From the desk of GCM

best fungicide ever

"The three best fungicides for turf are Stihl, McCullough and Husqvarna," Stan Zontek of the USGA said last week at the Green Start Academy in Clayton, N.C. He jested, surely, when he continued with the point by having the class of assistant superintendents chant repeatedly, "Trees are bad for grass."

It really drilled home the challenge that superintendents face when trying to persuade golfers that cutting down trees will offer a benefit to the quality of grass. And so it was with a different perspective that I viewed a press release that came across my inbox recently about Husqvarna's Chain Saw Demo Days as part of its "Master Your Great Outdoors" campaign.

Through the end of this month, Husqvarna is offering demonstrations and promotions at participating servicing dealers across the nation in an effort to help drive dealers' business. Those in attendance of one of the events will have the chance to fire up a new Husqvarna 460 Rancher chain saw the company says offers 20 percent less fuel consumption and up to 60 percent less emissions. Test drivers get a free hat (what more could you ask for) and purchasers of the new tool will receive a Swedish steel hatchet. Find out more about these events here.

Number crunching

OK, stick with me here, because I'm about to talk about numbers. If you know me, that's not a good thing. Math and I don't see eye to eye on many things, which explains my career in journalism.

But numbers came front and center while writing my earlier post about Patrick Watson's presentation today on the Southern Nevada Water Authority's Water Smart Landscape Program during the WaterSmart Innovations Conference. I won't bore you with details that you can just as easily read in the post below this one, but here's what stood out — golf courses have converted 629 acres of turfgrass into more water-friendly native areas through this rebate program, a program that currently pays back $1.50 per square foot converted to property owners.

Those two figures got me thinking, If 629 acres equals 27,399,240 square feet (which it does, according to Google's handy converter) and if the rebate is $1.50 per square foot (which it is), my calculations told me that golf courses in Vegas had earned $41,098,860 through this program.

WHAAAAAAAA?!?!?! $41 million!?!?! How can that possibly be, I thought? And who is funding this program? Warren Buffett? Golf courses aren't the only participants — plenty of home owners and businesses participate — so where are the hundreds of millions of dollars needed coming from?

On the front lines of water conservation

Patrick Watson is a former superintendent — certified, in fact, and he still retains that certification — who worked on golf courses in both Arizona and the Las Vegas area before trading in his cup cutter four years ago for a position with the Southern Nevada Water Authority as its conservation services administrator.

In that capacity, he works closely with Vegas-area superintendents involved in one of the country's most innovative and effective water conservation projects, the Water Smart Landscape Program. It's a program designed to encourage property owners to convert turfgrass areas into more water-friendly native areas in exchange for a $1.50 rebate for every square foot converted. For property using recycled water, there is no cap on that rebate. Golf courses have been especially receptive; 63 percent of the golf courses in southern Nevada participate in the program, and to date, 629 acres have gone through this transformation, saving an estimated 1.5 billion gallons of water.

It's one of the biggest wins that golf has enjoyed in this era of water conservation, and Watson is regularly putting up superintendents in Las Vegas as examples of how efforts like these in a water-starved area like Las Vegas actually can produce results. He offers them up to home owners associations as a resource about how — and why — the program works.

And despite all that, even he can't tell you exactly why golf remains a punching bag of sorts during conversations about water and its efficient use in our society.

Standing on the edge of the Hoover Dam

Ever tried to write something substantive while a presidential debate plays in the background? Probably not. But if you're considering it, I'd advise against it. I've been sitting in front of my laptop for a good 20 minutes now, trying to whip up a quick blog post about my trip this afternoon to Hoover Dam as a part of the WaterSmart Innovations Conference, and I can't get four words typed in before being distracted by the debate.

But in reality, pictures of Hoover Dam go a lot farther than words anyway. So I've thrown up a couple of photos in this post from our trek. In order (clockwise from top left), what you're looking at is ...

