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About this blog

Randy and the gang at Rockbottum Country Club pontificate on Rockbottum wisdom and skeletal golf, among other madness.

Entries in this blog

Gnomicus: Curative or Preventative?

Gnomicus: Curative or Preventative?

And so it was, that in the last days of August, as the members became even more snippity and finicky and fickle, Rockbottum CC came to the rescue like . . .  Batman.  (1965 Batman, not the current Dark Knight--he's too much like a board member.) Because our mission, as it has always been, is to lighten it up and keep you from shoving a golfer’s head through the new sheetrock in the restroom on #4.    
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

4
Rockbottum Radio: How to Get the Big Money

Rockbottum Radio: How to Get the Big Money

Rockbottum Radio is back from summer hiatus with a primer on how to get the big money as a big-time superintendent (and all the stress and pressure that goes with it). Be careful what you wish for! Randy waxes nostalgic about the days when golf course maintenance was relaxed, laid back and without the negative energy prevalent today. And in Storytime, Dad made the big time and what they learned during the short time they were there.
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2
Scenes From A Field Day At Rivermont

Scenes From A Field Day At Rivermont

Mark Hoban, aided by Dr. Derek Settle, organized another Rivermont Field Day to update the golf world on his Low Input, Future of Golf Research.  Lots of important forward thinkers showed up, along with a couple of backward thinkers from Rockbottum Films. The rain, dark skies and humidity running at 113% prevented us from capturing the entire event, but we managed to grab a few scenes.    
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0
Stealth Golf Practice For The GCS

Stealth Golf Practice For The GCS

As we have previously discussed, it is important for the Golf Course Superintendent to play golf or maybe just be seen playing golf.  (But not bad golf.)  Members want to be assured that their GCS belongs to the same cult and knows the course in the same way they do—not just the way a Turf Scientist interacts with the course.   But there are problems with playing your course.  Like when the Green Chairman four-jacks #18 green and starts ranting:  “Every time I see our superintendent, he’s p
Our Top 13 Favorite Film Quotes Heard On The Course

Our Top 13 Favorite Film Quotes Heard On The Course

During daily golf operations at Rockbottum CC, film quotes often slip into conversations with golfers, management and the crew.  It's like some odd form of verbal shorthand that delivers a message in the most minimal form. There are probably hundreds of these and we deeply regret that we had to leave out some great quotes, like "That's my stapler" and "I'm gonna have to go ahead and ask you to work this weekend" . . . but it's June and we have to keep these films short, because you have oth
Cell Phone Policy . . . revisited

Cell Phone Policy . . . revisited

A few years back, we examined the pros and cons of crew phone use.  Since things continue to change--with phones now serving as cameras, music players and surveillance devices--we thought you might want to revisit Momma's solution for irresponsible phone use.  But be careful . . . I had an entire high school football team threaten to quit if they couldn't have a "phone break" during practice. Yeah, I know . . . get off my lawn.  
Did The Golf Cart Create The Modern Cupcake Golfer?

Did The Golf Cart Create The Modern Cupcake Golfer?

Purely apocryphal, but my Bio-RAM can recall a time when golfers weren't so picky and whiny and demanding about things that didn't matter in real life.   Although I have previously fixed the blame on color TV and 50 weekends a year of Las Vegas Showgirl grooming standards, I think I might have isolated the true cause:  The introduction of the portable sofa to what was once a rugged adventure sport. If I rewind back about 50 years, to a time when it was more about playing the game than the c
From The Vault: The 2nd Film From Rockbottum CC

From The Vault: The 2nd Film From Rockbottum CC

For your entertainment, we present, from deep in the bowels of the Rockbottum Films vault, our second major production:  "Customer Service". The audio in this historic film is clippy at times, even glitchy, (it was pre-Sennheiser) but we didn't think you would mind.  After all, where else can you watch a GCS push a mean old lady golfer into a deep bunker?   You know you've been tempted to do the same thing.  
Fred & The Anti-Stress

Fred & The Anti-Stress

It’s June.  Most of the tv addled golfers have forgotten April, thanks to a severely damaged attention span, one of the gifts of the modern technocracy.  But the stress merely continues to build through June and then the heat of July.  Some areas will suffer from freight-train rain, while others endure a seemingly endless hot, dry bubble of desert air.   Add in a few members just back from a member-guest with all sorts of ideas they picked up in an entirely different budget climate--or my favori
Turf Health Is Secondary To Your Health

Turf Health Is Secondary To Your Health

Working for a big urban muni in the Deep South with monthly floods and a constantly changing command structure had a negative effect on my health.  While the chain of command at a high dollar private course can often be a pressurized environment, the sudden and bizarre reversals of policy on the municipal facility I inhabited regularly produced staff meetings worthy of a Polanski film.  At one point, I was stripped of my authority to issue cart path only edicts, as that power belonged in th
News Bulletin From Here At The Rock

News Bulletin From Here At The Rock

Don't miss this year's Turf Field Day at Rivermont, because even if your job requires doing things "the way it's always been done" . . . eventually you will need to be familiar with other ways to get it done. Mark Hoban is the tip of the spear.  Come see what he's up to now.  
Mark Hoban Explains Organics

Mark Hoban Explains Organics

While preparing for the long anticipated Rivermont Field Day, Mark Hoban is forced to explain his organic philosophy to some golfer that wandered in off the street.  
Rockbottum Radio: The Birth of Golfzirra

Rockbottum Radio: The Birth of Golfzirra

In this tale from The Greens of Wrath on Rockbottum Radio, young Randy relates the story from Burnt Run Country Club, circa 1971, when he employed certain hallucinogenic tactics to get his night waterman job back. Presented by Vinylguard Golf.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0
Hornswoggled by a Big Shot Hollywood Golf Film Producer

Hornswoggled by a Big Shot Hollywood Golf Film Producer

Last week, we loaded our gear and then fought through the horrible Atlanta traffic to shoot a short film with Mark Hoban of Rivermont CC.  It was the usual debacle, with us wandering around lost in Doolooth and Akworth.  At one point, we entered “The Buford Triangle”, a place where road names change instantly and people vanish.  Relying on business signs as landmarks is impossible, because they are written in other languages than whatever it is we speak.  Never trust those fantasy maps on The Go
I Did Something Crazy

I Did Something Crazy

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
Clippings Volume: Legit or Lame?

Clippings Volume: Legit or Lame?

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.  
An Explosive Excerpt From "The Greens of Wrath"

An Explosive Excerpt From "The Greens of Wrath"

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
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

3
Buddy's Shop

Buddy's Shop

For those wallowing in despair after hearing that Hector took his shop and runnoft . . .  have no fear.  Now you have  "Buddy's Shop".  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

5
Storytime: The Golf Pro, The Carpetbagger and The Slush Fund

Storytime: The Golf Pro, The Carpetbagger and The Slush Fund

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
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2
Buddy Goes To e-Rehab

Buddy Goes To e-Rehab

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
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

6
Showdown At The Cart Barn

Showdown At The Cart Barn

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.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2
Force Multiplication Through Cross-Training

Force Multiplication Through Cross-Training

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.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2
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