 |
by Scott Hollister, |
Examining
‘the other stuff’
|
Whenever I have the opportunity to spend time with superintendents on their golf courses, I’m always taken with just how eagerly these men and women — professionals who manage large annual budgets, multinational staffs and, often, oversee preparations for the biggest events in the game — tackle even the smallest agronomic challenges they come across.
Ask them why, and you get pretty much the same answer across the board. “Growing grass is the easy part of this job,” they’ll say. “It’s all the other stuff that’s the problem.”
The same goes for the advice that we receive from the volunteer members of GCSAA’s Strategic Communications Committee, who annually contribute content ideas for the planning of future issues of GCM. We get the agronomy, they tell us. It’s everywhere else where we could use a hand.
I’d like to think that we’ve paid attention to those real-world words of advice as our staff has constructed each and every issue of GCM. Although our coverage of agronomy has been and always will be at the core of each issue of the magazine — most notably through our research section, the most-respected and most-trusted turfgrass research coverage available in the industry — we’ve attempted in the past year to broaden our editorial perspective and tackle issues that really matter to working superintendents.
In 2007 alone, our lead feature stories have touched on issues ranging from career development and the environment to staffing and personal responsibility. We’ve touched on superintendents who balance the burden of course ownership with their daily maintenance routines. We’ve looked at the “greening” of golf course maintenance and the role of alternative fuels in our industry. We’ve introduced you to superintendents who have broken bad personal habits — folks who have stopped smoking, stopped drinking, lost weight — and offered tips on how you can turn away from your own personal demons. We’ve examined the complicated labor issues that face superintendents and how the industry is responding to those challenges on their behalf.
And in this month’s GCM, we take a look at another out-of-the-box issue facing superintendents — finding, and then keeping, qualified equipment technicians. Terry Ostmeyer, our senior staff writer, will introduce you to a trio of successful superintendent/technician relationships and the reasons behind their thriving partnerships in “A perfect fit,” which begins on page 48.
We’re hopeful that “the other stuff” that we have turned our attention to in the past year has been beneficial to the working superintendents who turn to GCM each month. If you have your own personal “other stuff” that you’d like to see the staff of the magazine tackle in the coming months — or even a good, old-fashioned agronomic topic that you think deserves attention — drop me an e-mail at shollister@gcsaa.org.
RECENT issues
 |
 |
September |
August |