2010 Golf Industry Show

Working in the Midwest affords me the pleasure of having some “down time” in which to work on things I don’t necessarily have much time for in the summer. Recently, I have been working on some continuing education by attending the annual Golf Industry Show in San Diego, California. This year (due to the locale) my family chose to attend with me, although they opted out of education and visiting the trade show and chose relaxation and visiting the beaches instead! Smart family if you ask me…

I didn’t get to frequent the beach or partake in the relaxation as much, but instead furthered my education and spent a day at the trade show learning about some of the industry’s newest innovations. I attended three seminars that seemed very appropriate for upcoming events at the club. The first seminar was about planning and costing a major project on the golf course. As many of you know, 2010 will be a year of “planning” rather than “doing” on the golf course. We will be working with a golf course architect to come up with solutions to the various challenges we face on the golf course. This planning will give us a blueprint as to how to most effectively and economically tackle these challenges. In the seminar, much time was devoted to how to effectively organize a project and ensure its success. I greatly look forward to the planning process that will happen in 2010.

The second seminar I attended was more about personal goals than big picture goals. It has long been my professional goal to become a Certified Golf Course Superintendent. I have made it my personal goal to achieve this in 2011. The seminar thoroughly laid out all that is involved with applying for and succeeding in the certification process. It will be a challenge to complete all of the facets in a 12 month period, but it will be a challenge worth taking!

My final seminar was all about the maintenance facility itself. As many of you can relate, the maintenance facility is not a place that is “seen” by the membership, in fact, some members may not even know of its existence. It is largely for this reason that maintenance facilities are forgotten about and largely misunderstood. The “barn” as most refer to it is actually a far cry from a barn. Nationwide, maintenance “barns” house an average of $1.2 million dollars worth of equipment and inventory needed to protect and maintain the backbone of the club. Our scenario is not much different than the national average. In our case, we house 16 employees in peak season and spend $700k of the club’s money on the course. An efficient operation is a necessity, especially in these financial times. It will be my goal (one of many) in this planning year of 2010, to investigate and diagnose inefficiencies within my department. The ultimate goal will be to find solutions that will be included in future club improvements.

Besides the seminars, I spent the better part of a day at the trade show looking at some of the many new products available this year.  High on my list of things to research is the new Jacobsen Eclipse triplex mower.  We currently have "E-plexes" which are all electric triplexes and occasionally have issues with the longevity of the batteries.  Our lease expires after this year and we will be replacing those E-plexes with something different.  The new Eclipse hybrid has a small gas (or diesel) engine that runs a generator that, in turn, runs the on board electric components.  This unit is much improved from our current units and I can't wait for my demo this summer.  The other product that sparked my interest was a bunker liner that doesn't require you to hand rake bunkers after installation.  I will be researching this product more this year in preparation of our upcoming bunker work.

Blogging about Blogging

I was talking with a member the other day and he was telling me how much he enjoyed reading my newsletter articles and the e-mail update I used to send out.  "How come you don't send out that E-Update anymore?" was the next obvious question.  I obviously took the opportunity to promote my blog and directed him on how he could navigate his way to the blog.  It got me thinking though... I've spent a considerable amount of time setting up this blog, adding "gadgets" that make it both user friendly and aesthetically pleasing, updating the blog with as much regularity as possible (I'm getting better), learning to add pictures, videos, etc, but I have no idea if anyone is even looking at it!

I called upon my neighbor (who is way smarter than me) to help me out and he pointed me to Google Analytics, a free program to track gobs of information on any website.  I subsequently investigated Google Analytics signed up my blog to be tracked.  I now have the ablilty to track how many hits per day my blog gets...

...and I can even see from which cities the hits originate...

This is probably not very new technology, but "wow" I say, it's pretty cool what you can do for free these days!  Now that I have the ability to track hits and find out some information about each hit (don't worry I can't find out "who" is on my blog, just what you are looking at) my next challenge will be to get the word out to my membership and have them use this blog for it's original intent.  This blog is such a great tool to get information out to the masses in a very short time, it would be a shame if it's intended audience isn't watching.  Feel free to comment with any suggestions!

