Q: When is a tee also a green?

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A: When it’s No. 14 tee at Merion

Keep your eyes peeled for an unusual sight at Merion Golf Club this week: players teeing it up on a green.

Reigning U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson tees it up on No. 14 green. Er, tee.

 Tom Marzolf, senior design associate at Fazio Golf Course Designers, smiled when asked about this unusual circumstance. The green is a practice green for members at Merion, but there’s more to the story than that.

“For the (2005) U.S. Amateur, the decision was made to create a level spot on the green. During the tournament, we picked up the markers and actually played (tee shots) off the green… that was well received, and added a lot of length to the 14^th hole,” Marzolf says. “In the interim, we decided to make the green bigger. We did a 38-yard extension to this green. It’s one of the largest greens here. The green committee asked us to replicate the 17^th green. It mimics the contours of the 17^th green at Merion.”

In the foreground is the normal teeing ground for No. 14.

So Merion has a replica of 17 green that also doubles as a teeing ground for when the big hitters come out to play. Some courses really do have it all, eh?

“One of the issues for the change and why the green got 38 yards longer for the tee on 14, they wanted to put a very large grandstand behind 18. The wider the grandstand, the harder it would be to play 14 from the normal tee. So as we extended this green, we changed the angle of the tee shot to golfer’s left (on 14),” Marzolf says. “The line of play now is down the left-hand side… and now the grandstand on 18 is larger. It was done together.”

This new line means that a stop sign had to be moved on Golf House Road, which adjoins the course. With the new line, players would have had that stop sign as either a distraction or a target.

But isn’t it weird to step up on a green and put a peg down?

“It’s not something you do every day,” Marzolf says. “They’re all hitting woods off the tee, there’s not a divot issue. But it is a unique feeling to walk on to a green and swing away.”

If you read one U.S. Open preview...

It should probably be this one:

Click here to read it!

(OK, Sports Illustrated did a pretty nice preview as well...)

U.S. Open photo parade pt. 1

Welcome to the U.S. Open and my first of three photo parades. My name is Seth, I'll be your host... let's get started.

On the right is Robert Smith, equipment technician here at Merion. That's his brother Mike on the left, and his dad, uh... Mr. Smith, in the middle. Yep, this journalism thing, I've got it down.

The preferred reading of the Merion maintenance tent is Golfdom. This photo proves it. Take THAT, competition. (Gotta beat that competition, yessir!)

The crew, excited to get back out there on the course, on Tuesday afternoon. Once it was discovered that this photo might make a magazine, I had to take it again, so the young lady in the center could take the photo again sans sunglasses.

"And now, a word from our sponsor..." Merion GC superintendent Arron McCurdy speaking to the crew in front of the sponsors banner. Is it just me, or does that Turf Screen logo really pop?

Walk mowers, along with their mats for turn-arounds on the collars, head out for the afternoon shift.

Rakers. Lots of rakers.

The fairway mowers are all lined up and ready to mow.

There were a lot of golf fans out there today. There were also a few of these fans, too.

Rollin', rollin', rollin' fairways.

You see, there is random stuff in the rough. AND WE LIKE IT THAT WAY! (More on the rough in a future post.)

I haven't seen this before: the fairway mowers mow to the end of the fairway, then, one-by-one, they all stop, throw it in reverse, and back their way out of their.

The fairway mowers mow in a staggered line, like this character:     /       ... so no chevron, or flying 'V.' It's a little less dramatic for photos, in general. Still fun to watch, though.

Matt Shaffer, director of grounds at Merion, and his close friend John Zimmers, superintendent at Oakmont CC, observe the crew at work. (Great, great guys to work with.)

Uh-oh... someone got a little arty with a few photos...

A note about these photos: They're all property of Golfdom magazine. But if you're a benevolent entity (read: not one of our mortal enemies... you know who you are) you can "borrow" these photos if you just give a credit to GOLFDOM and a link back to www.golfdom.com. Thanks much.

Zach Johnson 'shocked' at how well Merion holding up

Good news here at the U.S. Open... like Matt Shaffer promised at the Media Center on Monday, this course does dry out surprisingly quick.

Great weather (partly cloudy, light breeze, NO RAIN) on Tuesday sure did help. It was enough to get Zach Johnson, winner of the 2007 Masters, to tell me that the course had him pleasantly surprised.

Johnson had just finished his practice round at 2:45 EST when I caught up with him on the 18th green for a quick one-on-one.

"It's surprisingly really good. I was shocked at how good the course has held up," Johnson told me. Merion has taken on more than 5 inches of rain in the past few days.

