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About this blog

Dave Wilber goes hard at it and never pulls any punches when it comes to agronomy.

Entries in this blog

You Never Know When The Golf Will Find You...

After GIS insanity and then the Sierra Pacific Spring Symposium my plan was to disappear to Mexico for a deep breath before summer Turfhead grillage begins. I don't do well with time off. It's a language I don't really speak. So this trip was designed to take my head out of the game. Week One was dropping into a small Mexican village known as a hippie escape. Yoga twice daily. Teaching what has become my new hobby, Energy and Bodywork in the evening. Minimal booze. Maximum sun. Week Two a bit
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

1

You Just Aren't Dirty Enough, Monkey

I'm a big fan of having the numbers before making the diagnosis. It just makes sense, really to try and eliminate guess work from a business that often fosters licking one's finger and sticking it in the air or throwing some grass blades in the wind to determine what shot to hit or application to make. We do bad things to ourselves with these actions.   But sometimes things are just too clear cut. Case in point, at a recent early morning meeting, I was asked to grab some soil samples to submit
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

1

You can't unring the bell...

I am profoundly aware of the need for all Turfheads to be critical. It really is our job. One mentor told me that if he didn't "point and bitch" enough, he wasn't doing his job. And I adopted this. I was a ruthless stickler for the details.   Hated by many. Loved by no one. Followed infrequently.   I remember someone sending me a book called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (*and it's all small stuff). I returned the book with a scathing letter indicating that it was my job to "sweat" in parts pe
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

2

Wisdom In the Craft Brew

I don't like "Birthday Parties".  I like going to them for other people, but I don't like them when they are for me. It has always seemed like a waste of time to celebrate my getting older. Kind of like celebrating something that will happen no matter what, like Wind or Grocery Bagging. Not special. But this year, for my 53rd, I decided to put out a note to a random bunch of people from different walks in my world and tell them where I would be from what time to what time and tell them
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

6

Why I’m Lucky To Know Great Turfheads

It's been a crazy few weeks.    GIS Sales Rodeo. The Resulting Post GIS Illness. Many Road Miles. Oh, and the Big One.    That's right, the Big One. The Sierra Pacific Spring Symposium. Wherein the amazing organization that I work with puts on two amazing days of education, hang time and golf.   My marketing counter-part, Dean Kinney and I pretty much do this whole thing. Administratively we each look in the mirror and tell our assistants what to do. And our assistants speak back with the
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Whoa! All The Way!!

What Does It Mean, Man?? If there is one constant in the world of Turfheads, in some way, somehow, summer brings some kind of challenge. Like stuffing in the Thanksgiving Turkey here we Turfheads are, right in the middle of it. And there isn’t a soul on the big blue marble that can tell us that it is easy. It’s not and my hat goes off to each and every person in our crazy business that endures. We all deal with it in different way. Complain, ignore, panic, brash confidence, total paranoia
Guest

Guest

0

When You Just Can’t Help Yourself

Today, this week and really… all month, I’ve been angry. No, actually, I’ve been pissed off. I usually have what I have come to call “Red October”, where at some point I have a meltdown of some sort of a series of Chernobyl like events that last until about Christmas. Last week, I had a conversation with TurfNet’s Maestro (that’s Herr McCormick to you…) about the plusses and minuses of blogging a little more from my heart and soul and getting my daily experience into words. Great. So here you g
Guest

Guest

0

When You Just Can't Help Yourself

Today, this week and really all month, I've been angry. No, actually, I've been pissed off. I usually have what I have come to call "Red October", where at some point I have a meltdown of some sort of a series of Chernobyl like events that last until about Christmas.   Last week, I had a conversation with TurfNet's Maestro (that's Herr McCormick to you) about the plusses and minuses of blogging a little more from my heart and soul and getting my daily experience into words. Great. So here you
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

When You Forget Your Pants

I can sit here and say that it isn't my fault. It is. But for the sake of my own argument, let me suss it out. I didn't want to get pet hair all over my nice clean pants. So I hung them in a different spot so they would be ready to pack. It made sense to me at the time. But after a few decades of packing and being on the road, you develop habits. And hanging those pants where I did was out of my usual checklist. I should have known. So I went on to think about the outfits I wanted to p
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

2

When The Critics Won't Quit

Let's go back to my inbox for this post... "I need your help. As you know, it's been a cold, damp spring. The golf course wasn't great for Memorial Day. And as I write this on July 4th, it's just barely starting to come around. The comments I am getting from golfers are really bad. "When are you going to fix this place", is the tone of their gripes. I've talked to everyone, blogged about it, written about it and I'm still getting hammered. Any tips?" This has been more common in the sp
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

5

When Our Bodies Remind Us

I've been a little quiet the last couple weeks..   October was a blur of face melting insanity. If I told you how many hours I worked or how many miles I put on the vehicle, you'd never believe me. And I really don't care to brag about it amidst a crowd of people that work a zillion hours themselves. Seems pointless. Let's just say it was crazy busy and really, I like it that way. I don't know how to do it any other way. Call it work ethic or call it not having a life, but either way, it's me.
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

