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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

Please, Somebody Help Me

I need help.  No, not the psychiatric kind, too late for that.  I need advice from the most innovative problem solver on the planet, the Golf Course Superintendent.   For over a year, I've been engaged in a bitter struggle with my neighbors, an inconsiderate group of loudmouth, sex-crazed members of the Order of Anura.  What a bunch of toads.   Some durn fool constructed one of those waterfall ponds--yes, the kind I've been trying to ridicule out of existence in the golf world for 25 years--
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

6

A GCS Christmas Story

Our first Christmas with Dad as a pure Golf Course Superintendent was a little lean.  After several years of serving as a Pro/Super, the debt load was suffocating him.  At Dinky Little Fake Country Clubs--we survived four DLFCC in four years--the Pro/Super often had to finance the pro shop inventory, F&B, and golf maintenance supplies of a time-sensitive nature.   (The DLFCC business plan typically delayed non-essential items like fertilizer, irrigation and mower parts, while demanding tim
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

4

The 10 Years of Rockbottum Film Festival Winner:

On December 20, Rockbottum CC Films will be ten years old.     For the last few weeks, we have been holding a virtual film festival to display a few of our favorite films.   Today we present "Golf Techno-Phobia", as our grand prize winner.  This film not only summarizes the Rockbottum Theory of Golf, but manages to stir in our fear that technology has run amok and brought a new level of "sissification" to golf.   I have often repeated the wise words of A.W. Tillinghast regarding "the ideal
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Roy, Oscar and The Dragon

Rockbottum CC welcomes Oscar The Yellow Lab to the TurfNet family.   Meet Oscar in this short film that also questions the credibility of internet science.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

The Best Minds of TurfNet on The AGCS/Workforce Dilemma

The best minds of TurfNet have recently converged on the AGCS/Workforce problem facing golf, determined to offer a solid solution.     High-powered brains like Chris Tritabaugh, Dave Wilber, Brian Nettz, Matt Leverich, Ken Thompson, Brian Benedict and his ownself, Peter McCormick, have all stepped into the fray.   With the sharpest minds we have working hard to create a productive dialogue, it's only fair we should allow the dullest mind to weigh in . . . sort of a neural counterbalance.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Before You Buy A Drone This Christmas . . .

In October, the FAA announced a drone operator had been fined $1.9 million for "reckless" operations.   Drones will now be registered, so the FAA will know who to send to Gitmo when some doofus flying a drone in restricted airspace knocks down an airliner.   I know this is entirely possible, because for several years prior to the birth of the stabilized quadcopter, I experimented with various remote control (RC) aerial camera platforms.  As a registered doofus, (RD) I crashed them all, into
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Our Award Winning Film On GCS Stress

Released in 2007, the next film in our Ten Years of Rockbottum Film Festival won The Gardner Award, the turf equivalent of an Oscar for Best Picture.     "Stress Relief" dealt with the struggles involved in managing golf course operations while attempting to maintain health, sanity, and contact with family.     The film has a different feel than current Rockbottum films, mostly because our modern production pace calls for shorter, more frequent projects.  We try hard to synchronize with the
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

8

I Wish . . .

A few days ago, I went deep into the quiet, heavily forested mountains* of Appalachia to escape the technological cacophony of modern life.  While I was there, I made a wish . . . or two.   *Note:  If you are a forest and mountains person, I wish you would read my book, Eephus The Terrible.  TurfNet's own Matt Crowther reviews it on Amazon.        
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Fixin' Golf With Buddy

"You can't expect solutions from the people whose best thinking caused the problem in the first place." Albert Einstein   In another of our tragically overlooked short films, Buddy explains Point #3 of Fixin' Golf.  This film was not originally scheduled as part of the Ten Year Anniversary Rockbottum Film Festival, but circumstances* dictated we release it again.    *Note:  Apparently I irritated a couple of the Alphabet Elite types with my simplistic and inexpensive solutions to golf's cur
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Dave Wilson in "Ten Years of Rockbottum"

Our Film Crew at Rockbottum Country Club operates just like our golf course crew:  Skeletal.   Everyone is cross-trained in several disciplines, on both sides of the camera, in order to keep things affordable and efficient.   In this Rockbottum 10 Year Film Fest entry, we highlight Dave, our audio tech, actor, stunt coordinator and occasional writer.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

4

Why We Quit Using Soil Thermometers

Buddy, the owner of more formal turf education than anyone else at Rockbottum CC, used to handle all our science stuff, testing for micro-nubial bacteriums, fematoads and soil temps in spring.     Buddy has royal golf lineage, because he matriculated (allegedly) under the legendary Palmer Maples for several quarters at Gwinnett Tech.  Things went well for years, until one day, I got this feeling that . . . maybe Buddy had hornswoggled us with a fake academic history.   It wasn't the incompre
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

