Bunker dilemma met head-on

If all goes well, nine-year GCSAA member Kevin Clark may forgo a career as a superintendent, which might also bode well for the golf course maintenance industry.

Such is the mixed turn of events for the 32-year-old assistant superintendent at Lantana Golf Club north of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Clark has developed a bunker liner that could well be a breakthrough product, especially for steep-faced bunkers.

Clark has been issued one patent and has another pending for the product, called Bunker Solution, and is in the process of growing a company by the same name. It’s a mighty big step for an assistant superintendent in north Texas, but so far his invention warrants taking the chance.

Lantana GC — a Jay and Carter Morrish design that features large, steep-sloped bunkers to add definition to an otherwise flat terrain — opened in 2002, and less than two years later the failure of the bunker liner product installed during construction had caused widespread bunker deterioration. Kurt Sewell, the construction/grow-in superintendent on the project who stayed on to manage the course, and Clark were left to find a better way in the wake of owner and member complaints.

“We tried just about every product I knew of on the market,” says Sewell, who put Clark in charge of finding a solution.

Clark tried several combinations of products with no luck at first, then finally came up with a mix of elements that worked well enough to redo some of Lantana’s bunkers as test sites.

“Kurt and I came up with the essential points we wanted to develop a liner that met our needs,” Clark says. “I got lucky, I guess, and came up with something that works.”

About a year ago, Clark’s Bunker Solution was the key ingredient in a total bunker renovation at Lantana, and to date the product has been a huge success.

“It’s amazing — what we had and what we now have,” says Sewell, a 15-year GCSAA member who notes that the project also included eliminating 18 bunkers, while adding nearly 20,000 linear feet of drainage pipe. “There’s the time we’ve saved in maintenance, but it’s much more fun to ride around the golf course and not look at a muddy mess. If this liner is going to fail, I’ve yet to see how.”

What Clark came up with was a four-piece water-impermeable liner that’s very similar to a mat of synthetic turf. The system includes drainage ditches lined with impermeable fabric, no gravel, and a row of sod removed from the bunker lip with the liner tucked under the sod and glued and stapled. The finished product seals the bunker from contamination from the lip and from underneath, while irrigation or stormwater is forced through the drainage setup.

Clark’s product is manufactured at textile plants in Georgia and comes with an eight-year guarantee. So far Bunker Solution consists of Clark, an accountant and a fledgling Web site, www.bunkersolution.com. The irony is that bunkers aren’t redone very often, which means that Clark’s biggest hurdle is finding customers with impending bunker projects.

“It’s a long process in that regard. When I was looking for financing, it was hard to explain that I’m selling now for three or four years down the road,” he says, adding that another irony is if Bunker Solution is as successful as he thinks it will be, return calls from customers will be few and far between as well.

In recent months, Clark has sold his product to a few courses in Texas and has test bunkers at several other venues. One pleased client is Morris Johnson, superintendent at River Oaks Country Club in Houston, who installed Bunker Solution during a Rees Jones renovation last spring.

“The system is golf club-, weedeater- and rake machine-friendly, with the additional benefit of eliminating the need for gravel,” the 18-year GCSAA member says. “It’s an innovative solution that superintendents have long been searching for.”

Clark hasn’t quit his day job just yet and he’s appreciative of being able to juggle work and getting Bunker Solution up and running.

“Kurt and the ownership have been great,” he says. “They’ve been really lenient in letting me do demonstrations and sales calls. They’re big believers in the product.”

But Sewell sees the handwriting on the wall.

“I think Kevin’s passion is now more the liner than greenkeeping,” he says. “It’s only a matter of time before he has his company rolling and he’ll be moving on. I kid him about how rich he’s going to be.”

— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer

Golf course management
loses a friend

Robert E. Labbance, noted author and historian of golf and a champion of the golf course management profession, died Aug. 24 of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 56.

Labbance was an editor for Turf and Superintendent magazines and also served the golf association publications of a half-dozen states in the Northeast during his career, in which he produced 17 books and countless golf-related articles in numerous publications, including GCM.

Labbance teamed with longtime Canadian superintendent Gordon Witteveen to co-author “Keepers of the Green: A History of Golf Course Management” to mark GCSAA’s 75th anniversary in 2001.

It was the game’s history that was Labbance’s real love. He was a longtime member of the Golf Collectors Society and edited its newsletter, The Bulletin, for many years. He assembled a collection of more than 3,000 books on golf and golf history. He also was a member of the USGA’s museum committee.