"I thought there was a chance the course might be closed today. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the course held up. Hat's off to the grounds crew, the superintendents, and the individuals who worked through the night," Johnson said. "The greens actually have some bounce and roll to them!"

Getting ready

The crew is happy there has been some sun and a light wind today... Course drying out a little. Now they're all amped up to get back out there.

Some of these guys have been working since 2 am... A 16-hour workday, and counting!

A mower is born

The need for a mower that could handle severe undulations, along with a few inspired turf pros, spawned the creation of the John Deere 180 E-Cut.

ARDMORE, Pa. — This year’s U.S. Open is scheduled to conclude on Father’s Day. For Robert Smith, equipment technician at Merion Golf Club, it’s bound to be his most special Father’s Day yet.

He and his wife welcomed their second girl, McKayla, on April 16^th. Two days later, Smith was back at the course, working on what could also be considered one of his offspring: the John Deere 180 E-Cut Hybrid Walk Greens Mower.

Smith with the mower he helped create.

Both the 180E and Smith’s oldest, Annabella, might be jealous of McKayla. But Smith’s a good dad… he’s got time for all three of his babies.

Championship mower

Smith says that he doesn’t have a favorite — at least, when it comes to equipment.

“Every piece is the same,” he says. “I like working on stuff that doesn’t break.”

But the 180E should get more of his affection than the others. Because Smith, along with Merion’s director of grounds, Matt Shaffer, helped create the innovative mower.

“(Shaffer) came up to me one day and said, ‘I need to go lower with my 22-inch heads.’ I said, ‘That’s not possible, what you see is what you get,’” Smith recalls. “We tried and tried, to get as low as we wanted. The problem was, Merion’s undulations, as far as greens go, were too severe for the 22s.”

Smith, now in his fifth year at Merion, considers mowing heads to be his specialty. So Shaffer’s problem kicked around in his head for a few days, until an idea, like a bolt of lightning, struck.

“We were walking past a piece of equipment that had an 18-inch head on it. (Shaffer) got this idea stirring in his mind.” Smith recalls. “I brought it in the shop, reconfigured a few things… we started mowing about two weeks later.”

The John Deere 180E was born. Designed after the 220E, the 180E meets the demands of superintendents who need a tight, clean cut with an 18-inch swath. Deere says the mower is ideal for courses that need maximum control on undulating greens.

“We had nothing but success with it,” Smith says, sounding like a proud papa. “Instead of leaving it at that, we made 12 of them, converting all our 22s to 18s.”

John Deere saw the success that Merion was having with the mower, and took notice. Beginning in July of 2012, the 180 E-cut became available to courses around the world.

“They’re a championship mower for championship greens,” Smith says.

"I don't care if they get helicopters..."

The players are all talking about the wet conditions in Philadelphia for the U.S. Open. Ernie Els has little doubt that this is going to be a wet contest. This is what he had to say about it at this morning's press conference:

"After the rain this morning, it's going to be very sloppy now. You're not going to see a firm U.S. Open this year, I'm sorry. I don't care if they get helicopters flying over the fairways, it's not going to dry up.

            We're going to have a soft golf course this week all week. It means that if you're on your game you're going to have a lot of birdie putts. There's quite a few par‑4s where you've just got to put it in the fairway. You can put it in the fairway with an iron, from a 5‑iron for a 3‑iron, just putting it into play, and then you've got quite a short second shot.

            I can see pin placements are going to be quite tough to protect the course. You're going to see a lot more birdies than ever at U.S. Open venues. But the finish is still very strong. The par‑3s are very, very strong. And there's some par‑4s; 5 and 6, obviously 18 and 14 is a very strong hole. So there's some really strong par‑4s, but then you've got some birdie chances. I should say the par‑3s are going to be tough."

 

Getting ready

I've been kind of quiet around here this week, as well as on Twitter...

That's because I'm gearing up for the deluge of content I'll be posting next week from the U.S. Open!

So excited...

Standard Golf tour

As I mentioned last week, I took a quick road trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to visit the folks at Standard Golf. A great tour crossed with meeting some nice folks.

Here are a few shots from that visit, including cups getting painted, a tapered litter caddie in the works, and flagsticks getting painted.

There will be more from my visit to Standard in the coming issues of Golfdom...

US Open crew walks to raise money for Oklahoma

The crew at Merion Golf Club is working even harder this week than normal, in preparation for next week's U.S. Open.

But they're not just working for the golfers and the TV cameras this week... they're also working for the folks hurt by the tornadoes in Oklahoma.

Led by superintendent Arron McCurdy, the crew at Merion is logging all the miles they walk this week. They're calling it "Walk to the US Open," and they're looking for people to donate money for every mile they walk (or a flat donation) that will go to the American Red Cross.