How To Obtain Golf Goats

Goats are becoming increasingly popular in golf course management, especially for maintaining difficult out-of-play areas.  Utilizing natural, organic practices--like goat rough mowers--establishes a link to the storied traditions of golf maintenance, when sheep mowed the short grass and designed bunkers.   Goats have a tougher image than sheep and are more likely to be accepted by hardened American golfers.   In fairness, however, sheep are probably fairly tough.  One of the most popular tr
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

The Film That Scored Us The Most Angry Mail

The film that received the most Non-GCS angry mail was "Our Balls Aren't Fun Anymore".   It went under the GCS radar because it was released while golf course personnel everywhere were busy aerifying, poa killing and repelling geese.  However, the film apparently provoked internet golf experts and two disturbed individuals claiming to be important Alphabet assets.     The critical reviews included such pointed observations as my "fake southern accent" and other enjoyable barbs that could onl
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

3

Teenagers Own The Night

Our Ten Year Anniversary Celebration rolls on.  Next up in The Rockbottum CC Film Festival of our favorite films that slipped by unnoticed:   "The Night Belongs To Charlie".   Learn the secret to dealing with nocturnal teenage vandals.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Ten Years After

We're coming up on Ten Years of Rockbottum CC television.  It's a major anniversary for us and it began in early December of 2005, when I was told to do a video version of my TurfNet column.   Buddy, Momma, Franklin Beaver and Ydnar began production on "Golf Cart Control" and released it two weeks later.  It's been a wild ride since then.  We tried to blend as many different styles of film as possible into an ever-changing format, while subjecting TurfNet viewers to various forms of subliminal
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

4

TurfNetRADIO SPECIAL ALERT!

We interrupt our normally scheduled Rockbottum chaos to issue this Special Alert Bulletin!  Did you hear Chava McKeel, GCSAA's Director of Government Relations, on TurfNetRADIO?  If not, you might be unaware of what is actually playing out with WOTUS, one of those "regulations" that somehow becomes law because some bureaucrat signed it.   You can hear Chava on Frank Rossi's Frankly Speaking, a TurfNetRADIO show that is really, really good.  I would have never known the details of this issue or
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

6

Uncle Virgil and The Abomination

Uncle Virgil was killed by a golf abomination.  A team of doctors were stymied by his mysterious illness, yet our family knew exactly what happened:  Uncle Virgil, partnered with Norm, had racked up 30 straight losses versus Mike and Randy in the annual Wilson Thanksgiving Golf Ritual, "The Great Gopher Feast of Gluttony and Boasting Tournament".   It was just too much for him.  Of Dad's seven brothers--three in golf, two in bowling and the others in useless, non-essential work like business--
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

Unconventional Is An Insult?

In this week's film, "Tea and Biscuits with Berkeley", we check in with Mark Hoban and the progress of his various unconventional projects.   On a related note, a recent email suggested I was "unconventional".  I was happily composing a thank-you note in reply when Momma pointed out it was intended as an insult and therefore required a duel, or possibly even a feud.  (As a Southerner, I am familiar with the rules of both, so I chose 8oz gloves--but my challenger has not replied.)   I wasn't
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

1

Nicklaus Was Right

Jack Nicklaus offered golf the most logical, realistic and achievable strategy for the future of the game and golf "experts" pooh-poohed it.   Instead of Jack's sensible concept, today we have turf skateboards, gyro-balanced scooters, commode-sized putting cups, golf-themed singles bars/driving ranges, hybridized soccer-golf and big-budget recruitment programs that probably benefit ad agencies more than golf.   The result:  A splintered approach that leaves actual golf in fragments, with clu
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

7

The Greatest Winter Project Ever!

Every 35 years or so, I get a brilliant idea. (The last one was joining the US Army.)   My current brain-quake is still smoldering and forming, but here's a teaser of what might turn out to be the Greatest Golf Course Winter Project since we built our first barn Turf Care Center and came in out of the cold.  
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

0

The Hoban Report: Dead Bent Greens?

While preparing to shoot our summer update on Mark Hoban's Golf Science Projects, wild rumors of dead bentgrass at Rivermont swept through Rockbottum Headquarters.   We immediately rushed to Atlanta to shoot the following Emergency Hoban Report.      
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

2

Fixin' Golf

The only way to fix golf now is to return to the days of the REAL golfer.  But who is the REAL golfer? Where do they come from?     REAL golfers don't kick big balls into giant holes while riding skateboards.  They don't pay a green fee just to drink beer with their buddies and hoss a tiny car around a grassy theme park without fear of DUI roadblocks.  They will not divert their golf budget away from actually playing golf to a hybrid driving range/bar/bowling alley/carnival.   The REAL golfe
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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