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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

Storytime

I Was a Teenage Night Waterman

It was in California, 1968, during the peak of the Viet Nam war protests, that I first heard the mystical rhythmic pulse of a big impact sprinkler calling my name, luring me into a career of nocturnal irrigationism.  If only I had known that the glorious era of the Night Waterman was almost over. After several years in in the cold, wet mountains of Bavaria, we arrived in the sunny San Joaquin Valley where Dad took a job at Sunnyside, an exclusive country club. At Sunnyside, I was allow
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson in Storytime

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I Was a Teenage Night Waterman

It was in California, 1968, during the peak of the Viet Nam war protests, that I first heard the mystical rhythmic pulse of a big impact sprinkler calling my name, luring me into a career of nocturnal irrigationism.  If only I had known that the glorious era of the Night Waterman was almost over.   After several years in in the cold, wet mountains of Bavaria, we arrived in the sunny San Joaquin Valley where Dad took a job at Sunnyside, an exclusive country club.   At Sunnyside, I was allow
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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My Top 2 Tactics To Improve GCS/Clubhouse Relations

As a survivor of several particularly vicious maintenance vs clubhouse feuds, I want to stress one thing: That’s why the GCS should strive to create a productive working relationship with the clubhouse, except for F&B; they usually only respond to swift and forceful punishment. Although I never used one, the GCS Blog has become my favorite tactic for insuring a strong relationship between clubhouse and maintenance operations.  Chris Tritabaugh of Northland CC is a master of blog technique
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My Top 2 Tactics To Improve GCS/Clubhouse Relations

As a survivor of several particularly vicious maintenance vs clubhouse feuds, I want to stress one thing: Nobody ever wins a fight.   Thats why the GCS should strive to create a productive working relationship with the clubhouse, except for F&B; they usually only respond to swift and forceful punishment.   Although I never used one, the GCS Blog has become my favorite tactic for insuring a strong relationship between clubhouse and maintenance operations.  Chris Tritabaugh of Northland CC
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Prepare for Golf Car Control of The Future

The golf car is not going away.  The portable sofa is now inextricably linked to golf as our primary source of revenue; golf cars also provide young people with their only connection to golf through youtube fail videos. Therefore, the GCS, the true heart of the golf industry, must search out and utilize newer, more effective ways to control the four-wheeled demon of the fairways, driven by those who believe the golf course is merely a theme park with unrestrained electric versions of Kowalski
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Prepare for Golf Car Control of The Future

The golf car is not going away.  The portable sofa is now inextricably linked to golf as our primary source of revenue; golf cars also provide young people with their only connection to golf through youtube fail videos.   Therefore, the GCS, the true heart of the golf industry, must search out and utilize newer, more effective ways to control the four-wheeled demon of the fairways, driven by those who believe the golf course is merely a theme park with unrestrained electric versions of Kowalsk
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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What Architecture Type is Your Golf Course?

Do you understand golf course architecture? A few years back, Ted, a GCS friend of mine, became entangled in a dispute between club members.  It all started when a green committee member discovered the dark art of classic golf architecture by reading Brad Klein, Geoff Shackelford and Tom Doak and began to lord his superior knowledge over fellow committee members, the starter and the kitchen staff. Following the pattern of a typical social struggle, the members without architecture knowledge be
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What Architecture Type is Your Golf Course?

Do you understand golf course architecture?   A few years back, Ted, a GCS friend of mine, became entangled in a dispute between club members.  It all started when a green committee member discovered the dark art of classic golf architecture by reading Brad Klein, Geoff Shackelford and Tom Doak and began to lord his superior knowledge over fellow committee members, the starter and the kitchen staff.   Following the pattern of a typical social struggle, the members without architecture knowle
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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The Great Vegan Experiment

