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From the TurfNet NewsDesk
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I'm leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it's not raining." Groucho Marx
"That does somewhat change up the timing of our herbicide applications, or actually does it?" Gardner said. Phenological indicators for crabgrass applications, like forsythia bloom, have been the same this year and last despite the temperature differences, he said. In the past few days, Gardner noted soil temperatures of 47 degrees in the top 2 inches at the OSU turfgrass research facility. With crabgrass emerging when soil temps are in the upper 50s, which likely will be in a week to 10 days, he says, so the time to treat for crabgrass in central Ohio is now. Although that is not a cookie-cutter solution, his advice provides a template for others to follow. "Get your pre-emergents down now so they have a little bit of time to be activated, that is dispersed by rainfall in order to get that layer spread on the ground and effective." In areas where winter annual broadleaf weeds are beginning to bloom, Gardner suggests making herbicide applications now before they seed. He recommends ester formulations because they are more suited to the prevailing conditions this spring. "It's going to be far more effective," he said, "in the cool conditions that we're having this year."
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Built by Robert White in 1922 and reworked in 1935 by A.W. Tillinghast, Longue Vue is located above the Allegheny River northeast of Pittsburgh in the town of Verona. It was founded as a playground for some of Pittsburgh's most well-heeled residents. And that's a mouthful in a city where the well-to-do include names like Westinghouse, Heinz, Carnegie and Mellon, and Oakmont literally is a hop, skip and a jump away. Just a few years ago, members described conditions at Longue Vue as "unplayable" and "horrific", and members were fleeing for greener, drier, fairways at some of the 'Burgh's more famous layouts, including Oakmont, which is less than six miles away by car. Since superintendent Josh Saunders was hired six years ago, the course has been restored to rightful and historic place among Pittsburgh's elite golf courses. "When you think of golf in Pittsburgh, what do you think about? Oakmont, Fox Chapel, Field Club? Longue Vue flew under the radar. Now, I think we're in that conversation," Saunders said. "That's not being conceded. That's just being confident because I know what we've accomplished the last five years." When Saunders, a finalist for the 2013 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year Award, presented by Syngenta, arrived at Longue Vue, fairways and greens were soggy mix of 70 percent Poa annua and 30 percent creeping bentgrass with some annual ryegrass intrusion around the greens and in fairways. Today, the course is a dried down version of its former self. "I know we're in the Poa capital of the world, but those numbers are flipped," Saunders said. "Managing Poa in summer is challenging, but managing it in season is challenging too when Oakmont is right down the street. And now, we're 100 percent clean of ryegrass." When Tillinghast left Verona, Longue Vue's tees all were neat and square. When Saunders walked the course during his interview, some tees were square, some were circles and some were a mixture of both. "I told the members the first thing we were going to do was get rid of those squircles," Saunders said. A native of Virginia and a graduate of VPI, Saunders is a Pete Wendt protege at Kinloch Golf Club near Richmond. He also interned at Westchester Country Club under Joe Alonzi as well as at Augusta National. He says the responsibilities heaped upon him by Wendt coupled with the challenges of managing turf in the Mid-Atlantic have helped prepare him for just about anything Mother Nature and Pittsburgh's golf market can throw at him. "Pete's philosophy and the way he delegated responsibilities to his assistants made me feel like a head superintendent even when I was fourth in line," he said. "As I worked my way up from AIT to second to senior, I always felt in the loop. The amount of information I absorbed helped pave the way for my future. I will never go back to the Mid-Atlantic and grow grass because of what I learned there in those seven years, and I'm a Virginia native, but everything I learned there I will take with me the rest of my career. "Maintaining turf in that area, I don't even know where to start. Every day was new and every day was a challenge. You couldn't rest. You had to be on your toes every day from a water standpoint and a disease standpoint."
That's not being conceded. That's just being confident because I know what we've accomplished the last five years."
