Superintendent Position Open

[Anthony_Nysse]

Bill,

   Please describe the issues you saw with the Champions.  I am just a northerner and have always loved the grass.  I found Tiff Eagle to be grainy.  I also agree with how grass is managed is very/most important.   

There has been a good number of issue with Champion (NO S) and Mini Verde the last few years dealing with contamination. The sprigs are not coming from the farms as "clean" as they once were. The first course with Tifeagle was planting in 1997 and still going strong.
  All of the 3 main Ultradwafts are going to need more maintenance than Tifdwaft. All have their issues. Champion just doesn't like to grow some times, MV has its own issues. If you keep the Nitrogen low and grooming/todressing high, Tifeagle is a great surface.  TPC will be going to it in 2015.

I'm a low Nitrogen type of a guy.  No need to grow, i am perfectly fine with rolling.  Knowing that TPC is going with Tifeagle tells me to do the opposite.  Duke went with Champions, still early but greens are great.  Mid Pines went with mini and they are good but not as good as Duke's.  That is one of the few positive things i can say for Duke's course too.  If TPC gets it wrong, no biggie, they can just redo them in a few years.  They have deep pockets.  Does WW have tifeagle?  Those greens are decent. 

TPC is going with Tifeagle because they need a hardier grass for their high amount of play and small surfaces. Comparing courses in eastern Carolina is vastly different than anywhere in FL. Remember, there are still a lot of courses with bent in NC. Not the case in FL.

  Bill, the club is ultimately going to make the decision on what type of turf they want and will probably find a Supt with experience on that surface. You're paying for it, you can make the decision and you will have plenty of applicants applying. If you waited until you for your new Supt, you wouldn't be getting new surfaces this year. If a Supt stands out there and puts his foot down on a certain type of grass and it doesnt work...who's fault is it? Let the club make their decision (which they have) as they're footing the bill. There are several courses in FL that are going this direction this summer. I am also sure there is conform in knowing that Tifton, GA isn't too far from Pensacola.
  Tom-I am sure you've work with many clubs that wanted a certain feature that you didn't agree with, but it's what the club wanted. You stated your opinion, but they wanted it anyways. Not different here, really. Members get bills, employees/contractors get checks.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Hola Bill,
Were the demonstration greens in play or were they nurseries. Do you know in what way the tiff Eagle out preformed the champions and mini verde that casued the scales to tip in favor of the Tiff Eagle? Who cut the cake and made the final decisión?
Randy

They were practice putting greens. 

Our board made the decision based on the recommendations of Jerry Pate, his design associate, and his brother, a golf course contractor.  They are all members.  I don't know the technical details. 

Bill,

A good number of clubs in Southeast Florida have regrassed their fairways and greens.

I would suggest contacting them to ascertain their results.

Clubs like CC of Florida, Pine Tree and about a dozen or two clubs within 20 miles have done regrassing.

I would have source referenced their individual and cumulative results before making any decisions and pulling the trigger

Like Mr. Nysse correctly stated earlier in the thread, Pensacola is a different climate than southeast Florida, there is a colder winter. What works in Miami won’t necessarily work in the panhandle.

I didn't know that Southeastern Florida was confined to the Miami City limits

[Steve Okula]

Hola Bill,
Were the demonstration greens in play or were they nurseries. Do you know in what way the tiff Eagle out preformed the champions and mini verde that casued the scales to tip in favor of the Tiff Eagle? Who cut the cake and made the final decisión?
Randy

They were practice putting greens. 

Our board made the decision based on the recommendations of Jerry Pate, his design associate, and his brother, a golf course contractor.  They are all members.  I don't know the technical details. 

Bill,

A good number of clubs in Southeast Florida have regrassed their fairways and greens.

I would suggest contacting them to ascertain their results.

Clubs like CC of Florida, Pine Tree and about a dozen or two clubs within 20 miles have done regrassing.

I would have source referenced their individual and cumulative results before making any decisions and pulling the trigger

Like Mr. Nysse correctly stated earlier in the thread, Pensacola is a different climate than southeast Florida, there is a colder winter. What works in Miami won’t necessarily work in the panhandle.

I didn't know that Southeastern Florida was confined to the Miami City limits

I never said it was. I was speaking figuratively, using Miami as a symbol to represent that general section of the state, just as in the rest of the thread Pensacola and the Florida panhandle are used interchangeably.

It's called writing style. You see, it reads better if I change the words around and insert "Miami" instead of repeating "southeast Florida". Miami is less work to type, as well.

[BCowan]

Bill:

Good luck on finding the right man.

I do think your club got the sequence of decisions in the wrong order.  If I was rebuilding a set of greens, I would want the guy who was going to maintain them on board with the choice -- instead of interviewing guys after a decision on the grass type has already been made by the board.

I get a little queasy whenever this board discusses the relative merits of different grass cultivars.  I have seen exceptional results with Champion [Yeamans Hall and Mid Ocean] and Mini Verde [Streamsong and Indian Creek].  It's entirely possible that TifEagle is better suited to the Panhandle, I have no idea.    Plus, there are salesmen galore in the grass business and I am never quite certain whether an independent expert is really in bed with one supplier -- it happens way more often than you think.

+1

''But, often, guys' opinions here are based on a very limited experience with the different choices, and one good experience with one or the other.''  -.5 

[Bill_McBride]

Hola Bill,
Were the demonstration greens in play or were they nurseries. Do you know in what way the tiff Eagle out preformed the champions and mini verde that casued the scales to tip in favor of the Tiff Eagle? Who cut the cake and made the final decisión?
Randy

They were practice putting greens. 

