Some of the best ideas are copied from someone else, such as dog calendars or awards honoring golf course equipment managers. Another idea - this one brewing in Europe - might also warrant copying, or stealing, or whatever you want to call it. In its infancy, the project certainly merits watching.
The challenges facing turf managers today are ever changing. New challenges, often driven by practices such as lower mowing heights, arise for which there is no solution supported by scientific data. That can be a problem in an era when research dollars no longer flow like they once did.
The Sports Turf Research Institute and the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association have teamed to launch a demand-driven turf research program designed to provide science-based solutions for challenges facing turfgrass managers. The program is funded fully by STRI.
Turf managers will be able to list their problems through an online portal, and a team known as the Golf Research Enterprise will prioritize a list of issues and present them for discussion at the 2020 BTME conference.
That enterprise will develop research protocols and programs to investigate and identify solutions to the problems on that priority list, and trials will begin next year at the STRI research facility.
The results will be shared at field days and through social media, and trials updated periodically.