Longue Vue currently is in the throes of a master plan with architect Jim Nagle, and current projects include a revamped practice area that will include an expanded driving range and enlarging the practice green from 3,000 square feet to 9,000 square feet. Part of the reasoning behind work on the practice area is to keep up with the game's current trends. "We want to keep current with where the game is going, and the trend right now is less golf and more practice," Saunders said. "This club deserves to be ranked, and our goal is to get a tournament. But we have some things we have to take care of before we can get to that point, and one of them is the driving range area." Construction also is under way on a new maintenance facility. Membership shares Saunders' zeal for attracting a tournament at some level. "During his short tenure, he has done remarkable things and the course conditioning has improved dramatically," wrote Longue Vue member David Koi in his nomination of Saunders for TurfNet's 2013 Superintendent of the Year Award. "With Josh at the helm, many of our members feel that Longue Vue has been restored to its long tradition of greatness." Part of that return to greatness, Saunders said, was simply focusing on detail work. "Tillinghast knew this property had tremendous potential. Somewhere along the way, they got away from the details, and I mean just down to mowing a straight line," he said. "It's OK not to be like Augusta every day, because if that is your goal, you're going to get some plant stress. So, if you get away from that, why not make every detail stand out to make the place pop? Those details are what the golfer sees every day."
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- A.J. Powell, Ph.D.
When calculating climatological averages over time, it takes a lot of erratic highs and lows to find a happy medium. The winter of 2017-18 definitely qualifies as one of those wild lows. Exhibit A: When Jim Brosnan, Ph.D., was making applications for goosegrass trials at the University of Tennessee turfgrass research center in Knoxville, lingering winter conditions in mid-April brought soil temperatures of 54 degrees Fahrenheit paired with air temps of 38 degrees and flurries blowing through the air. Only two months earlier, eastern Tennessee was enjoying one of the warmest Februarys on record. Average temperatures for the month were highs of 62 degrees and lows of 44 degrees, which were, respectively, 8 and 10 degrees above the historic average. A record high of 81 degrees on Feb. 22 was recorded at the Knoxville airport, and overnight temperatures dropped below freezing on only six occasions throughout the month, according to the National Weather Service. Precipitation for the month was double the historic average. "This is the oddest winter and spring I've seen since I've been here," Brosnan said. "I've seen the full gamut in my travels this spring. I haven't seen any dead greens, but what I have seen is differential spring green up following stress. . . . By and large, I think everyone will come out fine with good growth. They'll just be lagging." Last fall, the University of Arkansas released preliminary data on a research project by graduate student Eric DeBoer that helps establish thresholds for exposure of ultradwarf Bermudagrasses to cold temperatures, allowing superintendents to minimize the threat of winter damage and improving spring green up throughout the transition zone. DeBoer's research tested Champion, TifEagle and MiniVerde ultradwarf Bermudagrasses using covers at 25 degrees, 22 degrees, 18 degrees and 15 degrees Fahrenheit. TifEagle and MiniVerde proved to be more cold tolerant than Champion. According to the study, Bermudagrass greens covered when temperatures reached 15 degrees survived throughout the winter with improved spring green up. Covered greens even survived two days of extreme cold temperatures where overnight lows dropped to 0 degrees on consecutive nights.
The weather has definitely made for a kooky start to everything."
