A timeless interview with the big three of golf

Each year, now that I have kids, I rarely make an effort ot actually watch the live coverage of the Masters tournament in Augusta, but I do make sure to keep up with the event online after everyone is asleep.  I watched the video that is linked below and it is very insightful to see how Jack, Arnie, and the Black Knight view the game of golf today.  Courses are too long, the ball travels too far, too expensive to maintain, and efforts need to be made to increase the enjoyment and fun of the game.  Jack references the Golf 2.0 program that has been implimented by the PGA of America that is designed to increase participation of golfers.  I am not too familiar with what that program entails YET (I will be soon as I am interested in growing our slice of the golfing pie), but golf does need to be made more fun.  I play with a number of our more mature golfers within the County programs and there are not many that can realistically get to many of our moderate length par 4's in regulation let alone some of our longer holes.  I get tradition, trust me, but how is it fun to hit a ggod driver, three wood, 9-iron into a hole, when single digit handicaps can make it there with a driver and a wedge.  The "Tee it Forward" program makes perfect sense to me and we will be implimenting this program at Morro Bay and Dairy Creek this summer.  Chalk used this program last year, before it was a program, to introduce women and beginning golfers to the game.  I think this is something that can be done to enhance the enjoyment of our current senior, women, and begining golfers.  The trick is going to be getting people to actually play the tee that is best for them because golf is about tradition.  Check out the video and share your thoughts by commenting on this post.  Thanks for reading and "Come on Freddy!"

http://www.masters.com/en_US/videos/interviews.html (look for Honorary Starters Interview 2012)

"When you get those dudes thinking, they're in trouble."

                                                ~Pete Dye, the course architect, on desiging courses for PGA tournaments

Golf rule changes for Seniors

These rules were forwarded to me ealier today and I had to chuckle at all of them.  I particularly Rule 1.a.5 and think this should be instituted not just for seniors but implemented into the USGA's and R&A's Rules of Golf.  Please enjoy and remember that you have to be clinically insane to either (a) brag about your golf game, or (b) lie about your golf game.

Happy swinging!

Rule 1.a.5
A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed on the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough with no penalty. The senior should not be penalized for tall grass which ground keepers failed to mow.

Rule 2.d.6 (B)
A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. This is simply bad luck and luck has no place in a scientific game. The senior player must estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there.

Rule 3.B.3(G)
There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near the course and will eventually be found and pocketed by someone else, making it a stolen ball. The player is not to compound the felony by charging himself or herself with a penalty.

Rule 4.c.7(h)

If a putt passes over a hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The Law of Gravity supersedes the Rules of Golf.

Rule 5
Putts that stop close enough to the cup that they could be blown in, may be blown in. This does not apply to balls more than three inches from the hole. No one wants to make a travesty of the game.

Rule 6.a.9(k)
There is no penalty for so-called "out of bounds." If penny-pinching golf course owners bought sufficient land, this would not occur.. The senior golfer deserves an apology, not a penalty.

Rule 7..G.15(z)
There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard, as golf balls should float. Senior golfers should not be penalized for manufacturers' shortcomings.

Rule 8.k.9( S)
Advertisements claim that golf scores can be improved by purchasing new golf equipment. Since this is financially impractical for many senior golfers, one-half stroke per hole may be subtracted for using old equipment.
Please advise all your senior friends of these important rule changes. And they are written big enough that most of you should be able to read them!

What is a stimpmeter used for?

This is a very intriguing video that explains what these readings mean and how a little knowledge is also quite dangerous.  Have a look and remember that not all greens are built the same.  At Morro Bay if our stimps are above 10 we lose 90% of our pin locations and 5 and 6 putts become the norm, while at Dairy and Chalk 11-12 is possible, but not likely to enhance the majority of our customers' level of satisfaction.  In my experience, club members have a tendency to exaggerate the truth to "out-do" their friends.  In the turf industry we have a saying, "speed kills!"

"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses."

~ Adlai Stevenson 

Pond liner rapair at the waste water treatment plant

Most golfers know of three of the four of our ponds at Dairy Creek Golf Course.  "Four?" you might ask.  Well our forth pond is located about a half mile away at the California Men's Colony (CMC) waste water treatment facility located just south of Cuesta College.  100% of our irrigation water is reclaimed water through a Joint Power Agreement (JPA) with CMC.  The water is pumped into a holding pond at the treatment facility site and then we pump the water through a 6" pipe into pond #2 (the pond between #2 and #7).  Our three ponds on the course are interconnected with 18" pipes to maintain water levels for irrigation purposes.


