When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Thanks to Dave who forwarded this insider's view of a board meeting at Missouri's Sikeston Country Club. The sensitive subject of tree removal is in play. I think it is safe to say that anyone who has spent time on a club committee will relate to this. The video is also a fine introduction to Overstream.com.
Robbyn Brooks reports on a pretty amazing bit of heroism by Reggata Bay superintendent Doug Higgins, who pulled a woman to safety after her car plunged into water near the 16th hole.
"I was on the 16th hole and I could hear tires squealing," said Doug Higgins who had been making his morning rounds on a golf cart.
Higgins continued to drive toward U.S. Highway 98 where he thought the wreck was when he noticed a black Toyota Camry in the water.
"She was in the middle of the water," Higgins said. "She had her window down, but she was elderly and kind of out of it. She didn't try to get out."
Higgins had called 9-1-1 and could hear sirens in the distance, but the car was sinking rapidly. The woman rolled up her window instead of climbing out. That's when Higgins said he ditched his shoes and wallet and jumped in the water.
"The front door was too far in the water. I couldn't get it open," Higgins recalled. "I was beating on the glass saying, ‘Unlock your doors. Unlock your doors.' "
Higgins watched until the lock moved and then began to force the back door of the car open. The pressure was so great that water rushed in as he pried it.
"I got her seatbelt off and pulled her over the seat and to shore," Higgins said.
One of the points raised in my Obama-WPA piece for Golf World revolved the idea of taking turf out of play and in general, irrigating less (perhaps with government incentives, as pointed out in this example). I close the piece wondering if golfers can actually accept less green in the name of Green.
I asked Tom Naccarato, who does digital photo work for architects and clubs looking to simulate what something will look like, to work on a couple of Torrey Pines photos I took last year. Because I can't think of a course with more acreage that needs to be converted to non-irrigated native. (There was one choice spot right of the 7th fairway where irrigation has been turned off and Tom used that for the rough look you'll see in the photo below).
While I was walking around Torrey prior to the Open I met consultant Andy Slack, the irrigation guru brought in to try and right the troubled irrigation system at Torrey. When asked how many acres on the property could be converted to non-irrigated without impacting play, Slack said he felt that 50 acres was an easy target. I would agree. And the ensuing cost savings in irrigation, energy and man power of reducing 50 acres would be incredible.
Furthermore, does this really look so bad? I know the PGA Tour would have a coronary because there isn't full turf coverage and many golfers would wonder what's wrong, but this would seem to me where golf is going to have to if it wants to survive and reclaim some of its "native golf" roots. Click to enlarge Tom Naccarato's digital enhancement of No. 14 at Torrey Pines:
My November essay on the two most significant issues facing the game--time and golf's environmental image--is now posted at Golfdom.com.
Also up is part one of Larry Aylward's three-parter on superintendents who are watering less.
John Paul Newport uses his Saturday WSJ column to look at the water usage debate, with ominous signs for the future.In Georgia, it has already begun. "We calculate that golf courses have had to cut back 97% on their water usage in this drought, while other water-using industries were only asked to reduce by 10%," says Mike Crawford, president of the Georgia chapter of the superintendents association and the course superintendent at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga. "We want to be a good partner, but that's not fair. Golf is a $3.5 billion industry in this state."
Nationwide, golf-course irrigation consumes less than half of 1% of the 408 billion gallons of water used daily, a golf-industry report concludes.
Even so, that's a lot of water -- two billion gallons a day, or enough to satisfy the household needs of more than two-thirds of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And it's clear from the pioneering work that some courses have done in reducing water usage how much less water golf overall could get by on.
Four years ago, for instance, the Olympic Club and two other courses in the San Francisco area collaborated on a project to reclaim wastewater before it was discharged into the ocean. The courses now irrigate exclusively with this nonpotable "gray water," as do 12% of U.S. courses.
Many courses have also scaled back the acreage they maintain as turf, substituting low-maintenance vegetation in areas where golfers are unlikely to hit balls. Moisture-metering systems, coupled with watering systems that use as many as 3,000 computer-controlled sprinkler heads, allow some superintendents to spot-water only when and where the turf needs it.
Thanks to reader Mark for this Bruce Matthews story on the extreme measures taken at Royal Melbourne to help get through a drought.A convoy of tankers will cart water to Royal Melbourne to keep the world-famous golf course alive over summer.And...
It will cost the club an estimated $100,000 each week to buy the recycled water from Melbourne Water's western treatment plant at Werribee.
"We are unable to water fairways at all with our current water allocations and we can only rely on rain," club captain Peter Sutherland said in last month's club newsletter.
"If the situation worsens, the (club's) council may need to reduce traffic on the courses to prevent long-term damage."
Events on the club's calendar this month, such as the Victorian amateur championship starting today, will go ahead at this stage.
"We don't back away from the fact there are areas of the fairways that are particularly dry and obviously lacking good (grass) coverage. But it's something you have to accept in these conditions, that they will take a while to recover," Richardson said.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