Tree Work Continues...

We lost all of our snow over the weekend due to the warm weather we had.  Now with temperatures going back down below freezing we should see the ground re-freeze and our outdoor work will be back in full swing.  Today, with the ground still soft, we were limited in where we could go, but were able to take down the Oak on #12 tee that has been dying for several years due to a vascular disease.  We have been watching this tree for several years and decided this summer that we would finally take it out this winter.  As you can see in the picture, it was nearly void of leaves this past year and several branches were beginning to rot.

We will also be taking down a medium sized Ash tree on the opposite side of the #12 tee.   The absence of these two trees will allow for more sunlight on the tee provide for a more open tee shot. Their absense should also help improve turf quality and lessen the impact of earthworms on the tee.

Dangerous Situation...

Our recent "warm up" has melted away quite a bit of our snow cover and caused our underground drainage system to flow again.  The result is the melting of our pond ice both from the top and the bottom.  While it is never a good idea to venture out on our ponds in the winter, the next few weeks will be more dangerous than usual.

Our ponds are "in-line" with our drainage system and quite a bit of water travels through them on a daily basis.  Because of this water movement, the ice that forms on the ponds is rarely predictable.  It may seem thick enough to walk or skate on, but there are plenty of thin areas that are largely unnoticeable from above.  The pond on #13 is especially prone to this and, in fact, rarely completely freezes over.  You, or your children, should NEVER be on the ice on #13 pond.  Our ponds are relatively shallow, about 5' to 6' deep, but plenty deep if a child should happen to go through.

Please make it a practice to avoid our ponds in the winter and remind your children the same.  As I make my occasional rounds throughout the winter,  I am always impressed with the amount of use our course gets in the off season.  With a little common sense we can ensure that it is a safe off season!

Time flies when you're having fun...

How do you survive the monotany of painting the lettering on all 144 tee markers?

Movies!

Audio/ Visual Master (also pronounced as-sist-ant sup-er-in-ten-dent) Mick Tempel has once again set up his TV with a surround sound home theater system for the annual tee marker painting project (also known as the "CCC Film Festival").  Staffers have submitted their recommendations for movies to watch, tee markers are prepped, and the party is on!  We expect to be finished with the tee markers in about a week.  Last year the entire season of "24" was viewed along with a few choice movies.  This year Jack Baur is being pushed aside for some newly released movies! 

Sometimes creature comforts make even the most tedious of projects go by quickly!  Now please excuse me, I've got some popcorn to make...

Tee marker, tee markers, and more tee markers...

As I mentioned in my last post, the recent snowfall has sort of forced us indoors and caused us to change modes from tree work to indoor jobs.  One of the many required winter tasks is the refinishing of all of our wooden course accessories, most notably our custom tee markers.  We have been making significant progress on the tee markers with nearly all of the prep work complete.  Pictured below are some of the grounds staff hard at work.  Each marker must have all of the lettering cleaned out and must be completely sanded down before new paint and sealer are applied.  We usually plan for the better part of two weeks just to get through tee markers.  The end result is a custom tee marker that is easy to read, and well protected from the weather extremes of the golfing season.  Kudos to the maintenance staff for their hard and very tedious work on the tee markers and all of the course accessories. 

Winter Bliss!

As memories of the 2009 golf season slowly fade to the deeper reaches of my mind, I am reminded of yet another reason I love living and working in the Midwest....SNOW!  Last night we were treated to a 6" snowfall which puts our snow cover total to around 8" (depending on where you measure, of course.)  This is good news for the winter activists as cross country skis and sleds will be the common mode of transportation around the course for the next few weeks.  The 8" of snow is bad news, however, for our outdoor winter work as turf equipment does not fair well in the deep snow.  Until the snow melts down a little (or blows away) we will be concentrating our efforts indoors.  Our many "refinishing projects" will see some progress and, with a little help from Mother Nature, we'll be back outside in a few weeks.