The details are below. Click here to donate to the cause. As of this writing, the crew has raised $310... I'm sure that will grow in the upcoming days. (And nice job, Pat Douglas, putting in 17 miles on Sunday! Wow!)

From the website:

BENEFITING: American Red Cross
EVENT DATE: Jun 02, 2013

THE STORY:
Merion Golf Club’s Green Department is in the final stages of preparations for the U.S. Open taking place June 10th through the 16th.  We are working long hard hours to ensure a successful Championship. Upon the tragedy in Oklahoma, Merion’s staff wanted to find a way to help the communities affected by this terrible event. 

Check out the new issue of Golfdom

 

Click here to read the new issue of Golfdom!

-- US Open Preview

-- Plant Health Pt. 1

-- Phosphorous fertilization effects on Poa annua

-- Improving the efficacy of Tenacity for creeping bentgrass control

-- Danneberger on turf sunscreen products

-- Throssell talks Secure fungicide with Syngenta's Agnew

 

The Unfab Four

I was flipping through the new issue of Golfdom the other day. (That's always a strange feeling after having spent several weeks sweating the contents of an issue and staring at it on a computer screen, to then read the print version. I imagine it's a similar feeling to what superintendents feel when they play their own golf course.)

Anyway, I was flipping through the mag and I came across this page:

Jeez-oh, man... how many times can I run my own photo on one page? Not once, not twice, not thrice... but FOUR TIMES! Sheesh! I hate myself right now.

I'll admit that I saw this in the proofing stage, and I thought about trying to cut down on all the images of me. The only shot that seemed viable to crop me out of was the first shot, of me with John and Keith. But dang it, it's a nice photo, we were all at the GWAA dinner... I said forget it. I kept myself in the pic. 

So what I'm trying to say is, I hope you can forgive me. Not even my own mother wants to see a page with me in four different photos! I'm sure you don't, either.

Don't worry, I'll nip this in the bud before I get so wrapped up in myself that I do something crazy like start writing a second column every issue, or publishing photos of my kids. In the future, I'll try to limit myself to two images of... myself... in any Golfdom Gallery (felt like I was quoting a Dr. Evil line there.) Three at the very most, and only on a special occasion, like my birthday or something, OK? Sound cool? ...Please don't hate me?


Thanks very much for your continued support!

-Seth

Thanks for the hospitality

I'll post photos from my tour soon! Can't wait to see those customized Golfdom flags!

Talking Talstar with FMC's Jon McDowell

Talstar has been around for decades, but the pesticide recently received two new improvements. Jon McDowell, FMC Professional Solutions' commercial development manager, talks about these updates as well as some herbicides for controlling crabgrass and broadleaf weeds.

Turf toughie: Tifway hybrid bermudagrass

A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUIZ THAT PUNISHES GUESSING

By Curt Harler

We all know how tough life used to be: Walking five miles to class through chin-high snow drifts… uphill both ways.

Being in Dr. Beth Guertal’s classes at Auburn can be just as daunting. We’ll tell you right up front that, to get this multiple-choice answer correct, you need to know something about all four of the possible answers. Guertal’s question to her turf students:

Which of the following is a true statement about Tifway hybrid bermudagrass?
A. Not used much anymore in Alabama, TifSport has largely replaced it
B. Viable seed is available
C. Also widely known as 419
D. An intraspecific hybrid

“This is sort of a ‘two tier’ multiple-choice question,” she notes. “It is two-tier for the following reasons: 1) every question is correct for some other grass, (in other words, none of my false answers for a questions are invented nonsense, and thus sometimes a student can ‘back into’ the correct answer); and, 2) to pick the correct answer a student also has to know other information, such as what an intraspecific hybrid is.”

The correct answer, Guertal reveals, is ‘C’. In many parts of the Southeast, folks know Tifway by the other name of ‘419’. Sometimes people put it together: ‘Tifway 419.’

Eric Klaypas inspects the Tifway at Auburn University. Photo courtesy Auburn.

“It is important that students know both names and that they are the same grass – often a client only knows one name or the other,” she says. Because Tifway is an interspecific hybrid (cross of two different bermudagrass species, typically Cynodon dactylon and Cynodon transvaalensis) it is sterile, and thus does not produce viable seed. It must be propagated via sprigs or sod. That is why options B and D are incorrect. An intraspecific hybrid is a cross between two (or more) bermudagrasses of the same species (these are also known as synthetics). An easy way to keep these straight is that “intraspecific” has an ‘a’ in it, just like the word ‘same’, and ”interspecific” has an ‘e’ in it, just like the word ‘different.” Answer A is wrong because Tifway is still widely sold and used throughout the Southeast.