Labbance and Witteveen, who retired in 1999, met nearly a decade ago when they were commissioned to compile a history of greenkeeping for GCSAA. Witteveen recalled the collaboration.

“I’d never co-authored a book before, but Bob was an established writer. We had a meeting, played golf together and got along really well. Our styles were different, and neither of us knew about writing something together. We decided to divide the book into six equal parts, with each of us doing three apiece,” said Witteveen, who mixed nearly five decades of working as a superintendent with his own love of writing and history.

“I have nothing but good things to say about Bob,” the 48-year GCSAA member added. “He was such a wonderful historian of golf. We got along marvelously. We respected each other.”

Labbance had an even longer relationship with a superintendent who forged the collaboration for the GCSAA book – Mel Lucas, who, along with Witteveen, was a member of the GCSAA Historical Committee at the time.

“I knew Bob pretty well and I kind of urged the committee that it would be a wise choice for us to bring Bob on to help with the book,” said Lucas, CGCS-Retired and GCSAA president in 1980, who had been acquainted with Witteveen since the mid-1970s.

Lucas, who lives in South Dartmouth, Mass., and Labbance went back more than three decades, as well, mainly through their mutual involvement with the Golf Collectors Society, of which Lucas served as president and CEO for a time, and the USGA museum committee, as well as various GCSAA and Metropolitan GCSA activities.

“Bob and I have dovetailed our lives over the past 35 years together. He was a great friend,” Lucas said.

Labbance suffered a severe spinal injury in a fall on a golf course four years ago that medical experts now think masked the early signs of ALS, which was formally diagnosed about a year ago. In the several weeks before his death, the golf course management industry, fellow writers and others in golf rallied to help his family with medical bills. GCSAA bought the 17 volumes of his collected works at a benefit auction and also co-sponsored, along with the American Society of Golf Course Architects and Golfweek magazine, a fundraising golf tournament at Ekwanok Golf Club in Manchester, Vt.

Labbance is survived by his wife of 34 years, Kathie; son Griffin; and daughter Simone. Donations may be made to the Labbance Family Fund, P.O. Box 53, Bloomfield, CT 06002.

— Terry Ostmeyer, GCM senior staff writer

The California State Assembly recently gave local governments the authority to ban salt-producing water softeners so the state can meet its water-recycling goal of using one million acre-feet of reclaimed water by 2010.

Deere event gives customers their say

MILAN, Ill. — In the early 1990s, when equipment giant John Deere was taking its first, tentative steps into the golf market, the company began turning to its early customers in golf to find out what was working and, maybe more important, what wasn’t working on their initial product offerings.

Soon, the practice of casual discussions with superintendents turned formal as the company made “Feedback” — yes, the event goes by a single name — a regular part of its product development activities. The most recent edition in mid-August brought superintendents from across the country to the Quad Cities and the company’s world headquarters in Moline, Ill., to give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to some of its latest and greatest products.

“It’s a little unfortunate that we just signed up for a new lease because I’m seeing a lot of new equipment that I’d like to get my hands on,” joked Paul White, a former superintendent who now works with H&S Developers in Yuma, Ariz.

“(Having an event like Feedback) shows me that the company really cares about the end-user and what we really want. It just all makes sense because I don’t know how an engineer sitting in an office somewhere can really know what the guys using the products in the field want in a product and how they feel about a product.”

At Pinnacle Country Club, the longtime host to the U.S. version of Feedback (the company has taken the event international in recent years), the invited superintendents — some of them John Deere customers, some of them not — were allowed to kick the tires and take test drives of everything from greens mowers to irrigation systems. Some of the products were completely new; others were existing products with new features. Some will hit the market as soon as early next year, while others are years away from commercial release. And through it all, John Deere engineers and product managers were on hand to answer any questions raised by attendees.

Split into groups that rotated attendees between stations dedicated to different product categories, superintendents received a thick booklet with specific questions related to each category and each individual product within those categories. The questions touched on a wide range of issues, from maneuverability to overall ease of use to fuel preferences.

According to Mike Koppen, John Deere’s group marketing manager, information gathered at Feedback goes directly into the product-development pipeline to help fine-tune equipment innovations.

And what if Feedback attendees identify a significant issue with a piece of equipment poised for commercial release? “Fortunately, that doesn’t happen much,” Koppen laughs. “But if something is already in production or close to production, we can stop. We also have the luxury of holding off on some items until the next model year if we have to. That’s how much we value the input we get from these guys.”

— Scott Hollister, GCM editor

An extensive collection of Bob Hope memorabilia will be on exhibit at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Fla., beginning Nov. 8. Included in the exhibit will be Hope’s Old Tom Morris Award, presented by GCSAA in 1984.