1. A sign in one of the generator rooms, just to prove I was there.
2. A view of the dam itself, taken from the observation deck at the visitor's center.
3. During our time inside the dam, we got an up-close-and-personal look through one of the four inspection vents on the side of the dam. This is looking through those vents toward the Colorado River; if we were looking the other way toward Lake Mead, we'd see water, since this vent would be about 300 feet under water.
4. This is a shot of Lake Mead that I found interesting in the contrast in colors on the side of the canyon wall. The line marks the historic high-water mark of the lake, which is about 45 feet below the top of the dam. Normally, the water is just below that line, but the lake is currently over 100 feet below normal which accounts for the large swath of white on the canyon walls. Pretty stark proof of the water issues facing this part of the country.

Time for a little dinner before making an early night of it before the formal start of the conference. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm totally hitting The Strip, maybe play a few hands of blackjack. Just as soon as this debate is over.

Rough start, big finish

For a large portion of yesterday, I was completely convinced there was no way on earth I was making it to Las Vegas for this week's WaterSmart Innovations Conference.

For starters, I was sick as a dog when I woke up yesterday, to the point that I drug myself to a local walk-in clinic to find out what was wrong (nasty sinus infection, it turns out). Like many others of my species, visiting a doctor is a significant concession. It would normally take a bone protruding from the skin or repeated blackouts to get me to a doctor. But with a week on the road ahead of me, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Then, properly hazed up from a host of new antibiotics, I packed for an afternoon flight to the desert, loaded the car and began the 35-minute drive to Kansas City International Airport, only to realize about halfway there that I had left my computer bag, complete with all the tools necessary to cover this week's conference, sitting on a chair in my kitchen. To make matters worse, as I reversed field to begin a panicked drive back home to get said bag, the skies opened up and rain began to fall, slowing traffic on Kansas City's highways to a crawl. By the time I got home, I had 45 minutes left to drive back to the airport, park, check in and get on a plane. Wasn't going to happen. It was the first missed flight (at least of my own doing) in my professional career.

Goin' back to Houston

Houston is hot and muggy — even in October — but the earlier you get out, the less you suffer. That was the thinking behind Sunday’s turf tour at the Crop Science Society meetings in Houston.  At 7:45 in the morning, turf scientists from across the U.S. and around the world converged on Houston’s Discovery Park conveniently located across from the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Kurt Steinke, Ph.D., of Texas A&M led the group on a tour of Discovery Green, “one of Houston’s newest urban green spaces.” The area was once home to two parking lots, but now boasts grassy spaces that can be reserved for a band concert or a game of bocce ball. To call attention to the Geological Society of America meetings that are being held jointly with those of the Crop Science, Agronomy and Soil Science Societies, a hot air balloon bounced along one of the park’s grassy areas.

Texas A&M turf entomologist James Steinert, Ph.D., spoke about the “super chinch bug,” which, of course could only come from Texas where everything is bigger, and his colleague at the university, turf researcher Ambika Chandra, Ph.D., described the various turf species that thrive in Texas.

Mark Kuhns: A presidential preview

GCSAA members and faithful can expect a pretty interesting upcoming year, if a few long conversations I had with the association's vice president, Mark D. Kuhns, CGCS, are any indication.

I returned home over the weekend from Springfield, N.J., home of the famed Baltusrol Golf Club where Kuhns is director of grounds. I was there to oversee a photo shoot and interview Kuhns, who will be GCSAA's President in 2009.

The story won't be out until the March issue of GCM, and I'm not one to give away many details before then, but here's a heads-up -- we could well see anything from a new GCSAA membership classification to a more superintendent-friendly Golf Industry Show and a lot more in between during Kuhns' term. He's prone to speaking his mind, which has been honed to a sharp edge in a remarkable career of nearly three decades.

Back to school

Got up early today. Had to get to class on time. The wake-up call was early for me -- 6 a.m. in my time zone -- but not for for the 50-plus assistant superintendents who joined me at the 3rd annual Green Start Academy in North Carolina held by John Deere Golf and Bayer Environmental Science. This morning, the assistant supers, who were selected for the networking and educational event by a panel of superintendent judges, gathered at the Bayer Environmental Science Development and Training Center in Clayton, N.C., to listen to presentations on water management and sustainable development and watch demonstrations of new technology in the works at the Bayer facility. They showcased tools, mostly, that monitor and measure soil and turf conditions, while we also got a glance of a John Deere machine that combines a conventional aerifier with a verticutter.