Golf course superintendents throughout the transition zone who have made the switch to Bermudagrass during the past 15 years are covering their greens. Even among those who use covers, conditions have varied as they peeled them off, said Brandon Horvath, Ph.D., turfgrass pathologist at UT. Some putting surfaces have been greener than others, while some have been more prone to typical spring disease pressure. "Some turf has greened up under double covers or areas on covers where there is overlap, like along seams," Horvath said. "From a disease standpoint, we've seen all the usual suspects. In greens that have been double-covered, we've seen some pythium because it's been wet recently." That list of usual suspects includes pythium, spring dead spot, leaf blight, take-all patch and fairy ring. For those who might be set on a calendar for making fungicide applications, this year might be a good reason to move on from that thinking, Horvath said. "Application timing is one of those things where it's easy to get into a run. If you're into a calendar-based thing, with the the weather the way it's been - somewhat cold still, but not terribly cold, you have to pay attention to that," Horvath said. "For fungicides, we don't have indicators like forsythia blooms like you do with herbicides. Soil temperatures trigger when to make applications. When you have soil temperatures around 55 to 65 degrees, that's when you want to pull the trigger on those applications when soil temps are in that appropriate range. But with respect to periods like this when it gets colder, warms back up and gets colder again, you need five or six days of sustained soil temperatures to make those applications." About 10 golf courses, mostly low-budget facilities, in western Kentucky have made the switch to ultradwarf Bermuda in recent years because they lack the budget to manage bentgrass through the state's hot, humid summers, said Gregg Munshaw, Ph.D., of the University of Kentucky. "They only contact me if they have issues," Munshaw said. "They haven't contacted me yet this year, which means they're no problems, other than green up is just a little slower this year than they would like." Like in Tennessee, Munshaw isn't predicting any long-term problems for the courses in western Kentucky, or anywhere else throughout the transition zone for that matter. Any damage occurring on greens should be relatively simple to fix, but will require patience from superintendents - and golfers. "Unless there is widespread death, it's probably not going to be doom and gloom," he said. "If there is some loss, they might want to consider plugging from outside the greens, but that stuff spreads pretty well. The problem is what will members expect, or if you're a daily fee and you are relying on play coming in the door, are golfers going to come in and play if the grass is not there, or it's patchy? Because it might be late June until they are where they want to be, or maybe later. This isn't football, where you can wait until August. This is golf and you need to be ready now." What is of more concern to Munshaw is what might happen to turf on the northern end of the transition zone if cold temperatures persist and the turf uses up the precious resources it needs to survive the winter. "My only concern is the longer the grass stays dormant, the more it will burn up carbohydrates," he said. "If they are gone, and those places will struggle with green up. We need that turf to start waking up now." The wild temperature swings throughout the transition zone from winter through mid spring have created some challenges for weed control as well, Brosnan said. Warm temperatures in February led to some early green up and put into question whether it was safe to make applications for Poa control since the turf was beginning to emerge from dormancy. At a recent Middle Tennessee chapter meeting, superintendents were discussing early damage from Poa control applications, Brosnan said. "It was so cold in January, then in February the weather broke like there was no tomorrow," Brosnan said. "We had high temperatures and high amounts of rainfall. We exceeded the 30-year rainfall average in just about all the major cities in Tennessee. "We reached 100 growing degree days in February, and that made for unsettling decision on Ronstar and Roundup. Then we'd have frost for the next four or five days. I know you're no longer accumulating growing degree days when it's that cold, but does that reset the clock? "The weather has definitely made for a kooky start to everything."- Read more...
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"If you look at the old photographs, when they finished mining, it was bald," said Corbin Todd, director of golf courses at the University of Michigan. "It looked more like the surface of the moon." Today, Radrick Farms, a 1962 Pete Dye layout, and its sister course, the Alister MacKenzie-designed Blue Course, are leading the university's campus-wide efforts toward sustainability and environmental stewardship. "Sustainability is the right thing to do," said Chantel Jackson, general manager at UM's Blue Course. "I don't care what field you're in, or who you work for, if you live here in Ann Arbor, you have to be aware of sustainability. It's a passion here, and it needs to be part of everyday life." To that end, the courses have implemented several environmental programs that include an innovative construction method for the parking lot that helps manage surface water, conversion of managed turf to naturalized out-of-play areas, an unconventional rooftop on the renovated clubhouse of the Blue Course. Along the way, each has earned certification from the Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Clean Corporate Citizen Program with the help of the e-Par system. And progress is monitored and audited by the university's office of campus sustainability. "Sustainability is rooted in our tradition," Todd said. "We want to leave the property better than we found it. We want to be good stewards of our resources." More than three decades before Dye converted land in eastern Ann Arbor into one of Michigan's best golf courses, the Cadillac Sand and Gravel Co. sold the mined out property to Frederick Matthei who restored the property from eyesore to pasture and farmland before donating it to the university in 1957. Five years later, it had become one of the first works of a young, up-and-coming architect from Indianapolis. Today, Radrick is the only course in Michigan to be recognized by the Groundwater Foundation as a Groundwater Guardian Green Site, a program that acknowledges the work of turfgrass managers for their efforts to protect groundwater resources through "practices related to chemical use, water use, pollution prevention, water