When Our Bodies Remind Us

I’ve been a little quiet the last couple weeks….. October was a blur of face melting insanity. If I told you how many hours I worked or how many miles I put on the vehicle, you’d never believe me. And I really don’t care to brag about it amidst a crowd of people that work a zillion hours themselves. Seems pointless. Let’s just say it was crazy busy and really, I like it that way. I don’t know how to do it any other way. Call it work ethic or call it not having a life, but either way, it’s me. 2
Guest

Guest

0

When I Just Can’t Help Myself

It didn’t take long. I figured it was going to happen within a couple days, but indeed it was really just a couple hours. And as a human monkey (and a turfhead to boot), I’m prone to mistakes and even, yes… failure. So when a young (and amazing) superintendent whom I did some soil tests for early in the year wrote me an email today it made for a really good moment of introspective guilt. I don’t want to violate the confidence of personal email communication, but I think he might not mind if I p
Guest

Guest

0

When I Just Can't Help Myself

It didn't take long. I figured it was going to happen within a couple days, but indeed it was really just a couple hours.   And as a human monkey (and a turfhead to boot), I'm prone to mistakes and even, yes failure. So when a young (and amazing) superintendent whom I did some soil tests for early in the year wrote me an email today it made for a really good moment of introspective guilt. I don't want to violate the confidence of personal email communication, but I think he might not mind if I
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

What's Going to Happen to Your Staff?

I love golf course maintenance workers. I mean, really, who is better than a great Greenkeeper? You take an A player Section Guy or Operator who really really knows their job and you have one amazing person who contributes to the game in the most positive ways and most golfers will never understand. Someone amazing enough to pipe a 300-yard long straight line on a mower, or to prep a green complex with absolute perfection in the near dark, is, to me, a total rock star to be appreciated in every
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

5

What I Remember About December

December 1989. Louisville, Colorado (between Boulder and Denver) Like most supers in Colorado, late November and early December had me playing the guessing game of applying snow mold protection and blowing out the irrigation system. Go too late and there can be absolute hell to pay. Go too early and well, there can be absolute hell to pay. In my situation, it was worse, as I had been growing in a course and we were pushing just as hard to get things up and growing as is possible. So the ide
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

3

What Have I Really Learned?

If you haven't read my last TurfNet blog post, it may help you here. I'm simply overwhelmed at the amount of amazing stories, offers of support and awesome advice that have come my way. Posting that piece was a deeply personal act, one which I wasn't sure that I should do. Really. It may read with ease, but it was far from easy to write.   I'm always trying to integrate work and life. I've never believed in the concept of work and play and life as separate things. I see them as coordinated a
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

3

What Golf Can Really Do

Amy Bockerstette. I am 128% confident that you do not know that name. So, stop right now and hit this link. Do not read on until you have. Period. As soon as your eyes dry, I appreciate you reading on. As many thousands of us prepare to roll into San Diego for the 2019 GIS, there is one thing that is very clear to me...Golf Does Great Things. Of that, there is not a question in my mind. Lets take the video you just watched and do a little deconstruction. Amy, gifted with Down Syndrome
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

4

Week In Review, End of May, 2013

I took some random notes this past week. Not that I don't know what I do, but the thought occurred to me that some people don't know that much about what I do and might find it interesting. Or, perhaps they may just think that what they thought was true may not be at all. Or... well, perhaps it means nothing...!   How about some stats:   Miles Driven: 1,278 Gallons Fuel Burned: 74 Texts Sent/Received: 227 Emails Received: 374 Phone Min Used: 737 Crappy Road Meals: 11 Starbucks Stops: 9
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

1

Water Is No Good If It Cannot Get In The Ground

Coming into summer, I’d like to talk about water for a few posts. It’s the thing that I seem to get the most questions about this time of year and it’s the thing that I see the most mistakes being made with. I’ll try not to get too carried away with numbers and calculations. There are some, but this is more of an example of how I approach the agronomy of water quality. Water Test. That’s right. Test the water. Get a great water test from a great lab. I’m going to keep saying this. Even if you
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Water and soils management: to flush or not to flush

In most of my travels where water is an issue or drought is ruling or where reclaimed is the coming possibility, we have to deal with management of salts. So that can be the #1 driving force in deciding to flush to rid us of conductivity.   The second thing is that a majority of the modern courses built in the last many years have a form or another of a perched water table-oriented sand-based system. And that is its own animal, requiring some technique in water application to infuse air into t
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

0

Water and soils management: to flush or not to flush

In most of my travels where water is an issue or drought is ruling or where reclaimed is the coming possibility, we have to deal with management of salts. So that can be the #1 driving force in deciding to flush to rid us of conductivity. The second thing is that a majority of the modern courses built in the last many years have a form or another of a perched water table-oriented sand-based system. And that is it’s own animal, requiring some technique in water application to infuse air into the
Guest

Guest

0

Vulcan Guide to Soil Testing

Soil Testing. It’s that time of year when most Turfheads are gonna pull some soil tests. My experience is that for many (if not most) this is done as kind of a box check. You know you have to do it, because that’s what you do this time of year. A lot of Turfheads tell me that soil tests are one of those things that they understand as well as a fourth or fifth language. So let’s Rock our Spock and geek a bit with some ideas about soil testing. Because of this lack of grokking, soil testing ha
Dave Wilber

Dave Wilber

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