The question of whether to 'repair or replace' rises to the surface as any product ages, be it a household item like a washing machine or dishwasher, a vehicle, or a piece of turf equipment.
In our increasingly disposable culture the answer is most often 'replace'. Products manufactured overseas in countries with economies very different than ours keep the cost of replacement artificially low. Rates for service technicians ranging from $50 to over $100/hour further sway the decision toward
Tiger Woods has become the modern day E.F. Hutton, i.e., "When Tiger talks people listen". A week before the PGA Championship, successfully hosted by Jeff Corcoran and the folks in Western NY, Woods commented offensively on the quality of the putting surfaces.
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Corcoran get's the mike stuck in his face and explains without being defensive about defensive agronomic management
"They don't have much thatch to them, so it'll be interesting to see what they do for the tournament and
Based on a true story pulled from the 'Greenkeeper Tales' collection, Rockbottum CC Television presents a film packed with drama, intrigue and embarrassing Southern family lore.
One of the things we wordsmiths often do is ask someone else to proofread a column or article before we hit the publish key. That's one reason why newspapers have editors, of course.
Other than correcting grammatical errors or catching typos, the real benefit of a second set of eyes (SSOE) is determining if the piece reads well or otherwise makes sense. You see, when one is intimately involved in writing or creating something (or tending to a golf course for that matter), everything makes s
The following Rockbottum CC Commentary contains an URGENT MESSAGE for Adam Hertzog, the producer who recently escaped from ESPN and has now been ordained as a VP at The Golf Channel.
Okay, maybe it's not really all that urgent, but it does include a suggestion that will help us all . . . or maybe just those of us who watch golf on TV.
For this week's post, I am going to turn it over to Callum Haughn, fellow TurfNetter and assistant superintendent at Mill Ridge Golf Course, located in Nova Scotia, Canada. Callum helps out writing for our local associations quarterly magazine, and his last submission was good enough to share here...
The Human Element
By Callum Haughn
It takes a lot of different people with a lot of different personalities to make up a successful workplace. Managing these personalities can sometimes be
The subject line of a somewhat curious email I received last week caught my eye. Regarding an impending local chapter meeting, it was titled "Sad state of affairs", and went like this:
"I was wondering if anyone can help me. As I'm sure to be asked, please help me with the answer to 'why do we have 12 class A members signed up for the July meeting'? and of that, more than half are board members. Luckily with others we have almost 50 total. Sad.
That's right. A great venue with educa
Once upon a time, there was a strangeness that crept into golf course land.
No, this isn't the story about the olden times when the club pro was paid more than the GCS, that wasn't strange, that was just crazy.
This particular strangeness happened not long ago and somebody at Rockbottum CC might have been neck-deep in the whole mess . . .
Watch this short film if you want to understand The Twiffer.
I recently got the opportunity to work on one of the most interesting projects I've ever had a chance to be a part of.
You may not know about Claremont Country Club in Oakland, California, and that's a shame. Claremont is a cool old Mackenzie design that is short, but one of the funnest rounds you'll ever have. And challenging too. I'd play there every day if they'd let me. They never will, but it's a nice dream to have. Recently restored to amazing original glory at the hands of Jim Urbina
As the staff at Oak Hill Country Club, outside of Rochester, NY prepares for the PGA Championship under the leadership of Jeff Corcoran, there is a smile on Bob Emmon's face. Mr. Emmons as we all knew him was the turfgrass professor for almost 30 years at the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, in Cobleskill, NY.--try and google that place!
Corcoran will join a long and growing list of superintendents who have hosted Majors. Mark Michaud at Peb
Music used to be a HUGE part of my life, at least on the listening end. All encompassing, enveloping, everywhere. Massive stereo system, an entire wall of electronics and a library of vinyl.