Golf courses must comply with uniform signage

A recent Federal Highway Administration amendment to U.S. Code affects the signage, pavement markings and other traffic control devices that may be used on golf course property.

The amendment says that privately owned property open to public access or travel must conform to the same standards as those maintained by public agencies. That means that the aforementioned traffic control devices must be visible both day and night.

The move toward uniformity in traffic control devices is so they can be easily recognized and understood by pedestrians, bicycle riders and motor vehicle operators.

Two of the golf course management industry’s largest partners, Syngenta Professional Products and John Deere, recently struck an alliance in which Syngenta products will be distributed by John Deere Landscapes, which provides products for the lawn and landscape and golf course markets.

Virginia event explores game’s growth

GCSAA superintendents, PGA professionals, club presidents, directors and managers came together with Virginia state golf association officials and executives recently to discuss their best practices to grow the game of golf in the Commonwealth.

Industry leaders taking part in the panel discussion at Princess Anne Country Club in Virginia Beach, Va., included Virginia GCSA president Eric Spurlock, superintendent at Hermitage Country Club in Montpelier, Va., and Virginia GCSA executive director David Norman. The leading golf organizations represented were GCSAA, USGA, PGA of America, Club Managers Association of America, National Golf Course Owners Association, PGA Tour, LPGA, The First Tee and Golf 20/20.

The event stressed that the golf industry, although diverse in its interests and objectives, is united as never before in its efforts to increase its impact economically, improve its stewardship of the environment, bring its positive values to a new generation and use its fundraising capacity to improve the quality of life for millions of Americans.

The group highlighted the need to represent golf — to nonplayers as well as golfers — as an industry that employs a cross-section of the community, and one that buys goods and services to help the economy. In general, panelists noted, golf courses are long-term economically viable businesses that offer jobs and maintain open space in the community.

It was also pointed out that, based on polling of golfers, course conditioning is the most important variable to golfers in deciding to play a course. With that in mind, some of the challenges of escalating costs in fertilizers, water, fuel and other items were mentioned, while conservation measures were stressed, with the new trend of “best management practices” noted as a great way to ensure the best product for the least cost in concert with the environment.

On the marketing side, the panelists said the key barriers continue to be affordability and time commitment. Some alternatives beginning to emerge include lower cost options, nine-hole activities and golf in schools. Also, the baby boomer effect should be a near-term boost to the game, and family golf is being emphasized more.

 — Information provided by the Virginia GCSA

Passings noted

L.W. “Sonny” DuBose Jr., CGCS, 91, died Dec. 11, 2007. DuBose was the last living member of the South Texas GCSA’s founding fathers. Along with J.L. Jennings, Kenneth Flanders, Sid Cox, Donald White, Ervin Henderson and Lewis Nash, DuBose created the southeast Texas chapter in 1958.

Born in 1916, DuBose entered the golf course maintenance profession in 1940 as the superintendent at Westwood Country Club. He then moved to Houston Country Club in 1942 and, with the exception of a short stint at Braeburn Country Club, remained there for 40 years. After his retirement from Houston CC, he started his own company, Sonny DuBose Products, which he ran until his retirement in the mid-1990s. His son Larry took over the leadership of the company.

He remained active in the industry during his retirement and received several honors, including the GCSAA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2001. DuBose, a 54-year member of GCSAA, also served as president of the STGCSA in 1960, 1964-65 and 1971 and as the president of the Texas Turfgrass Association in 1960. DuBose also spent three years on GCSAA’s board of directors.

He was preceded in death by his son Larry, who died in 1996. DuBose is survived by his wife of 66 years, Evelyn DuBose; his daughter, Patricia Baker and her husband, Mike; his son, Leon DuBose III and wife, Nancy; sisters Jean Peck and Elizabeth Morgan; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

James M. Latham Jr. of Deltona, Fla., retired USGA agronomist, died July 16. He was 79.

Latham was born in Hillsboro, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&M with degrees in soil science and agronomy. He had two stints as an agronomist and regional director with the USGA Green Section, 1956-60 and 1984-94. In between, he worked more than 20 years for the Sewerage Commission in Milwaukee, where he helped develop one of the nation’s first businesses designed to recycle waste products into landscape fertilizers.

From 1995 to 2002, Latham was a member of USGA’s turfgrass and environment research committee, and in 2003 was the recipient of the Green Section’s Piper and Oakley Award in recognition of his meritorious service to the USGA and the game of golf.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Lois; two daughters, Kathy Jenkinson and Lynne Cassidy; a sister, Myrna Erwin; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

LPGA rethinks language edict

The LPGA has decided its own decision to require its golfers to learn and speak English or face suspension was a bad idea.

