Off-season marketing generates $50,000 for golf course

A marketing plan launched in December at Sierra Sage Golf Course generated $50,000 for its new management team during a time the snow-covered course is closed.

Cal-Mazz Golf Management, a partnership between longtime golf superintendent Cal Swanson and managing partner Mike Mazzaferri, took over operation of the formerly Washoe County-owned course on Nov. 1. Cal-Mazz Golf in December offered $10 rounds of golf and quickly sold out the 5,000 rounds it made available.

More important than the revenue was the number of new golfers attracted to the course, says Mazzaferri, who ran the Rosewood Lakes and Brookside golf courses for nine years.

The $10 vouchers were limited to 10 per household. About 460 new names were added to the course’s customer database.

“Our big thing was we wanted to throw some marketing at it — a lot of people didn’t even know the course was there,” he says. “We were trying to get some new faces, and we got quite a few regulars who bought them, but at least half were new faces.”

The course’s customer database is more than 1,000 names strong, Mazzaferri says, and future marketing plans include offering a free birthday round of golf to those customers.

Read More

Starting again!

I have really been behind as late keeping this blog up to date, but I am going to start it over and try to keep it updated at least once a week.

October 2009 Golf Course Trades

When Dr David G. Bronner, CEO of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, started the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail years ago he made the decision to build to a massive scale. He wanted to create something different, memorable, and awesome. First generation Trail courses were primarily bermudagrass with natural grass accents....

Read full article here or click on picture

Many thanks to Doug Tinkham for this great article in our October issue. Doug is from The Shoals Golf Club in Muscle Shoals Alabama. The Shoals has two 18 hole championship courses, the "Fighting Joe" named after General Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler, the only Confederate General to attain the same rank later in the United States Army.

The second course, the "Schoolmaster" named for President Woodrow Wilson who was responsible for getting Wilson Dam built and was also known as "The Schoolmaster of politics.

Credit to the Robert Trent Jones website for this information, which you can see at The Shoals Golf Club site here.

Golf Course Trades September Edition

Thanks to Ethan Haveman Assistant Golf Superintendent at Oakland Hills Country Club for this months Stempmeter article. Oakland Hills has a rich history with many major tournaments under its belt. The South Course has played host to 16 Major Championships including: the 35th Ryder Cup in 2004; three PGA Championships -- including the 90th PGA Championship in 2008; six U.S. Opens; two U.S. Senior Opens; U.S. Women’s Amateur; U.S. Men’s Amateur; Western Open; and the Carling World Open.

Click here or the Picture for full article

Flood or Drought?

Just a couple short weeks ago we had record rain fall at the U.S. Open interrupting game play and almost stopping it altogether. Now on the opposite end of the scale there is record drought in Texas and other areas causing major problems for Superintendents and their clubs. Even while some of these courses are using recycled water it seems the price of this water is very high.

I found this article about course in Texas having problems with the drought.

Read article here

Golf Trades Happenings

We are well into our September book just trying to get the last minute equipment sellers ads completed. The article has arrived and I just received the cover picture. The deadline for the October book is August 1st just a few days away.

For all the superintendents that are waiting on the fall or winter to do articles if one or two could do one now it would be a great help, always needing articles. The hunt for articles is hard this time of year as you all are very busy keeping your course immaculate for your members.

For anyone thinking of doing an article our deadlines are at the first of the month and we work two months out, if more time is needed please contact me.

$6 million renovation pays dividends to Sterling Farms

I found this story about how these guys on a public course paid for there renovations without tax payer dollars very interesting read I am hoping to get the super there to do an article for The Golf Course Trades some day.

STAMFORD -- It's a beautiful thing when a plan comes together.

Especially a plan that is 11 years and more than $6 million dollars in the making.

And that is certainly the case at the Sterling Farms golf course in Stamford.

The 40-year-old public golf course that is host to nearly 60,000 rounds per year is in the midst of a renaissance thanks to an incredible amount of foresight, planning and belief.

The golfing public has been the beneficiary of a total renovation involving Sterling Farms' challenging 150-acre layout, which has carried the 6,462-yard, par 72 course into the 21st Century.

