Jump to content

Blogs

Rockbottum Radio: Positivity Defeats Adversity

In this episode, RW hands out the coveted Rockbottum Major Award for the best TurfNet Forum Topic ever.  Momma has a lively discussion with a government official who mistakenly believes Social Security is an "Entitlement" while helping him realize the folks north of Richmond need to improve their listening skills.  Also, RW explains how to achieve positivity on the golf course by being positive, not just sounding positive.

Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson in Podcast

Rising Star of Turf: James Morgan, Wicker Point GC

James Morgan was fresh out of Lake City Community College (now Florida Gateway College) and a summer/part-time stint at the Country Club of Orlando when he followed CCO superintendent Kasey Kauff to build Trinity Forest in Dallas. Morgan started as an assistant and was promoted to superintendent during his 5+ year stay at the Coore/Crenshaw layout. That Coore/Crenshaw connection led him to being selected to grow in Wicker Point Golf Club on Lake Martin, the first new golf construction in Alabama

Managing Landscapes in a New Weather Paradigm...

As of writing today Kansas City is 6.49” below our average YTD rainfall of 27.42”. Additionally, over the last 6 weeks our average temperature has been 3F over average. In the last 28 days we have had 12 days over 80, 7 days over 90, and 9 days over 100. One of those days the high was 112F. Most people don’t dig into climate numbers to this extent, and it is important to know this isn’t just my opinion. But rainfall this summer is not the focus of this writing. Rather I want to share my sense of

Joseph Fearn

Joseph Fearn in Sustainability

Rob Munro, Assistant Superintendent, Cabot Cliffs

Rob Munro is finishing up his third season at Cabot Cliffs in Inverness, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, the #1 rated golf course in Canada. Rob landed there with a turf degree from Olds College in Alberta and Poa-and-bentgrass experience at Capilano Golf & Country Club on Vancouver Island, BC. This winter he will travel to New Zealand to satisfy both his yearning for travel and to also put another bullet in his agronomic holster. Have a listen and see why Lee Strutt, Director of Agronomy a

The Craft

So much of what happens in our daily lives is taken for granted. When you walk into a grocery store and you want a certain item, do you ever pause to think about how it got there? How often do you reflect on all the steps along the way that brought that certain piece of fruit or vegetable or loaf of bread to the shelf in front of you? Our lives are often times so busy and distracted that the idea of pausing and reflecting on how something comes into being seems like a foreign concept.  Most

Paul MacCormack

Paul MacCormack in Introspection

All Star of Turf: Jason Haines

Our latest All Star of Turf is Jason Haines, whom many in the industry will remember for his high profile social media presence (as @PenderSuper) that suddenly went dark several years ago. As the golf course superintendent at Pender Harbour Golf Club and later Sunshine Coast Golf Club in British Columbia, Jason developed (by necessity) a low-input, minimalist turf maintenance strategy that he shared and brainstormed with his Twitter following of 8,000+ before deciding to step away from social me

Peter McCormick

Peter McCormick in All Stars of Turf

Perfectly imperfect: Old stone steps and a succession of dogs...

There are two sets of stone steps at my home in Vermont. One, leading up to the front door, was freshly hewn at a local quarry when we built fifteen years ago. The other, old and trodden, was rescued from an old church about to be torn down. The new steps are all crisp edges and smooth surfaces, appropriate for a formal front entrance, a testament to craftsmanship and quality of manufacture. They are beautiful but at the same time somehow sterile. The old steps are across the drive and lead

Peter McCormick

Peter McCormick in Life

Tales from the Night Waterman (2007)

The following is a reprint from 2007 for a special request. True confession:  I was a teenage night waterman.  It began innocently enough, with an impact Rain Bird fixation.  As a pre-teen golfer and offspring of a pro/super/general manager, my playing time often was compressed to that golden hour just before sunset when the big impact-driven sprinkler heads began to appear on the course. They stood tall, threw water over 100 feet and emitted a soothing, rhythmic noise that could be he

Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson in Storytime

Rockbottum Radio: A New Plan for Golf

In this episode of Rockbottum Radio, a serious discussion breaks out amidst the usual goofiness, pointing out how golf is about to enter The Fourth Turning.  The Rockbottum gang attempts to prepare for the onset of anti-logic perpetrated upon golf by the Rad-Greens and other irrational, oxygen-starved attention seekers.  Join us for the brilliance of Ludell, Momma, Willy and Boof as they duel with a carpetbagger from out west somewhere.

They Seek To Divide Us

There are divisive forces among us, like the Anti-Golf protestors who descended upon a golf course up north in much the same manner as the traffic blockers in London or the farm occupiers in Holland. They portray golf as a bunch of carbon-drenched rich folks still living on plantations.  (Never mind that carbon dioxide only makes up a tiny fraction of the atmosphere and turning 200 acres of turf into free housing would mean even more asphalt hot spots and increased surface runoff.) Gol

The Benefit of Doubt...

As Superintendents & Course Managers we manage a great deal on a daily basis. Conditioning of all sorts, staff issues, weather, member and customer expectations, budgets and financial drama… by times the list can appear endless. But there is one thing above all that, and based on how we manage it, can have a deep impact on not only our operations, but on our overall well being.  It’s the very thing that has the biggest influence on just about every decision and prediction we attempt eve

Paul MacCormack

Paul MacCormack in Wellness

Pruning on a Commercial Scale

Pruning is an essential horticultural task in all grounds management operations. We prune to control growth, promote flowering, improve aesthetics, and remove dead/dying plant parts, etc. Pruning on a small scale is relatively easy and will not usually be disruptive to the overall maintenance operation. But what happens when you are on a 1000+ acre campus and the magnitude of pruning exceeds the labor resources you can throw at it?  Poor plant selection and years of poor pruning

Joseph Fearn

Joseph Fearn in Technique

Techno-Phobia, Back From The Digital Grave

Because a great many TurfNet villagers have never seen "Techno-Phobia", we gave a wad of money to a techno-shaman to resurrect a dead hard drive containing the film.  Dating back to 2006, Techno-Phobia is a collection of harsh predictions for the golf industry that have since come true. We re-released it for several reasons, the first being our reply to golf industry writers--with no experience as superintendents--who doggedly preach the glorious future of tech while simultaneously attempti

What Coffee Does Momma Really Drink?

Rockbottum CC is overrun with unrepentant coffee snobs.  Momma, Willy, and Ludell drink only one brand of coffee and only through a stainless steel French Press.  Exactly what coffee Momma buys has been classified for years, but recent security leaks threaten to reveal our dark secret to the unwashed public, especially those consumers of instant, freeze -dried and that stuff that came in C-Rations. To get ahead of the story, we released this short film, before Buddy could put his spin

×
×
  • Create New...