Category: News from HGCSA

Jeff Jensen, GCSAA Field Staff, Southwest Region

What’s all the buzz coming from the GCSAA headquarters in Lawrence, Kan.? It’s the Rounds 4 Research program that was recently taken over by the Environmental Institute for Golf (EIFG).

Originally developed and implemented by the Carolinas GCSA, funds for research, scholarships and charity are generated by securing donated rounds of golf (defined as a foursome) by facilities and then the rounds are made available to the public through an online auction.

The program, which raised nearly $350,000 for the Carolinas GCSA in only three years, created a demand by GCSAA chapters throughout the country who wanted to implement a similar plan and led the Carolinas to seek out an organization that could market and manage the program on a national basis.

By making the highly successful model available to GCSAA’s 100 affiliated chapters, the EIFG will make funds available to chapters that have seen their research, scholarship and advocacy dollars drained by the Recession.

So how does it work?

Superintendents, golf professionals, allied golf organizations, etc. are asked to secure a donated foursome to their facility that will be made available to the general public through an online national auction that will be conducted on a to be determined date. Biddingforgood.com will serve as the online auction site and EIFG/GCSAA will provide administrative, marketing and public relations services to promote the auction. Biddingforgood.com has a database of over 600,000 users.

New owner, Pacific Links Hawaii, LLC, has also acquired the neighboring East course at the Makaha Valley CC from the developer.

The entity that bought the Makaha Valley West golf course in the Waianae Mountains on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii last year has brought in PGA Tour player Greg Norman to redesign the course, and is also acquiring the neighboring East course at the Makaha Valley Country Club from developer Jeff Stone.

Pacific Links Hawaii, LLC is purchasing the Makaha Valley East course for and undisclosed price, Stone told the Pacific Business News (PBN).

It will be the first time that the two Makaha East and West courses will be under the same ownership since financier Chinn Ho developed Makaha in the 1960s.

“One of my goals was bring them back under one ownership, create a signature golf experience and tie it back to Ko Olina [Resort],” Stone told PBN.

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Pacific Links title sponsor of new Hawaii PGA Champions Tour event – Pacific Business News

Pacific Links Hawaii will serve as the title sponsor for a new event on the PGA’s Champions Tour called the Pacific Links Hawaii Championship that will be played at the Kapolei Golf Course Sept. 10-16, the PGA Tour said Monday.

The 54-hole event will have a $1.8 million purse and feature a field of 81 Champions Tour players, including Greg Norman, who is redesigning the Makaha West Golf Course recently acquired by Pacific Links Hawaii.

“Over the years, Hawaii has served as a mid-point for my commutes between the United States and Australia,” Norman said in a statement. “It is my pleasure to now have a direct involvement in the development of the Pacific Links Hawaii Championship, which will afford me the opportunity to spend more time in Hawaii on a consistent basis.”

Pacific Links Hawaii also owns and operates the Kapolei Golf Course.

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Curtis graduated from UH with a degree in Horticulture. Curtis started at Honolulu CC in 1977 followed by assignments at Kiahuna in 1982; Poipu Bay in 1989; Kauai Lagoons in 1987 and 1991; Bay View in 1995 and Oahu CC from 1997 to present. Curtis has hosted the PGA Grand Slam @ Poipu, Manoa Cup, OCC Invitational and Hawaii State Amateur Championships at Oahu CC. Curtis has been a volunteer crew member at the Masters, Augusta National, Open Championship at Royal Birkdale and U.S. Open at Shinnecock. Curtis was the Hawaii State Junior Match Play Champion in 1968, Manoa cup Champion in 1987 and multiple winner of the HGCSA Annual Tournament.

Curtis was awarded superintendent of the year for 2011 at the Hoo’lau’lea Golf Awards Banquet. Congratulations to Curtis for a job well done. We are proud of him for his many accomplishments as a fellow superintendent of Hawaii.

A Valuable, Free Resource

Take a minute to visit the Green Section’s portal at http://gsportal.usga.org to find information regarding upcoming live webcasts and links to recordings of more than 30 previously-delivered webcasts and announcements of upcoming USGA Green Section activities, education conferences, and meetings.

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Looking for a previous issue of the Green Section Record?

The Green Section Record has been published under various names since 1921 and is composed of an amazing collection of full-text articles and photos. This collection is stored and maintained by the wonderful library staff at Michigan State University in the Turfgrass Information File (TGIF). All past issues of the Record, right up to and including this one, can be accessed free-of-charge by following this link.

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By Derf Soller, agronomist, Northwest Region

“O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain! “

This first stanza of the song, America the Beautiful, came into my head on recent travels across our vast Northwest region. The skies were definitely spacious, but the mountains were more white than purple, and the plains seemed a little bit more windswept than fruited!

Although many golf course areas are in full growth, we seem to be lagging behind in the Central Rocky Mountain Region. Record snow in Colorado (500+ inches at Breckenridge Ski Area) and Utah mountains ( >800 inches at Snowbird) have kept upper elevation courses covered with lots of snow , and those that have melted off are certainly behind in their turf growth activity. The plains areas don’t have the lingering snow, but they have had mostly cool temperatures and spring winds that have kept soil temperature below optimum for good turf growth.

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Aloha to all of my friends and colleagues,

After almost 9 years on Lana’i working on these two world class golf courses, I have decided to move on and take my career into its next phase by joining Danny and Joy Ramos, the owners of DHR Golf Construction, by becoming their Superintendent of Golf Course Construction and Agronomy. In this capacity I will be overseeing and concentrating on the Hawaiian islands and Guam, and consulting for other construction projects throughout the United States and Internationally as needed for our growing organization. Many of you are already familiar with DHR Golf Construction and the services that they can provide, and I am excited to represent them in Hawaii and to be a part of this rapidly growing company. DHR will now be able to offer construction, renovation and agronomic expertise and services.

My new contact information is as follows: Office/Phone: 808-222-7055, e-mail: [email protected]. For more information please check out our website at dhrgolf.com.

I look forward to continued relationships with all of you and hope see and talk with you soon.

Sincerely,
Les Jeremiah Jr.

Veteran certified golf course superintendent to assist GCSAA chapters

The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) has selected Richard Pavlasek, CGCS, director of golf course maintenance at Gainey Ranch Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., as the GCSAA field staff representative for the Southwest region of the country (California, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona).

“Richard has a wealth of experience and knowledge,” said GCSAA President James R. Fitzroy, CGCS. “He will be a great asset to our members in the Southwest region as we expand our field staff program.”

To assist in the effort of serving members through chapters, GCSAA has continually added resources to facilitate an enhanced relationship between the association and its chapters, including the expansion of the GCSAA field staff program. Initially a pilot program designed to help chapters utilize GCSAA programs and services to a fuller extent, it received overwhelmingly positive feedback from chapters that participated in the program. Participating chapters reported greater connection with GCSAA, an enhanced ability to utilize GCSAA programs and services, and access to additional resources to advance chapters in a strategic manner.

Specticle herbicide damage alert.

could you please forward this everyone, I know some people have some damage here but it looks like also in Florida. Thanks Russ

FYI, over the past 2-3 weeks we have been getting calls about damage after applications of Bayer’s new preemergent. Problems are being experienced on both bermuda and paspalum.

Here are some pics on 1 and 2 south fairways. Signs are not good on the rest of the courses. As you can see I look like a patch work quilt….