Here at the Rock, our long awaited VFCO (Vegan-Frootarian-Carnivorian-Omnivorsk) research findings are finally ready for publication.  A little less than one year ago, our team of Rockbottum scientists set out to solve one of the most serious problems facing the modern GCS: What to eat? In any high-stress occupation, food plays an important role in long-term health, career adaptability and survival odds in the midst of an onslaught of Darwinian selection trials.  Poor food choices plague the A
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The Great Vegan Experiment

Here at the Rock, our long awaited VFCO (Vegan-Frootarian-Carnivorian-Omnivorsk) research findings are finally ready for publication.  A little less than one year ago, our team of Rockbottum scientists set out to solve one of the most serious problems facing the modern GCS:  What to eat?   In any high-stress occupation, food plays an important role in long-term health, career adaptability and survival odds in the midst of an onslaught of Darwinian selection trials.  Poor food choices plague th
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Do You Feel Cheated by the Masters TV Coverage?

I do.  Televised golf is supposed to be 20 minutes per hour of election dysfunction commercials where folks sit in tubs and watch sunsets, 30 minutes of putting and putt stalking, two minutes of interviews with sponsor CEOs and the remaining 11 minutes devoted to at least two tear-jerking human interest stories. The Masters mind control experts have once more, ripped the tried and true programming strategy apart and forced us to watch more golf. I hate to complain, but in the last two days of
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Do You Feel Cheated by the Masters TV Coverage?

I do.  Televised golf is supposed to be 20 minutes per hour of election dysfunction commercials where folks sit in tubs and watch sunsets, 30 minutes of putting and putt stalking, two minutes of interviews with sponsor CEOs and the remaining 11 minutes devoted to at least two tear-jerking human interest stories.   The Masters mind control experts have once more, ripped the tried and true programming strategy apart and forced us to watch more golf.   They claim theyre giving us four minutes o
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Post Masters Syndrome

How to diagnose, treat and possibly cure the most dangerous early season golf disorder. Diagnosis:  The initial outbreak of Post Masters Syndrome typically begins within minutes of final round completion.  First indications usually involve golfers of several levels–from muni to mid-level country club–verbalizing in pitiful, whiny voices, “Why can’t we do that?” Tests for azalea poisoning and overseed overdose will normally read very high on the scale; additionally, the golfer/member’s listenin
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Post Masters Syndrome

How to diagnose, treat and possibly cure the most dangerous early season golf disorder.   Diagnosis:  The initial outbreak of Post Masters Syndrome typically begins within minutes of final round completion.    First indications usually involve golfers of several levelsfrom muni to mid-level country clubverbalizing in pitiful, whiny voices, Why cant we do that?   Tests for azalea poisoning and overseed overdose will normally read very high on the scale; additionally, the golfer/members list
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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What Do Golfers Want?

After decades of watching golfers, I think I know what normal golfers want:  Affordable golf within a reasonable time limit, smooth greens, and wide fairways.  They want a digestible sandwich at the turn, friendly folks behind the pro shop counter and a warning, prior to purchasing the green fee, that the course is littered with 97 big bunkers and the rough is at US Open height due to a green committee with a TV golf fixation. As to those “other” golfers, the abnormal, the spoiled, the pampered
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What Do Golfers Want?

After decades of watching golfers, I think I know what normal golfers want:  Affordable golf within a reasonable time limit, smooth greens, and wide fairways.   They want a digestible sandwich at the turn, friendly folks behind the pro shop counter and a warning, prior to purchasing the green fee, that the course is littered with 97 big bunkers and the rough is at US Open height due to a green committee with a TV golf fixation.   As to those other golfers, the abnormal, the spoiled, the pam
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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My Secret Golf Nickname (and how it came to be)

It’s Storytime at Rockbottum CC. During a recent session with Rockbottum Behavior Modification Therapist Dr. Ludell Hogwaller, I experienced a monumental breakthrough.  Using his special donut-hypnosis, he uncovered a long buried childhood memory that finally revealed just how I acquired my secret golf nickname–and why I have an unnatural fear of fish, fishing and fishermen. It all began in ’63, when the US Army assigned Dad–or Cap’n Ahab as I called him–to teach ROTC and coach the rifle team
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My Secret Golf Nickname (and how it came to be)