quality, and environmental stewardship". In 2012, the course received the Washtenaw County Environmental Excellence Award for Water Quality Protection. "The university always wanted to keep that land natural. That's why they hired Pete Dye," Todd said. "They've always wanted to be good stewards of the environment, and that started way before sustainability was even a thing." Across town, MacKenzie planted the Blue Course on the edge of the UM campus in 1929. While providing generations of students, faculty, staff and alumni with a classic golf experience, the course also has for many years doubled as a parking lot for the 107,000-seat Michigan Stadium directly across Stadium Boulevard. That hasn't hindered efforts at the Blue Course, as well as Radrick Farms, to lead the way toward sustainability. Efforts there include an aggressive recycling program with an ultimate goal of zero-waste at the golf course (and throughout campus), converting managed turf to naturalized out-of-play areas, a green rooftop on the renovated clubhouse that includes a native planting program managed by superintendent Scott Rockov and utilizing permeable fill in the parking lot that aids in filtering surface water and minimizing runoff. The university's golf operation has worked hard to communicate its efforts to customers. "We have talking points for our staff," Jackson said. "There are enough things we are doing around the golf course to create questions, and we want to make sure our staff has the right information to give back to them." The program clearly resonates with the university's environmentally engaged clientele. "In Ann Arbor and at the University of Michigan, it is expected of us to be responsible environmental stewards," Jackson said. "We ask our customers in a survey if they are aware of what we're doing and if it is important to them, and they definitely care." The efforts of the UM staff extend far beyond the golf course. Objectives such as sustainability and zero waste are campus-wide initiatives that fit into the university's goals of training the next generation of pace-setters. "Our core value as a university is to build leaders of tomorrow," Todd said. "If we don't challenge them today, we don't have leaders of tomorrow."
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Schwab has watched as colleagues walked off the job when she was promoted from assistant to head superintendent, and like so many others, she knows what it's like to have a golfer mistake her for a beer cart operator. "That happens to me all the time," she said. "I've been at professional conferences when people have asked me 'whose wife are you?' It's not coming from a malicious place. When people say things like this, it can be harmful, but if I just bitch, I'm not going to have much influence. The only way to change people's perceptions of this industry is to educate them." That all men don't welcome women into the world of golf might point more toward their own insecurities than anything else, says Amy Wallis, Ph.D., a professor of practice at the Wake Forest University School of Business. Wallis' expertise lies in differences of people from different cultures, races and generations and how that can affect performance in the workplace. "There are certain areas of life that historically have been reserved for particular groups of people, and those people go to those activities because they feel comfortable and safe there," said Amy Wallis. "And when you think about the golf industry, a lot of men of privilege, and particularly white men of privilege are drawn to golf in part because it's a place where white men of privilege hang out. Some of them are there because of the comfort of that. Then you bring people who are different into that environment and it's like 'I don't know how to behave, so I'm going to behave in ways that I pretend that I'm joking, but I'm actually sending these subtle signals that say you don't belong here.' " That level of discomfort that comes with others invading your space is not reserved only for men, Wallis said. "I might join a gym that is a women-only gym because I feel more comfortable working out in a women-only gym. And if a man walked in I would probably be somewhat bothered by the fact that there was a man there, and I might treat him accordingly," she said. "I might make a joke about a man being there, because the context is one where I had an expectation where there would not be a man there. "I think in golf there is still this perception that there is an invasion of people who are different. Some men might say they were drawn to golf because they knew how to behave there. There is a much bigger discussion we need to have about whether we even have the skills to welcome people who are different into our environment, and how do you develop those skills. Most of us don't spend much time developing those skills. We spend our time looking for areas where we fit in, rather than looking for ways to help other people fit in." Breaking down those barriers is exactly why Schwab organized the event at GIS. "I know what it's like to walk into a room of 500 men and feel like you don't belong," she said. Jessica Lenihan credits a lot of men with helping promote her career since graduating from Penn State's four-year turf program in 2016. She worked on Kevin Hicks's crew at Coeur d'Alene until 2011 and is currently the assistant superintendent at Hayden Lake Country Club in Idaho. "I've met a lot of great, supportive men who are willing to help out," Lenihan (@jklenihan5 on Twitter) said. "I've met a lot of people, too, who are total creeps and don't give you any respect at all. Granted, those have been few and far between. "You have to work twice as hard to prove you know what you're doing. That doesn't bother me. Everyone in this business knows how to grow grass. Whether people believe you, I think that is the question that comes up for women in turf." Schwab says she doesn't think a woman should have to work more to prove she belongs. You can do the job, or you can't, and that should be enough, she says. "One of the reasons for my success is the men who have helped me along the way," Schwab said. "We just want good people in general in this industry, so how do we change this?" That means changing people's perception of culture in and out of the workplace, she said. "People leave their jobs because they feel they don't belong, not because of money," she said. "I don't have to be rough and gruff to show I belong. I think that's where women go wrong. If I have to pretend to be just as tough as the boys, I lose leadership capability and integrity because I'm not being myself. The alternative is to look at each person as an individual. If we work on that, that's where we can make the biggest impact."- Read more...
