Weather cycles and golf...opinions/no science...

[John Kavanaugh]

I have to imagine courses out east are getting flooded once again.  Even my course in Southern Indiana was hit by a tornado that killed 15 people and destroyed our maintenance building.  Living in Southern Illiana I haven't missed 8 weeks of golf in the last 5 years....Travel to Oregon in February and have beautiful days...KPV might as well been in hell.  Last summer was hell for supers and fans of smooth greens...

Is everything going just a little crazy...

[John Kavanaugh]

Bill,

I'm calling it a cycle...So, will Lehigh get flooded as badly as when someone posted those pics a short time ago.  

I've lived in tornado alley my entire life but as you might imagine 15 people dying gets a whole town jumpy.  There was a run on weather alert radios that wake a house on every warning.  The problem is we get warnings at least once a week...People said to hell with it and soon removed the batteries..

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jaka,
I've mostly lived in the north east(NW CT, NW NY) and I would have to say things are getting warmer, wetter, and more unsettled. Spring is almost a thing of the past in Ct.

The old timers up in West Pierrepont, NY,(near St. Lawrence U) say -50 wasn't uncommon during the winter, I lived there for a short spell and -32 was the coldest I saw. They believed the winters were getting warmer, I have no reason to doubt them.

Have humans had a hand in the process of warming up the globe, causing more exremes of weather? Does our output add to what scientists say are naturally occurring cycles? I don't know how anyone could think otherwise. Even the community that doesn't believe we are responsible acknowledges that co2 causes warming and changes weather.
I like this argument: A golf course may pollute less than a housing development, but both pollute more than no development in the same area (unless you're cleaning up a superfund site). I think the same can be said for global warming: if co2 causes it then we are culpable to a certain degree, even if we are the 'golf course' in the equation.

[John_Cullum]

People's memories are inherently selective.

It aint like it was in the good old days, and it never was.

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

I have played golf now for 38 years and play more in the winter now than I ever have...Last summer was the the worst for the health of greens in the same 38 years...If we have another huricane season like last year I may be put out of business and worse...my parents might move out of Florida back here with me...Rita Crosby is going nuts over this rain....It just feels wrong..

[Gary Daughters]

Summers in Atlanta seem to be progressively less playable and winters progressively more playable.  

See my earlier post.  We used to have 1 golf season.  Now we have 2.  

[John_Cullum]

Perception is reality only in the world of politics.

Greens are so dramatically different than they were 20 years ago, your recollections, if accurate , have little validity.

[John_Cullum]

Summers in Atlanta seem to be progressively less playable and winters progressively more playable.  

Maybe they seem to be, but they probably aren't.

I have been at every Georgia Open for the past 8 years, the last 5 or 6 have been around Atlanta. First week of August every year. I have not been unable to play. The past couple of years we have had little play suspension during  a 4 day event. Some, but not much. We have had a couple in the last 5 years with zero suspension. I would have thought that impossible during any phase of my 46 year life.

[Dan Kelly]

Here in Minnesota, we're enjoying a comfortably cool, sunny-day-after-sunny-day summer.

The greens have never been better.

Go figure.

[Tom Huckaby]

We had a pretty wet winter in NorCal, but since the rains ended, things are pretty much normal.

And John, KP-V was held in Palm Desert in June.  Anyone expecting temps less than 100 was seriously fooling themselves... that example doesn't help your point here...

TH

[John Kavanaugh]

Huck,

I would be willing to put my playable days against yours. (San Diego excluded) just based on your monsoon season.  Add fires and earthquakes and it's no contest.

[ForkaB]

Here in Minnesota, we're enjoying a comfortably cool, sunny-day-after-sunny-day summer.

The greens have never been better.

Go figure.

Dan

I always thought that Summer in the Twin Cities was some 3-6 day period in July or August.  Barney must be ronto something this time!

[Tom Huckaby]

Huck,

I would be willing to put my playable days against yours. (San Diego excluded) just based on your monsoon season.  Add fires and earthquakes and it's no contest.

"Mine" would mean San Jose, CA.  And you're on.  We just have such generally good weather, most CHOOSE not to play when it rains.  I've yet to meet a day one COULDN'T play if he wanted to, though...  Of course this is also going to turn on what one calls "playable."  I'm guess you believe anything above zero without snow on the ground is playable.  If so, more power to you.  

TH

[Gary Daughters]

John Cullum..

I'm 46 as well, and I'll cop to the fact that age may be a factor   in my reluctance to haul around a bag in 95 degree heat and 100 percent humidity.