The story begins in 1998 and Stamford Golf Authority executive director Paul Grillo -- just a few years into the position -- looks around the 29-year-old golf course/facility and sees a relatively successful operation.

But the nagging question was how to take the golf course and the operation to the next level.

Grillo -- with the approval of the Golf Authority which oversees Sterling Farms --

ultimately turns to Robert McNeil, an architect at Northeast Golf Courses in Rhode Island, to study everything tee box to green.

So McNeil looks and looks and looks. Eventually, Grillo has a book of recommendations on his desk the size of a James Michener novel.

The good news is that Grillo has plenty of ideas, plans, data and costs to show the Stamford Golf Authority, the members of which are appointed by the mayor of Stamford.

Read the rest here

Driven by cost and conscience, Oregon's golf courses are going green

by Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian

It may be that golf's swing mantra -- keep your head down -- keeps players focused on birdies, not birds. But whether golfers notice or not, when the gallery along the ninth fairway at Stone Creek Golf Club in Oregon City includes a dive-bombing kestrel and a redtail hawk, it's apparent that change is making the turn.
Specifically, golf is getting greener. Across the United States, but especially in the Pacific Northwest and particularly in the Portland area, golf courses are adopting environmentally sustainable practices. They are using far less water, fertilizer and weed-killer than before and employing grass varieties that can thrive without meticulous care.

It's become par for the course for golf superintendents to leave dead trees for habitat, encourage native pollinators and maintain wildlife corridors. The courses themselves, often veined with creeks and wetlands, have taken on new roles as community protectors by receiving, storing and controlling storm water. Water hazards -- where wayward shots go to drown -- double as homes for ducks, geese, turtles and frogs.

Reasons for the change include money and apprehension about being targeted for lawsuits or government regulation. But many golf course superintendents also say sustainability is an ethos that has taken root in settings once known for entitlement, exclusion and manipulation of the environment.

Read full article

Rain, new technology help reduce parks' water use

Computerized sprinkler controls and weather monitors make the most of moisture

BOULDER, Colo. — Heavy rainfall in recent months has allowed cities in Boulder County to cut back on the water used to maintain city parks, golf courses and other green spaces.

Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette, Louisville, Erie and Superior all use computer-automated systems, some that are wirelessly linked to weather stations, to reduce water use as cued by weather patterns. Those systems can even shut off sprinklers when rain starts to fall.

"There's some really cool new technology that just gets more water delivered to where it belongs," said Paul Bousquet, Boulder Parks and Recreation spokesman.

For April and May, the city budgeted 54.75 million gallons to water baseball fields, parks and golf courses, but only used 6.18 million gallons -- about one-tenth of what was allotted.

"That's a pretty big water savings as a result of how much and how consistently we got precipitation this spring," said Bousquet.

Three strategically-placed weather stations in Boulder and a network of weather information available through a collaboration with the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District relay information to park stations that trigger sprinkler systems.

Those sprinklers activate based on the evapotranspiration rate, a figure that combines weather conditions including rainfall, humidity, wind, temperature and solar radiation to estimate how much moisture plants have lost because of weather. When the evapotranspiration rate indicates that grass is staying hydrated, the computer system shuts off the sprinklers.

read the whole article

Waubeeka upgrade nearly done

WILLIAMSTOWN -- Redesigned greens, fairways and bunkers, and a new practice facility are among renovation work that began at Waubeeka Golf Links in April.

The work specific to the golf course is now days from completion with a finished practice facility still a couple months away.

General Manager Mark J. Mills said last week the renovation work on the eighth hole, which is the last in the first phase of course renovations, is planned to be completed by Tuesday.

"We'll call it for the summer on Tuesday. Then as to where we move on from their, we'll decided in the fall," he said.

According to Sunday's posting on Waubeeka's Web site, Hawk Shaw Golf Course Construction Inc. of Hawthorne, N.Y. plans finish the sand traps at the eighth hole by Wednesday.

The target date for completion of the new practice facility, which will be just over 30,000 square feet -- including a 23,000 square-foot area for a driving range and an 8,000 square-foot for private lessons -- is in late summer or early fall, Golf Course Superintendent Gregory "Greg" S. Tudor said last week.

read the rest of the article here

Waubeeka Golf Links website