In early September, LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens rescinded the Aug. 26 edict amid outcry from both LPGA and PGA Tour players and threats of legal action from several fronts. She added that LPGA officials would consult its members and come up with a better alternative by the end of the year.

The decree had said that by the end of 2009, all players who have been on the women’s tour for two years must pass an oral evaluation of their English skills or face suspension. The tour, dominated in recent years by foreign golfers, specifically wanted its players to speak English in pro-ams, trophy presentations and media interviews. The LPGA’s membership includes 121 international players from 26 countries, including 45 South Koreans.

GCSAA staffers share a laugh

GCSAA was represented for the first time by actual participants — and not just a donation — in the annual John Wake Laugh Olympics.

The event was created by GCM staffer Seth Jones in honor of former GCSAA student programs manager John Wake, who died in 2003 from complications of sickle cell anemia. The “J-LO,” as it’s called, has raised more than $18,000 in the last two years to support research on both sickle cell anemia and ALS.

True to the name of the event, GCSAA’s foursome in the golf competition, which included Eric Neuteboom, employee programs manager, and Bill Newton, media/public relations manager, got a good laugh when Neuteboom’s opening tee shot crashed into a nearby apartment complex.

For more on the event, which asks participants to compete in golf, bowling, pool and darts, visit www.laugholympics.net.

Toro preps more future leaders

As part of its continuing efforts to bring attention to all aspects of the golf industry to the nation’s young people, The Toro Co. will host its second annual Future Leaders Forum next month in partnership with The First Tee and Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

The innovative program will host 50 high school students representing First Tee chapters worldwide. The forum is set for Nov. 6-9 and will coincide with the PGA Tour’s Children’s Miracle Network Classic at the Disney resort.

The students are exposed to the sport, business and science of golf during the event by participating in sessions designed to strengthen leadership skills, enhance college preparation and explore the many professional disciplines in the golf industry.

Sessions will discuss golf course maintenance and conditioning and new course management technologies.

Free C&S for five lucky superintendents

Bayer Environmental Science and The Environmental Institute for Golf will once again provide grants to five superintendents to attend the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show. The 2009 event is Feb. 5-7 in New Orleans.

Entries will be accepted through Oct. 20. The winners will be selected by a random drawing Oct. 24. The grants are aimed at assisting those superintendents who have not attended the last two conference and shows.

Compensation survey underscores private/public gap

It pays to work at a private golf facility versus a public-access facility, according to a 2008 compensation survey done by the National Golf Course Owners Association and the National Club Executives. Size matters, as well.

The survey of NGCOA and NCE members indicated that the total compensation (base salary, bonus and commission) for the top executive/general manager position at a facility with annual gross revenues of more than $7.5 million was $208,706. Employees at facilities with less than $2 million in gross revenues took home $72,222.

The survey also revealed that the lead agronomic/head golf course superintendent at a private facility earned an average salary of $118,186, compared with $75,351 at a public-access facility.

Golf Inc. fete boosts The Institute

GCSAA’s philanthropic organization, The Environmental Institute for Golf, was a big benefactor of a fundraising event held recently in conjunction with Golf Inc. magazine’s fall conference at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“Green Night at Camelback” featured silent and live auctions, with the proceeds going to EIFG. Auction prizes included autographed items from Institute leaders Greg Norman and Michael Hurdzan, Ph.D., as well as a trip to Africa and a golf outing in Colorado.

Golf Inc. also recognized the winners of its first Green Awards, along with its 20 Most Admired Operators for 2008, which include three GCSAA members — Jose Quesada, director of golf at La Iguana Golf Course in Playa Herradura, Costa Rica; Ray Davies, CGCS and director of golf course maintenance and construction for CourseCo; and Bob Farren, CGCS and director of grounds and maintenance at Pinehurst Resort.

A former winner of the magazine’s Most Admired Operators award when he was manager of golf operations for the city of San Diego, Mark Woodward, CGCS and now GCSAA’s CEO, was one of the keynote speakers at the conference. Woodward recalled his experiences and lessons learned from hosting the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego this past summer.

The conference was presented by The Toro Co. and ValleyCrest Golf Course maintenance.