Our board made the decision based on the recommendations of Jerry Pate, his design associate, and his brother, a golf course contractor.  They are all members.  I don't know the technical details. 

Bill,

A good number of clubs in Southeast Florida have regrassed their fairways and greens.

I would suggest contacting them to ascertain their results.

Clubs like CC of Florida, Pine Tree and about a dozen or two clubs within 20 miles have done regrassing.

I would have source referenced their individual and cumulative results before making any decisions and pulling the trigger

Like Mr. Nysse correctly stated earlier in the thread, Pensacola is a different climate than southeast Florida, there is a colder winter. What works in Miami won’t necessarily work in the panhandle.

I didn't know that Southeastern Florida was confined to the Miami City limits

That's funny. It takes me maybe 11 hours to drive to Miami if I don't stop to pee.

We are in zone 4, much more Southern Alabama than South Florida. 

[Mike_Young]

Bill,
The supts may disagree but no matter which grass you choose and it sounds like you guy have chosen TifEagle, be sure the greens are gassed properly.  I am sure they already know this.   Many of the problems I see with "mutations" in the various cultivars are not mutations as much as preexisting grasses which never really went away.  Often the grass salesman will tell a club they can "round -up" the greens a few times and be fine.  "Dwarf will not live at the new heights" and then a couple of years later someone is saying there is a mutation.  Mutations happen in two of the cultivars sometimes but so often it is not mutation but just other grasses. 

[Bill_McBride]

Bill,
The supts may disagree but no matter which grass you choose and it sounds like you guy have chosen TifEagle, be sure the greens are gassed properly.  I am sure they already know this.   Many of the problems I see with "mutations" in the various cultivars are not mutations as much as preexisting grasses which never really went away.  Often the grass salesman will tell a club they can "round -up" the greens a few times and be fine.  "Dwarf will not live at the new heights" and then a couple of years later someone is saying there is a mutation.  Mutations happen in two of the cultivars sometimes but so often it is not mutation but just other grasses. 

From what I heard we are removing several inches of organic material then gassing.  I just hope they maintain the current interesting contours. 

[Mike_Young]

Bill,
It doesn't matter how much is removed if the green is not gassed.  BUT I am sure they will do such.  I have had a couple of courses where the developer thought he could save $$$$ by using round-up and one grass company was saying ok and the other was saying no-way.  He took the cheaper and regrassed three years later.

[Randy Thompson]

Bill,
It doesn't matter how much is removed if the green is not gassed.  BUT I am sure they will do such.  I have had a couple of courses where the developer thought he could save $$$$ by using round-up and one grass company was saying ok and the other was saying no-way.  He took the cheaper and regrassed three years later.

As happens so often for so many different reasons and imo why a confident golf course cosultant should be part of the formula in relation to the final decisión. Bill also stated that a USGA consultant made recomendatios three years prior that were never followed. I wonder if they had been, if they would still be changing today. Who didn´t follow thse recommendations, the super? the board didn´t allow the super??
Does Paul Jones live that far away from Bill´s club that is changing from Tiff Eagle to Mini Verde??? Triggers get pulled to fast imo!

[Paul Jones]

Bill,
It doesn't matter how much is removed if the green is not gassed.  BUT I am sure they will do such.  I have had a couple of courses where the developer thought he could save $$$$ by using round-up and one grass company was saying ok and the other was saying no-way.  He took the cheaper and regrassed three years later.

As happens so often for so many different reasons and imo why a confident golf course cosultant should be part of the formula in relation to the final decisión. Bill also stated that a USGA consultant made recomendatios three years prior that were never followed. I wonder if they had been, if they would still be changing today. Who didn´t follow thse recommendations, the super? the board didn´t allow the super??
Does Paul Jones live that far away from Bill´s club that is changing from Tiff Eagle to Mini Verde??? Triggers get pulled to fast imo!

One of the reasons we are doing our greens now is that we were able to still get Methol Bromide (not sure of the spelling) for the best gas/kill/destroy/etc...  We are also redoing the collars.  We have been very happy with TifEagle but the club made a decision to go with MinVerde.  Quite a few other clubs in Louisiana have already gone down that path and have been very happy.

Bill, you are always welcome back at Oakbourne to check on the progress and eat some gumbo or I can get you in touch with our Super if you want.  I am a big fan of Super we have, he does a wonderful job.

[Paul Jones]

One more note, our greens are 15+ years old and some do have mutation.  I think they narrowed it down to one bad truck load years ago that was used on our 3 worst greens.  I think we have the 2nd best greens in the state, after Squire Creek. 

Finally, we are able to do the entire process without accessing the membership.

[Steve Okula]

This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion here  (I know it is with golf course superintendents) but methyl bromide shouldn’t be used. It contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer, so there are more ultra-violet rays reaching the earth’s surface and leading to increased incidence of skin cancer in humans, besides having adverse affects on other species. It seems to me that skin cancer is too high a price for pure golf greens.

And yes, I am aware that methyl bromide is a naturally occurring substance, but humans are releasing more than the atmosphere can absorb.

And yes, I’m aware that other industries, such as agriculture and ship fumigation, use far more MB than the turfgrass industry, but that’s no justification, just as one petty theft isn’t justified by many larger ones.

May I suggest as a substitute the product Basamid for soil fumigation. I have used Basamid to fumigate bentgrass greens contaminated with bermudagrass and found it to be completely effective. It is less toxic than MB and more environmentally friendly.

And no, I have no commercial interest in either product.