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I wasn't looking for a new job at all. In fact, this is the only job I've applied for in 20 years. I wasn't stagnating, but I thought I needed a change."
"The goal when I got to Medinah was to rebuild the club into a uniform structure, and it took 10 years to complete," Tyrrell said. "This club has made a lot of investment in a fitness center and clubhouse, and now they're ready to begin investing in the golf courses. I'm here to organize, develop and execute projects for the golf courses. It's everything that would entice me to leave Medinah." While Tyrrell was prompted to leave Medinah by the promise of things to come, Cook said he probably would never have left Oakland Hills if not for some of the life-altering moments from his past. Throughout his career in golf, Cook, 58, has climbed nearly every rock and mountain in his path, often as a way to cut through the stress that comes with managing a Top 100 classic-era golf course. Eventually, those excursions took Cook to the Himalayas in 2015 where he climbed Ama Dablam, a 22,349-foot summit in Nepal. Taking on a mountain like Aba Dablam, where one mistake literally can be the difference between life and death, Cook trained for months, exercising, following a special diet and perfecting his climbing skills. Once the experience was over, it created a vacuum that resulted in a host of personal issues and challenges. In fact, Cook has never climbed so much as a tree since he stepped off Ama Dablam, Cook nearly three years ago. Still, the experience has helped him confront other challenges, including a move to Medinah. "I thought about that a lot when I first heard about the opening at Medinah," Cook said. "Going on that climb gave me courage in other parts of my life that I don't know that I'd have if I didn't make the climb." The team-first culture instilled by Medinah general manager Robert Sereci hasn't hurt, either. "In 20 years at Oakland Hills, we had two U.S. Amateurs, a Ryder Cup and a PGA Championship. It was a great experience. That's a lot of activity in 20 years," Cook said. "I like tournaments, activity, building teams, goal setting. I don't know if I'm any good at it. "One of the things that turned me on and interested me in this job was that the general manager has been successful at changing the culture throughout the club. That was attractive to me." Both Cook and Tyrrell are hoping they can put away their resume for a long time to come. "I'm 47, and this is my last stop - I hope. I'm here to do what I do, and that's improve facilities structurally and build teams. I always thought it would be nice to go to an 18-hole course and tone it down a bit, but this was an exciting opportunity. It's the world I've been operating in. This was the right move at the right time."
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The Lesco web site features Lesco-branded products for the golf, turf and ornamental markets and an interactive blog where users can find answers to frequently asked questions. Lesco-branded products for the golf market include pesticides, fungicides, seed, fertilizer, adjuvants, colorants and specialized equipment like sprayers and spreaders. More Lesco-branded products are due this spring, said John Gertz, vice president of SiteOne. Product information is available through a catch-all link, or in market-specific sub sites. The interactive blog is pre-loaded with tips on product selection and timing of application. Lesco, which was bought by John Deere in 2007, once a staple vendor in the golf turf industry, with a fleet of trucks that made on-site sales calls to golf courses across the country. SiteOne bought Lesco from John Deere Landscapes in 2013.- Read more...
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