Its Storytime at Rockbottum CC.   During a recent session with Rockbottum Behavior Modification Therapist Dr. Ludell Hogwaller, I experienced a monumental breakthrough.  Using his special donut-hypnosis, he uncovered a long buried childhood memory that finally revealed just how I acquired my secret golf nicknameand why I have an unnatural fear of fish, fishing and fishermen.   It all began in 63, when the US Army assigned Dador Capn Ahab as I called himto teach ROTC and coach the rifle team
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Are You Ready For The Water Wars?

As one of the last of the Night Watermen, I have always had a special relationship with water and golf. In fact, to this day, I continue to think of myself as an “irrigation guy” forced by extreme circumstances to serve as a GCS. I get along well with water. I can’t swim in it, due to a genetic predisposition toward sinking, but it’s pretty much all I drink and it does amazingly well as medicine for stomach ailments, dehydration issues and Friday night mistakes. Turf likes water and interestingl
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Are You Ready For The Water Wars?

As one of the last of the Night Watermen, I have always had a special relationship with water and golf. In fact, to this day, I continue to think of myself as an irrigation guy forced by extreme circumstances to serve as a GCS. I get along well with water. I cant swim in it, due to a genetic predisposition toward sinking, but its pretty much all I drink and it does amazingly well as medicine for stomach ailments, dehydration issues and Friday night mistakes. Turf likes water and interestingly en
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Who Makes the Purchase Decisions?

An interesting topic popped up on the TurfNet Forum the other day, asking if club managers have more influence on purchasing decisions now than in past years.  I gave it several seconds of deep thought and answered “Yes”, but only in my mind, primarily because I’m not intellectually equipped to debate TurfNetters with years of post-graduate work.  (My post-grad work at Fort Bragg was limited to a short thesis entitled “Why You Shouldn’t Throw a Grenade up a Staircase”–the effects of the lab expe
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Who Makes the Purchase Decisions?

An interesting topic popped up on the TurfNet Forum the other day, asking if club managers have more influence on purchasing decisions now than in past years.  I gave it several seconds of deep thought and answered Yes, but only in my mind, primarily because Im not intellectually equipped to debate TurfNetters with years of post-graduate work.  (My post-grad work at Fort Bragg was limited to a short thesis entitled Why You Shouldnt Throw a Grenade up a Staircase -- the effects of the lab experim
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Golf and Radical Felinism

Rockbottum CC has never managed to get one of our golf course dogs into the TurfNet Superintendent’s Best Friend Calendar.  It’s not like we haven’t tried hard, it’s just that the level of competition is so high.  After all, this is the Big One, The Original, The First golf course dog centerfold calendar . . . it should be tough to be selected.  We’ve tried everything–bribery and threats, pleading and whining–but nothing has worked. The photos we submitted were apparently intercepted by elemen
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Golf and Radical Felinism

Rockbottum CC has never managed to get one of our golf course dogs into the TurfNet Superintendents Best Friend Calendar.  Its not like we havent tried hard, its just that the level of competition is so high.  After all, this is the Big One, The Original, The First golf course dog centerfold calendar . . . it should be tough to be selected.  Weve tried everything bribery and threats, pleading and whining but nothing has worked.   This year, when we realized Bosco and Chopper had been turne
Randy Wilson

Randy Wilson

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Ball Washer Strategies: The Top 5

It’s almost time to crank big mowers, defibrillate the pump station and check the lawn furniture:  The tee bench, the 150 yard barber pole, (the g-rated name) and that most essential of all golfer toys, the ball washer. The ball washer WILL function with smooth precision, whether it is the crank-wheel design that allows the operator to make engine starting noises–or the favorite among those of us with delayed maturity issues, the VPM or Vertical Plunger Model.  The VPM, when operated vig
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