Having said that I'm having a hard time following the logic of your play suspension example.  I don't get the connection to heat, which is the thing that's keeping me off the course.

Just wondering .. do you find yourself getting out more often during the winter months because the weather allows it?

[Dan Kelly]

Here in Minnesota, we're enjoying a comfortably cool, sunny-day-after-sunny-day summer.

The greens have never been better.

Go figure.

Dan

I always thought that Summer in the Twin Cities was some 3-6 day period in July or August.  Barney must be ronto something this time!

You always thought wrong!

Take away the mosquitoes, and summer in Minnesota is lazy, hazy, crazy and pretty regularly perfect -- almost as good as Autumn in Minnesota, which IS perfect, especially for golfers (and large rodents).

[ForkaB]

Getting this back on topic...

Who would be better in taking away the mosquitoes?  Fazio or Coore & Crenshaw?

[John Kavanaugh]

Bill,

The reason I said no science is because why do we care about the facts if we know how it feels.  I'm not trying to save the world just wondering how this perception of change affects our golfing..

[Mike Hendren]

Amy Alcott won the women's open at Nashville's Richland CC (NLE) in 1980 in temps exceeding 100 degrees each day.  I believe the temps exceeded 100 degrees for over 20 consecutive days in Memphis that summer in one of the worst heat waves in U. S. history.  Death toll in the thousands across the southwest, midwest and southeast.

When you're hot you're hot.
When you're not you're not.
-Jerry Reed

[ForkaB]

Good one, BV

Anybody who thinks they "know" what will happen climatologically over the next 10,000 or even 10 years is a charlatan or a fool.  And, in this case, "hubris" is exactly the proper word to use.

[John_Cullum]

John Cullum..

I'm 46 as well, and I'll cop to the fact that age may be a factor   in my reluctance to haul around a bag in 95 degree heat and 100 percent humidity.

Having said that I'm having a hard time following the logic of your play suspension example.  I don't get the connection to heat, which is the thing that's keeping me off the course.

Just wondering .. do you find yourself getting out more often during the winter months because the weather allows it?

My reference to lack of play suspension is just an observation regarding weather I make. To go 4 days without a lightning/thunderstorm almost seems unusual in the first week of August anywhere in Georgia.

As far as winter golf, I now live around Tampa FL so I get out a hell of alot more in the winter, several days each week in fact. I hated winter golf back in Savannah.

Interestingly, the summer is much more tolerable in Florida than it is in Georgia.

[Jim_Kennedy]

If there is nothing concrete on either side of the issue then it doesn't hurt to err on the side of caution and try to keep the vast amount of crap we spew into our eco-systems at a minimum, no?

It's like believing there's a god, if you're wrong, so what, if you're right, you look good.  

[ForkaB]

Jim

What if what the crap we are spewing ino the ecosystem is doing some good, i.e, bringing rain to the Sahel and bringing sunshine to Seattle?  Does anybody (including you and me) really know whether or not what our infintessimally small (in global terms) species is doing has any effect on global climate, or even if we do, whether that effect is "good" or "bad."  In my mind, "different" does not necessariy mean "bad" until somebody proves otherwise.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Rich,
Well, I do believe that there is a reasonable consensus among scientists that it doesn't necessarily take major events, from the Pleistocene epoch forward, to effect changes on our climate. We may be a 'small' species but we are prodigious consumers. If we cannot say with any certainty that what we are doing has a severe negative impact, we cannot say the reverse and sound credible.

I, for one, don't subscribe to a doom and gloom philosophy, but I don't think we can blithely continue on the path we have been taking without some future consequence. Just cleaning up the air we breathe has positive medical benefits for us, never mind the rest of the planet.  

BillV,
That might not be a bad idea (leaving putts short rather than getting them to the hole lest they roll off the green and back down the fairway!! )   in some cases.  

[Tim Taylor]

How so John? I'm curious...

Tim

Interestingly, the summer is much more tolerable in Florida than it is in Georgia.

[Dan Kelly]

For those that are worried about the environment, I want them to buy a 2-seater Smart car as soon as it is possible in the USA to do so.  I read in the paper today that Daimler-Chrystler is indeed going ahead with full-blown marketing of this little beauty now!



The French, especialy Parisians love these, they get >40 mpg combined AND you get a lot of sex with chicks when you drive these things.

Where do my clubs go?

Oh, I see! They can go right there in the seat not occupied by the chick (Parisian or otherwise).