Research in the spotlight

Karl Danneberger, Ph.D., of Ohio State University’s horticulture and crop science department, leads a session during the recent OSU/Ohio Turfgrass Foundation’s Turfgrass Research Field Day in Columbus, Ohio. The event hosted about 400 turfgrass managers and featured the latest in turf and ornamental research at the university, including test plots for such situations as fungicide evaluations and timing, shaded bentgrass, insecticide updates, greens hydrology and dollar spot/fertility.

The third edition of its popular “An Environmental Approach to Golf Course Development” has been published by the American Society of Golf Course Architects. The work, by ASGCA member Bill Love, features the ABCs of the development of new courses or the remodeling of existing ones.

An unstoppable man

Editor’s Note: The following is an installment in a periodic series of stories in Front Nine focusing on the careers of some of GCSAA’s longest-tenured and most respected members. This month features Kentucky turfgrass pioneer Raymond Phillips.

The accomplished career of Raymond Phillips truly came full circle when he took a job on the maintenance staff at Cincinnati’s Kenwood Country Club. The club is where Phillips, 81, got his first introduction to the game as a youngster before going on to lead a varied career that included founding the Kentuckiana GCSA chapter and the Kentucky Turfgrass Council, among countless other achievements while he bounced between courses in Ohio and Kentucky.

Phillips, a 58-year GCSAA member, attended high school within walking distance of Kenwood CC. “I went over and asked for a job and was given a job,” he explains matter-of-factly.

After high school, Phillips entered the service in 1945 during World War II and returned two years later, when he says he was fortunate enough to get his job back at Kenwood. Two years later, he landed a position with the city of Cincinnati as its assistant superintendent and soon was offered the head superintendent job at Louisville (Ky.) Country Club, where he stayed for 18 years.

In Kentucky, Phillips, along with colleagues in the area, founded the Kentuckiana GCSA in the late 1940s and in 1967, he won the chapter’s Superintendent of the Year Award. Soon after that he moved back to Cincinnati — this time to Crest Hills Country Club, which is where Phillips started to earn his reputation as a specialist in golf course construction.

“They were in the process of building a new course, and I finished building the back nine,” he says, adding that he took up an offer from a friend in Louisville to work at the Bunton Seed Co., a Toro distributor and vendor of fertilizer, chemicals and seed. He worked as a sales representative and consultant for nearly five years and when he tired of that, he moved back into the superintendent’s world, going to work at River Hills Golf Course in northern Kentucky for five years. Next on the list was Highland Country Club in Fort Thomas, Ky., where Phillips built another nine-hole course. He stayed there for 12 years.

Along the way, Phillips founded the Kentucky Turfgrass Council, inspired his two sons to enter the golf course arena and was made a Kentucky Colonel. His penultimate job offer landed Phillips across the river from Louisville in New Albany (Ind.) Country Club, a job from which he officially retired in 1996.

Phillips had stayed in touch with Dennis Warner, the Class A superintendent at his hometown club of Kenwood CC, who told Phillips to give him a call if he ever grew tired of the business. Phillips did and has been working on the grounds department ever since.

“Amazingly enough, I remembered most of the holes when I came back,” he says, despite a course renovation that included rerouting certain holes that were previously intersected by a highway.

Today, Phillips’ two sons, Scott and Steve, work alongside their father at Kenwood. Steve, a retired superintendent who previously worked at Hidden Valley Golf Course in Indiana and Bellefonte Country Club in Ashland, Ky., works on the staff, while Scott, a 13-year Class C member, has been the assistant superintendent at the course for about 18 years. His sons aren’t the only ones who have benefited from their father’s mentoring.

“Not counting my oldest son, I have eight former employees that have been superintendents, and I’m kind of proud of that,” he says.

Warner, a 38-year GCSAA member, says he loves working with Phillips and values the example his work ethic sets for younger course employees. “He doesn’t know when to stop working,” Warner says. “He had some kind of a medical problem and wouldn’t take off ... he wanted to keep working. The younger generation gets a hangnail and wants to take off. His patience and cooperation with the crew and just having someone on staff with his experience is invaluable.”

The day when Phillips calls it quits for good doesn’t appear to be on the horizon.

“I like to get up and go to work and not do the same thing every day,” he says. “I just enjoy working outside with nature. I’ve been doing it now for, what, 65 years? My wife (Johnetta, of more than 60 years) keeps hollering at me to give it up. Right this minute, I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought.”

 — Darcy DeVictor, GCM associate editor

Michigan State University students Manuel Angel Gonzalez Loma and Jose Antonio Martin Quiros are the newest winners of the two-year, $10,000 scholarships awarded by the Royal Spanish Golf Federation and funded by The Environmental Institute for Golf.