The white pipe is the fill pipe, the green pipe is the pipe pumping
the water out and the ladder is used to repair the liner.

Early in February we worked with CMC staff to empty the waste water reservoir pond to clean and repair the pond liner.  The liner itself has a 15 year life expectancy and guess what...this summer is Dairy Creek's 15th year of operation.  None the less the liner looked good and most of the repairs were above the water line due to ground squirrels digging through the liner.  Here are a few pictures of our staff working on the repairs.  Enjoy!



Only about 10 more feet of water to remove.

Sludge is creating a suction problem.

Water pumping reinforcements to remove the sludge.

One of our helpers from CMC.

Prepping the liner for a patch.

One down...

 This process is nothing that we have ever encountered before and there were many ideas and solutions that were discovered along the way.  Albert, Kevin, Matt, and Dave all did a great job with a less than ideal situation.  You never know what the job will have in store, but luckily we have a staff full of problem solvers that have yet to back down from a task.



A bit more challenging, but nothing our staff cannot handle.

"Golf is a game in which the player's true opponent is the golf course.  That is why the game can be enjoyed in solitude or with other golfers of every caliber and age."

~Rees Jones, the course architect



Zero Waste may be moving the needle

What a great experience the Golf Industry Show turned out to be!!  However, I was truly disappointed to see the lack of environmentally sustainable efforts at the show.

I attended the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) meetings as an owner this year for the first time and there was a great deal of talk about sustainable business models and best practices to get more people to play the game and have MORE FUN...this should be our focus as operators as we move forward.  Really think outside of the box and get people enjoying themselves with the first step playing a tee box (or two) forward.  This will get people hitting shots that are more conducive to greens in regulations and not hoping to get there with a long iron.  It may also help build our numbers by encouraging kids and beginners, but you first must find out how to reach them.  Also adding value without discounting so that you are not competing on price alone, which ultimately devalues the experience.  Now if your price point is low then its about placing yourself in the right market.  I would also like to see more advertising about golf as a form of recreation and not the advertising that each of us does on our own to attract golfers.  There needs to be more of a presence about how beneficial the game is to our communities and individuals.  I will attempt to move this needle within our local golf market and I will let you know how that turns out, but this will be a slow project as we will first have to develop relationships, trust, honesty, and only then will we be able to collaborate.  We'll see and I am optimistic that we can buck the trend of 10-11% golfers in our population locally.

OK off of that soap box.  But what about the show room floor?  I saw and picked up some info about composting toilets and propane driven machinery.  Where were the bio-diesel generators, composters, tea brewers, etc. that will move golf ahead as the front-runners as environmental stewards that we all like to consider ourselves.  I did see one tea brewer, but it was an admitted prop to get people to the booth and he did not even sell products related to teas.  Not to mention that most simple endeavor, the trash, was not sorted at all.  It was all co-mingled!!  There were organic fertilizers and chemicals on the floor, and lot's of irrigation technologies to improve efficiency and this is great to see.  I'm still not sure how you keep from clobbering these moisture sensors with aerifiers.  I got s'more lernin' to do!  I am hopeful that more environmental sustainability will come with time and the efforts of Greg Lyman and the Environmental Institute For Golf.

We have been getting some good exposure from non-golf related entities at the Zero Waste Park at Dairy Creek.  The week before I left for the GIS our site was visited by the director, Hunter Francis, of the Center for Sustainability at Cal Poly.  We are working with Cal Poly's Horticulture Department in hopes to quantify the beneficial results of compost teas on golf courses.  The day I left for the show I presented our program to 60+ PGA professionals at a Southern Section PGA meeting held at Dairy Creek.  The response was good and there was a good deal of interest.  A couple of days after I returned from the GIS we hosted a group from the EPA to check out the site and they were excited about what was happening and eager to help.  This may lead to expanding the the Zero Waste efforts to Morro Bay and perhaps Chalk Mountain as well.  Last week we had a group from VermiVision (www.vermivision.net) tour our facility and it turns out we all have similar goals to reduce pesticides, water use, and other chemicals from agricultural operations.

It been rewarding seeing that not only have our efforts been rewarded by golfers sorting their waste at the facility (about 90% of the time!!), but now we are helping other entities with their goals or providing them a model that they can mimic.  I truly think this process can be useful in the golf industry as we have removed ~3000 pounds of waste from the landfills since October, generated nearly 20 cu. yds. of compost, and fertilized our greens with teas every two weeks.  I can't wait to see the recent lab results from Cal Poly.  We'll keep our heads down and keep plugging forward in the effort of global awareness and environmental sustainability.  Let us know if we can provide you with a tour or how we can help your efforts in any way.