GCSAA director of membership Dave Fearis (pictured above) gave a great presentation this afternoon about career development before the group broke off into round-table discussions with Bob Farren, CGCS at Pinehurst, and Bruce Williams, CGCS, at Los Angeles CC and then later got an in-depth tour of Bayer's trial turfgrass plots.

So far the event's been stocked full of good information for assistants looking to move up the ladder and just do their jobs better. And although I'm here as a member of the industry press, the lessons learned have applied to me, too, as a (relatively) young person working to establish a successful career. And in that regard, I've really felt among peers, and it's a great group of bright young talent in the industry.

Tomorrow we'll get a tour of John Deere's Turf Care Plant and an update from the USGA and on fertilization and mowing research from Frank Rossi. I'm off to bed. Early to bed, early to rise.

New Orleans, here we come!

It's a little like Christmas morning around GCSAA headquarters today, and why shouldn't it be? It's opening day for registration to the 2008 GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show, meaning the countdown to New Orleans has officially begun (123 days, 10 hours and 23 minutes at the time of this writing).

So what are you waiting for? To register for the education conference and get your pick of the choicest classroom offerings, click here to get started. If you're interested in teeing it up before conference and show at the GCSAA National Championship and Golf Classic in Gulf Shores, Ala. — and why wouldn't you be interested in that? — this is where you want to go (Guess what? It's a trick! It's the same site as the link above!). And finally, if you're already registered and think it's a good idea to find a place to stay while you're in New Orleans, click here and the fine folks at Golf Industry Travel are ready to help you out.

While you mull all that over, a few other items to bring your attention to on this Wednesday:

Go green ... for free!

You like wine, right? (If not, just play along). And you like doing things to improve your golf course, don't you? And best of all, I'm pretty sure you like free, correct?

If so, then you're going to love this — from now until the end of the PGA Tour season (Nov. 10), you can sign up your golf course for Audubon International's Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses for free, courtesy of the fine folks at Bonterra Wines. The first 100 golf courses who go to www.bonterragreensthegreens.com and sign up will have the $200 registration fee paid for by Bonterra.

So why is a wine company interested in the environmental status of golf courses? Well, Bonterra bills itself as the best-selling wine in the U.S. made from organic grapes, so their environmental activism is obviously ingrained in the way they do business. Plus, the company already has it's foot in golf's door as the official wine of the PGA of America, so the partnership with Audubon just made sense.

"Partnering with Audubon International was a natural fit for us," said Don Freytag, the global brand manager for Bonterra Wines. "Bonterra uses a lot of the same water management and habitat strategies that Audubon International recommends for its golf program. What's good for the earth is good for the earth, whether you are producing award-winning wines or playing on an award-winning golf course."

First a drought, now a gas shortage

I had a chance to speak with our old friend Anthony Williams, CGCS this morning. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was talking to Williams, the CGCS at Stone Mountain (Ga.) Golf Club, about the drought superintendents were suffering through in his region. This year? We were talking about the gas shortage. "Of all the things I would have thought I'd be panicking about right now... a gas shortage wasn't one of them," Williams told me.

Williams said that the gas shortage hasn't let up on them yet, and it is being forecast that residents of north Georgia have another week or two to go before the supply will catch up. This is causing plenty of headaches for the golf course and for employees. Some employees aren't for sure if they will make it in to work the next day because of the gas shortage. On the golf course, Williams is limiting the amount of time the mowers can go out. He's also applied Primo to slow growth.

"We've had to rearrange the maintenance schedule to protect the gas we have in the ground," Williams says. They have a 1,000-gallon drum at the facility which holds both diesel and regular. "The unleaded we have is 70-octane... I wouldn't advise putting it in your vehicle, but that's what we've had to do -- a few gallon's worth -- for some of the guys who make pretty long drives, just to make sure they can get in to work."