Fast-forward 40 years or so and the vinyl and high-end audio components have been replaced with an iPad, a Bose SoundDock and a Sonos Play5 system for wireless streaming from Pandora or my iPad. (The Sonos was a gift rather than an investment of my own.) My CDs are either scratched from the car and toss
Shoshin is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning "beginner's mind". It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject - even when studying at an advanced level - just as a beginner in that subject would. (Wikipedia) This is a concept that I always try to keep in mind. It's difficult because the ego really gets off on being an "expert". It's fun to set a goal, work hard to accomplish it, and bask in the glory of making it to the top of the mou
This just drives me nuts. A superintendent is squeezed between the egos of a green chairman and a few other "influential people" and his obligation to the membership that is paying the bills. A classic tale of what ails this business. The AF (Asshole Factor for those not familiar with the term) brought into stark relief.
The superintendent in question is managing one-year old greens. They're young, not ready for aggressive management practices. An amateur tournament is approaching. You kno
(once again...I'm skipping the plant phys. series to interject about a hot topic in my life. RSN, back to it but I can't ignore the voices in my head on this one.)
I'm reeling from the death of a friend. And I'd like to share with you about a wonderful person, Jeffrey McManus.
In the early 90's, I needed an email address and access to something called the internet for a research project I was looking into. That project fizzled. In the process, I discovered The WELL. Short for Whole Earth
Can you you handle the pressure of managing a golf course through a difficult summer? Learn how it's done from hardened veterans of several decades of Deep South summer campaigns.
At Rockbottum Country Club, we know precisely when to go deep and infrequent, because we learned the concept on pushup clay bent in temps of 100+, while experts with no actual GCS experience told us to dry 'em out.
"...because we learned the concept on pushup clay bent in temps of 100+, while experts with no
You will often hear me speak about "high performance surfaces". These are putting surfaces that provide consistent Championship conditions on a regular basis. Championship conditioning produces smooth, true, firm and fast surfaces, pushing the limits on chemical, biological and mechanical technology. Sometimes pushing the limits too far!
During the persistent warm and wet, and now warm and dry conditions covering much of the country, often the high performance surfaces can fail. Catastrophic
A few posts back we talked about words that should be banished from your lexicon (Speak No Evil). The first word on the list was can't. Its one of those words that we use and hear so often that it becomes commonplace. But have you ever really stopped to think that it really doesn't stand up to scrutiny? Think about all of the things in greenkeeping that people have told us we can't do: roll constantly, water for an hour at a time, grow bentgrass without poa, and this list goes on and on.
It'
To many of us, the term unplugged commands visions of MTV and rock bands doing acoustic sets with adoring fans gathered around.
But of late the definition leans more toward disconnecting oneself from the "collective electronic consciousness", so aptly stated by Urban Dictionary. An alternate definition is "to be seperated (sic) from the borg-like creation of being constantly connected through digital communication tools".
As I sit here on a Friday night anticipating our long-awaited es
A recent study, published in Golf Digest, reveals the most important individual in the world of golf.
Watch the following Rockbottum CC Commentary to find out what it said without the bothersome task of reading the study.
Nothing like the a steamy summer. Golf turf is under heat and disease stress from Miami (if you have Paspalum) to Minnesota (if you have Poa annua) and over to Maine (do they have grass in Maine?). In times like these someone on the staff is attached to the spray rig.
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high humidity only makes a few people happy-people who sell pools and people who run turf diagnostic labs that process turf disease samples.
What started as the kind of growing season where it was said, "if you ar
Most golf maintenance training videos are so dull they can cure incurable insomnia, but Here At The Rock, we strive to produce cerebral training films.
Rather than just handing out the information, our technique requires the viewer to think, to search for subliminal clues hidden in what would seem to be an ordinary conversation.
See if you can find the Two Teaching Points of this Rockbottum CC Training Film:
1. How to help your Equipment Manager/Tech win TurfNet's TECH OF THE YEAR.
I was chatting with Larry Stowell of PACE Turf the other day about the state of the industry in general, our businesses in particular and the challenges of making sense of the rapid technological change today.
In his unique role as "maestro" of his and Wendy Gelernter's turf research clearinghouse (for lack of a better term, as PACE Turf — like TurfNet — defies definition in a concise sentence or less), Larry has long been a voice of reason in our sometimes heated or volatile Forum discussio
