Golfdom, May 2014

REBOUNDING FROM WINTER From the Back Tees Even the Deep South including North Florida didnt dodge the bullet as rare snow and ice storms shut down roads and air travel JOEL JACKSON Senior Contributing Editor Dealing with a harsh Mother Nature T he old saying Its not nice to fool Mother Nature was a real oxymoron this year as she pulled the plug on turf managers north of the Mason Dixon line Mother Nature did all the fooling around with a new toy she got this year called the Polar Vortex Even the Deep South including North Florida didnt dodge the bullet as rare snow and ice storms shut down roads and air travel The abandoned cars on interstates in Atlanta and Durham N C made the national news as testaments to the freakish winter In the South clubs hosted their season ending memberguest tournaments and superintendents started dragging out the aerifiers sweepers and verticutters just waiting for the snow birds to fly home for the warm season That move would kill production agriculture and turf management industries in areas where annual rainfall is low or aquifers are drawing down It still drives me mad me to see public consumption of outdoor water use continue down its ignorant path of the set and forget mentality for lawn and commercial irrigation systems Last week we had two consecutive days of good soaking rains and as I ran some errands not only were some commercial landscape systems running they were running in the rain past 10 a m both violations of basic irrigation conservation practices When you stop and think about how many times a day a superintendent or his staff inspects the performance of their systems and adjusts the daily run times based on the weather is it too much to ask homeowners condo owners associations shopping centers and public works departments to appoint someone to at least flip a switch to off when its raining I urge superintendents to share common sense and easy steps to water conservation with your golfers Last month was officially Water Conservation Month in Florida but there is no season needed to educate your members and golfing customers about your environmental stewardship Joel Jackson CGCS Ret is senior contributing editor for Golfdom Email him at flrgn@ aol com As play slows down in the Sun Belt local superintendent chapter activities crank up with traditional fundraising and education events Superintendents have a little more time now to devote to continuing education networking and maybe even playing a little golf Normally northern superintendent chapters and turf associations have their big regional turf conferences and meetings in the winter when the courses are closed This year however the weather made that an iffy proposition at best While all these storms were ravaging the middle and eastern regions of the country a record drought placed a serious hurt on the golf industry out west Irrigation water is undergoing severe rationing measures and in some cases courses are being cut off completely causing some course closures Even traditional agriculture is facing severe cutbacks or bans on pumping water Theres no fooling around out there when youre talking about losing your business and your job It isnt too far fetched to think that more desalination plants might be on the horizon along the entire U S coastline Costs will go up but whats the alternative Shutting down all uses but basic public consumption in the home 16 Golfdom May 2014 Golfdom com