The practice of yoga has always fascinated me. The breath work, the mind/body connection, and the way it can absolutely destroy you without you leaving your mat. Yoga has had a profound effect on my body and my well being.
A key yoga lesson which has stayed with me over the years is that of support. A wise teacher once explained that when doing a pose, the primary source of strength doesn’t always come from the main body part you would assume it would. Instead, much of the strength and sta
Last week, a bizarre thought entered my head and I bought my first pair of golf shoes since 1979. Claire dismissed it as a post-midlife crisis and at least two of my extra personalities cried “Foul!” . . . but I did it anyway. I have played for decades without spikes. (Not really played serious golf, just hacked around, not slow and not fast, just sorta half-fast.)
I nurture an intense dislike for 8mm steel, as well as the modern plasticized ceramic Mad Max spikes. The steel, notorious
I don't like "Birthday Parties".
I like going to them for other people, but I don't like them when they are for me. It has always seemed like a waste of time to celebrate my getting older. Kind of like celebrating something that will happen no matter what, like Wind or Grocery Bagging. Not special.
But this year, for my 53rd, I decided to put out a note to a random bunch of people from different walks in my world and tell them where I would be from what time to what time and tell them
We conducted small sample Clippings Volume research to determine if weighing, measuring and tasting clippings actually helps with calculating nutrient application rates.
You'll be shocked at our findings.
Let's talk about cutting cups.
During The Players' Championship, I discovered even more how much I love and hate Twitter. A tweet from the PGA Tour showed a close up of the edges of a freshly cut cup being scissor trimmed. And a discussion erupted. I was honestly shocked. Because somehow, the notion of a perfectly prepared cup edge was lumped into the idea of tournament golf taking things too far in the way of conditioning. It was compared to all kinds of things that aren't usually done on
Bowing to pressure from a couple of rabid fans of the novel, "The Greens of Wrath", here's an excerpt. For those unfamiliar with the work, all I can say is, "It's not Caddyshack".
Dynamite Whups My . . . Posterior
(Burnt Run CC 1971)
The explosions were blamed on me, even though it was Dwight, Dad’s youngest brother, who produced the dynamite. It was a cold day in March, the folks were down in Florida where Dad was playing a tournament and Momma had gone with him. It wasn
Let’s talk Agronomic Bravery
brave /brāv/ adjective 1. ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. "a brave soldier"
synonyms: courageous, plucky, fearless, valiant, valorous, intrepid, heroic, lionhearted, manful, macho, bold, daring, daredevil, adventurous, audacious, death-or-glory.
verb 1. endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behavior) without showing fear. "we had to brave the full heat of the sun"
synonyms: endure, put up with, bear, withstand, weath
Most people will recognize the title of this blog as a cornerstone approach to pursuing sustainability. Reduce, reuse, or recycle represents three different approaches for resource management that if instituted wisely diminish resource consumption in an operation or household. In my experience, recycle is the step that seems to get the most attention and is also practiced (considered) more frequently than the other practices. But these “3 Rs” are not just arbitrarily ordered so they roll off the
Let's take another post-GIS question. This provoked some thought.
Who are your Turfgrass Heroes?
I think the person asking me this was thinking that I would list off a bunch of people that everyone knows thru social media and what not. And well, their may be some recognizable names, there are also some that I know you don't know. I can't name them all here and if you didn't make the list and you know me well, it's not a slight. It's being economical. And it's recognizing people in my w
We are all part of communities. I am a family member, a citizen of my small town, I am an Islander, a Maritimer and a Canadian. You can say similar yet different things about yourself. Whether it’s at the family level, within our surrounding neighborhoods or even based on our geographic locations; we are all part of a something bigger than just ourselves. At the macro level we are also part of the larger human community and even the community of all beings that makes up this planet. We all are i
I called a friend/summer neighbor yesterday to reconnect as the long Vermont winter has turned the corner and is inching toward spring. Brian and I email occasionally but hearing the voice (and in his case, the laughter) is good tonic and well worth the effort. The words of my late friend Gordon Witteveen loom large with me: "If you don't work at relationships they soon go away." So I try to pick up the phone when the odds are good that the recipient will be relatively available. Sunday afternoo
My inbox has been blessed with some really good questions in the weeks since #GIS19. I like this one:
At first pass, I scoffed. Please. Me? Never. And then I considered the source of the question and the context of the conversation. Let's start with context. Because that word, in its wide range, can mean so many things. The author of the question was speaking to me about agronomy. Then to the point of source, we are talking about a Superintendent who has always been a deep thinking thoug
In the Olden Times, (or “The Good Old Days" for those immune to PC brainwashing) Dad was the GCS at a wonderful muni* outside Atlanta.
