Golfdom, December 2011

Year in Review Continued from page 19 20 Golfdom December 2011 A shot of the damage to the No 14 green at the PGA Championship moments after it happened The damaged areas of the greens were repaired with turf from a target green on the driving range and played as ground under repair for the tournament While unclear what had happened operator error was quickly ruled out because the damage occurred on two different greens at nearly the same time The PGA of America issued a statement the next morning This damage is believed to be the result of a significant rise in the dew point at approximately 7 00 p m which caused the brushes on the mowers on those greens to stick in the grass and damage the turf the statement read A poll on the Golfdom Daily www golfdom blogspot com showed that readers overwhelmingly to the tune of 95 didnt buy the PGA of Americas explanation The story didnt end there as Greens Perfection makers of the brushes that were pinned with causing the damage filed a lawsuit against Atlanta Athletic Club and Ken Mangum for defamation citing comments and a release suggesting their brushes had stuck in the green after a dew point increase Looks like this story might go into 2012 much to the chagrin of everyone involved Hurricanes and drought Superintendents were looking for a break from Mother Nature in 2011 but instead they got another punch to the stomach No area was struck harder than Vermont which bore the brunt of Hurricane Irene after the freak storm fizzled over the New York metropolitan area dropping only nine inches of rain and forcing final round cancellation of the PGA Tours Barclays event then unleashing widespread flooding with devastating erosion decommissioning courses like Queechee and Montague for the remainder of the year Meanwhile people in Texas just about dried up and blew away Everything is bigger in Texas including drought According to the Lower Colorado River Authority the 12 month span from October 2011 to September 2012 was the driest span since 1895 when the state began keeping rainfall records Course and club technology On a lighter note technology made inroads into the game With iPhones becoming commonplace superintendents gasped at the unveiling of iStimp the first ever App designed to let golfers do Stimpmeter readings on their smartphones In the fall Precise Path unveiled its robotic green mowers to a media gathering at Orlandos Hawks Landing Golf Course At Octobers IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco Google revealed its been fine tuning a fleet of autonomous golf carts its engineers have been using to travel between campus buildings As for golf club technology several interesting comments were made by noted figures in the game suggesting a subtle shift in the ongoing struggle between clubmakers and ruling bodies as golf courses continue to bear the brunt of golfs distance chase Legend Gary Player made the strongest comments yet Weve got to stop making golf courses longer because it means youve got to use more water more oil more labor more fertilizer and these are all hurting the game he said The most shocking remarks came from Acushnet Titleist CEO Wally Uihlein a steadfast opponent of any attempts to bifurcate the game by creating separate rules for professionals and amateurs Speaking after his company had been sold to South Korean interests Uihlein softened his hardline stance He told a gathering of executives and media that he can make an argument for or against bifurcation We still have a commercial genesis to that thought process he said We cant argue that we have the best interest in the game We can make that argument but the fact is we represent the commercial landscape And so it doesnt matter how noble our argument is Its still going to be seen as to some