I was there the day David came down to meet PD....he was the man while at Holston...was a big deal for him to leave...He is the best...and keeps it in perspective...
I first went to Holston Hills after playing with Fred Muller and David Stone at The Honors Course ... David insisted we go up to see Holston, too, and made a call to get a couple of guys to go and play with us. He had a lot to do with the success of both places.
Great superintendents are never afraid to experiment, and most of all I think David is best known for that. He was one of the first to go with Zoysia for his fairways, after being not pleased with the performance of the bermuda they started with. But his experiments weren't all high-tech. One time I was there, he took me out to a tee where he'd been testing ways to manage his rough. One side of the hole from tee to fairway was rugged and natural; the other side was jungle. He asked me what I thought the difference was, and I said I had no idea. Turned out he had just mowed the natural side at the right time, and the heat stunted its growth from there.