*Note: Although Brad Klein has called for a Social Justice Moratorium on the word “muni”, it is not a derogatory term; it simply means a municipal golf facility. Those of us who actually worked on a muni are proud of it, much more so than, say, a CCFAD.
The muni in our story was a Dick Wilson layout called “Mystery Valley” and it became very popular a
It has been ten or maybe even twelve years since I have been a GCSAA member. Yesterday, that changed.
As a student, assistant and superintendent, membership to the national association made sense to me. And for 15 years of independent consultant status, I paid the dues with not a lot of joy. And one day, after a very disappointing conversation with a GCSAA board member, I decided that there wasn't a benefit to me by belonging. It was, in effect, a silent protest. And a financial decision to
Nicholas Carr, a technology and modern culture genius, wrote the book, "What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains". Although I don't usually quote folks who went to Harvard and got nominated for that Pulitzer thing, I am doing it now. Why? Because no matter how hard I work at warning the golf world about tech and AI and microwave signals cooking our brains, nobody listens.
So I thought maybe golf might listen to this little gem from Nicholas Carr:
For those unwilling to heed the w
I haven’t delved into technology posts lately on this blog, instead focusing on career topics. It’s been due to not having enough time to offer quality advice in a field that constantly changes. Why, you might ask? Well, I have been working for the last 18 months on a new project for the industry that occupied any free time I had. And it’s finally done, at least version 1.
I don’t usually speak directly on this blog about our products, but I think this service is beneficial to both your op
Amy Bockerstette.
I am 128% confident that you do not know that name. So, stop right now and hit this link. Do not read on until you have. Period. As soon as your eyes dry, I appreciate you reading on.
As many thousands of us prepare to roll into San Diego for the 2019 GIS, there is one thing that is very clear to me...Golf Does Great Things. Of that, there is not a question in my mind. Lets take the video you just watched and do a little deconstruction. Amy, gifted with Down Syndrome
From deep in the Rockbottum CC film vault, we offer this classic short film.
Trigger Warning: This film contains implied violence, stereotypes and blatant anti-screen propaganda.
My official title here at Drury University is Assistant Director of Facilities – Grounds. I much prefer to call myself the Head Groundskeeper. I believe this job title says something about my philosophy of grounds management. Including 'Groundskeeper' in my title reminds me, and more importantly my crew, that I am to some extent like my team. We are all focused on “keeping the grounds”. Unfortunately, sometimes a rift can develop between us. The crew and I can have differing opinions on how well
In what will surely be our last outburst of serious ranting, Rockbottum Country Club offers a Skeletal Golf Theory segment on a tried and true method for adapting to economic changes.
It's like Judge Smails said, "I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to, but I felt I owed it to them."
I didn't want to do this film, but I felt I owed it to you.
You are going to see all kinds of "Tips and Tricks" for doing the Golf Industry Show. Most of them all the same. Because, hey... its a trade show. And in one form or another, all trade shows follow a certain pattern. You wanna read about having a plan, getting there early, drinking lots of water, fine. It's out there. I have a different take on things. And herein, you are gonna get some info that you probably won't see anywhere else, in the more PC world of doing the GIS.
1. Leave Your Clo
With each turn of a new year, it can be a helpful exercise to both reflect on the year that was and ponder the time ahead. I’ve never been a huge fan of the resolution thing and hopefully most of us have figured out that approach doesn’t really work anyway. Most resolutions fail principally because they start from a place of deficiency; the idea that something is inherently wrong with us and we just need to buckle down and fix it.
What if instead we simply reflected on our strengths and so
