and often requires regional and national validation to be adopted. But there is another way to use this data. Why can't we use it to apply all our foliarly active compounds? Why does everything seem to work on 7, 14 or 21 day intervals?
 

Bill Kreuser, a Ph.D. candidate here at Cornell and former MS student at UW-Madison under Professor Doug Soldat, developed a growing degree day model for reapplication of Trinexepac (Primo). Bill's approach was based on the degradation of Primo in the plant that was identified by Professor Bruce Branham at University of Illinois. Applying Primo every 200 base 0C growing degree days maintains growth suppression and helps minimize the "rebound" effect observed with many PGR's.
 
Why can't we use this approach for all our pesticide and fertilizer applications? We know half-lives of these products from the manufacturer, or nutrient release patterns from fertilizer companies. We also can match this data with pest pressure from predictive models for disease and insects.
 
Who decided that the 7 and 21 day interval is the best strategy-or is it just because it is easier?
 
The golf turf industry needs to be utilizing technology to monitor biological activity. Growing degree days, predictive models, or phenological indicators such as plant bloom should all be factored into our decision-making. When you are making applications don't just note the date, note the amount of GDD and the amount of heat accumulated between the applications.
 
The crazy weather can be made sense of if we "normalize" it based on temperature. If biological organisms and specifically our turf plants respond to heat why are we applying on a calendar? We better pay attention.

I posted a blog entry after the 2012 Barclays held on the Black Course at the Bethpage State Park and mentioned "set-up man extraordinaire" Rich Roble. Rich passed away on Friday after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

 

I'd known Rich for almost 15 years as a member of the Bethpage State Park staff. I can say with certainty he was the grumpiest perfectionist with the biggest heart I'd ever known. Rich was a native Long Islander born and raised around golf. He started as a really good player then a professional caddy from Califiornia to Florida and back to New York. He was a "golf guy".

 

One thing about a guy raised between the starter shed and the caddyshack is he knew the game. He could wax poetically about a shot hit by an amateur in the 1988 LI Open on the 6th hole of Garden City. And now he seemed to revel in coming to understand the agronomic side of golf. The best golf guys are those that have an appreciation for the game and the ground. Rich had it.

 

By the time I got to know Rich he was being groomed by Craig Currier as the set-up man for the Black Course. I assumed Rich was drawn to set-up mostly because he was a meticulous and methodical technician, but it could have been that he preferred to work alone. Nobody could cut a cup and set a plug like Rich. To say Rich took pride in it would be an understatement. For Rich it was an obsession.

 

I learned about Rich's approach to cup setting during the 2002, 2009 US Opens and 2012 Barclays where I was assigned as his partner. This was a lesson in patience for me. Rich was the only guy I could hang around with who'd make ME look calm. He was a character in every sense of the word. He made his own tools, had his own system for flags, cups, and all the rags! A clear carry-over from his days as a caddy.

 

Rich served in Vietnam during wartime. Like many of his generation it seemed to have had a profound influence on his life, not always in the most positive ways. In fact it I think it is fair to say he had his share of demons. I know many Veterans and I am filled with respect for their experience of the most difficult human endeavor: war.

 

Rich is gone now in body, but his spirit as the consummate "golf guy" lives on.