Under the microscope: Pythium blight

Pythium blight (pathogen: Pythium spp. P. aultimum, P. aphanidermatum) during hot humid weather can be a serious problem on creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera) and annual bluegrasss (Poa annua) greens and to a lesser extent bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon). Generally, this disease is most severe on turf sites that are wet or poorly drained and where the turf is under summertime stress. These areas include high traffic areas where compaction occurs, like the ends of fairways where mowers may turn. On tees, Pythium blight may initially appear around divots where the turf is under additional stress.

Pythium blight is active when temperatures occur between 86 and 95 F and nighttime temperatures remain above 70 F. However under extremely humid and wet conditions Pythium blight will occur at nighttime temperatures below 70 F. The risk of Pythium blight increases on turf growing in low-lying areas where water accumulates, on compacted soils, and on thatchy turf.

Symptoms on putting greens normally start off as small patches that rapidly increase in diameter becoming more irregular shaped. If you rub some of the leaves early in the morning they will appear oily (thus, the common name “grease spot”). Leaves become a light tan color as they shrivel. The leaves can become matted and covered with a white mass of mycelium. Generally speaking fungicide control is most effective when applied preventatively.

-- Karl Danneberger, Ph.D.

Four new ETQ fungicides from SipcamAdvan broaden control, expand use

SipcamAdvan expands its ETQ fungicide portfolio for season-long use with the addition of four new products. Echo Dyad ETQ, E-Scape ETQ, Eclipse ETQ and Sipcam Clearscape ETQ combine proven active ingredients with SipcamAdvan’s exclusive ETQ technology.

Echo Dyad ETQ contains chlorothalonil, E-Scape ETQ contains chlorothalonil and tebuconazole, Eclipse ETQ contains iprodione and Sipcam Clearscape ETQ contains tebuconazole. All incorporate SipcamAdvan ETQ technology to optimize turfgrass color, strength, density and consistency by protecting turf from UVA and UVB rays, heat and other stress factors.

“Our first ETQ fungicides were strictly chlorothalonil-based, but these new products contain additional active ingredients for season-long disease control,” George Furrer, director of specialty business for SipcamAdvan, said. “Professional turf managers benefit from an umbrella of protection encompassing the benefits of ETQ technology plus broader spectrum disease management and enhanced turf quality, while allowing adherence to annual use restrictions for chlorothalonil.”

Golfdom Earns 9 Editorial Excellence Awards from the Turf & Ornamental Communicators Association

Cleveland, OH -- May 16, 2013 -- North Coast Media is pleased to announce Golfdom continues to be recognized for its outstanding editorial leadership and design by the Turf & Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) earning nine honors at TOCA's annual awards ceremony held last week in Portland, Ore. Sister publication Landscape Management (LM) nabbed eight awards. North Coast Media once again led all publishing companies that competed for TOCA awards in the golf and landscape markets with 17 awards.

Golfdom won TOCA awards for:

Photography, Portrait/Personality -- "Like Father, Unlike Son"
Pictorial 1 (photo of golf course, park, sports field or any commercial or community area) -- "Healing Power"
Printed Magazines: Singe Page Design/Editorial -- "Golfdom Gallery"
New Media, Blogs --"The Golfdom Daily"
Writing, Commercial Publications, Column -- "A Course Built on Sacred Ground"
Writing, Commercial Publications, Turf Feature Article -- "All Zoyias are Not Created Equal"
Writing, Commercial Publications, Product Information Article -- "Enemy at the Gates"
Writing, Commercial Publications, Business Management -- "The Guy's Got Guts (and Goats!)"
Writing, Commercial Publications, Headline Writing -- "The Guy's Got Guts (and Goats!)"

"We had a very strong showing at TOCA once again this year," said Kevin Stoltman, president and CEO of North Coast Media. "This recognition validates the hard work of our editorial team, led by Seth Jones, who is so dedicated to delivering superintendents must-read resources."

Matt Shaffer on U.S. Open conditions

Matt Shaffer discusses the arrival of the 2013 U.S. Open, the weather leading up to the event, and what players will get when they find their ball in Merion's rough (Here's a hint: it won't be perfect). Look for part two in the next few weeks...

Happy first anniversary, North Coast Media!

If you missed getting a card in the mail, that's OK — it snuck up on us, too.

North Coast Media celebrated its first anniversary recently. The Cleveland-based publishing company publishes Golfdom as well as Landscape Management, Pest Management Professional, Pit and Quarry, LP Gas and GPS World, and in my opinion it's about the friendliest group of journalists and designers you'll ever meet.

So if you need a reason to celebrate on a Monday... well, here you go. Happy anniversary, NCM!