Friday, August 6, 2010

What's the Web Saying About Turfgrass, 8-6-10 Edition



Enjoy the first part of the weekend before warmer temperatures move in on Sunday and early next week. Here is your list of links to articles regarding turf. Have a great weekend!

MSU Turfgrass Field Day: 8/18/10. The 2010 MSU Turfgrass Field Day is open to all turf professionals regardless of affiliation. Spend a day with the experts and see what cutting edge research can do to make your operation more productive and profitable. We look forward to seeing you there! http://www.michiganturfgrass.org/msu-turfgrass-field-day;-8182010;-golf-course-turfgrass-field-day-140/

Canadian Tour Will Help USGA Test Shorter Golf Balls. Many of the game's experts - most prominently Jack Nicklaus - argue for dialing back golf ball technology as a way to reverse distance gains they believe are bad for the game's future and dismissive of the game's past. Where do you fall in the debate over distance in golf? http://golf.about.com/b/2010/07/24/canadian-tour-will-help-usga-test-shorter-golf-balls.htm

Why We Need More Par-Three Courses. Mike Keiser, who commissions everything at the Bandon Dunes complex in Oregon as a golf purist's fantasy, is building a fifth course to add to his famous four. It's something you don't hear about much anymore—a par-three. Construction on the 12-holer, tentatively called "The Bandon Preserve," starts in February. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575382941326891262.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Golf Course Superintendents Embracing Social Media. Last Thursday, course superintendent Frank Tichenor arrived at work before dawn to discover a potential nightmare: hyperodes weevil. Naturally, Tichenor’s first reaction was to grab his BlackBerry ... and take a picture for his blog. “There’s always something happening on the golf course,” Tichenor said. “So I took a picture of it, put it up on the blog, and tweeted it and said, ‘Look, this is what’s happening and this is how we’re going to handle it.’ ” http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-07261-superintendents-social-media.aspx

Kansas Turfgrass Field Day. Kansas Turfgrass Field Day, Thursday, August 5, 2010, Rocky Ford Research Center, Manhattan, KS, 8:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Cost: $30.00 (includes lunch), For more information, go to: http://www.hfrr.ksu.edu/DesktopModules/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=2840

Bentgrass and Poa annua greens are hard-hit. Sometimes conditions can become so oppressive on a given site that it overwhelms creeping bentgrass and causes rapid decline, despite the heroic efforts of the superintendent and staff. This information in this article is designed to focus on what can be done amidst this difficult summer. http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/southeast/Summer-2010---Bad-To-Worse-For-Creeping-Bentgrass---July-2010/

A detailed labor analysis is effective for tracking costs and making decisions. Golfers, owners, and course officials often have a difficult time understanding how it can take so many people to perform a relatively simple task. So, how many people does it really take to maintain a golf course? Here is the definitive answer: It depends. Accurately forecasting such emergencies is difficult, if not impossible. Read on for a step-by-step procedure showing how to perform a labor analysis at your course. http://turf.lib.msu.edu/gsr/2010s/2010/100524.pdf

The career assistant superintendent. It is a tough time to be an assistant superintendent of a golf course in the present job market and economy. It seems to me that if you are fortunate enough to have a job right now, you are holding on to it and riding out this ugly wave. http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-080210-guest-column-jeff-wichman-career-superintendent.aspx

Marcus Jones
Graduate Research Assistant

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