Question Answered

As promised the first topic of discussion at the Green committee meeting was the green speed over the weekend. Eric applied a different fertilizer on Friday and the rate of new growth was much greater than expected. He said he has never seen anything like this before and has asked the supplier to come to BCC to review the situation. The growth rate coupled with the fact we haven't been double cutting on the weekends (budget reductions) caused the green speed to decrease to an abnormally slow rate. For those who played on Tuesday the speed was back to a normal 9.5 to 10 on the stimpmeter. We can also expect slightly higher speeds as we approach The Invitational. Remember if we go above 11 the greens become very difficult and there would probably be a run on razor blades in the locker room (Hemlock at the bar was eliminated as a cost reduction).

We also discussed pin placements on weekend days when there is no scheduled event (i. e. last Sunday). It was my opinion many were pretty severe and pretty close the edges for a day when casual golf was being played. For those who are uninformed the staff works off a rotation schedule but has a free hand on where to cut the hole. Major tournament locations are selected by the head professional and marked on the green. Eric agreed to talked with the staff member cutting the holes and explain my concerns. One final note, the staff normally responsible for cutting the holes is not a golfer and sometimes doesn't appreciate the impact of hole placement. Also, we are really limited on some holes for fair placement.

Thought the Tuesday format was a lot of fun (maybe because I was on the wining team). Actually the scores were better than expected when you consider every other hole you had to count 3 balls. Every team was below par by double digits. Also this was the largest turnout in 2009; sixteen players (Ron H and Bill S were new faces). Let's keep it up, the more money the more places we can pay. The only drawback was I ended doing the pairings 4 times.

The rough looked like it was a normal length but still thick. I'm expecting we should start to see handicaps start to return to normal. If not, we can always reinstate the Inquisition (without the Rack since that would be considered an enhanced interrogation method). My ball recovery rate on 2 is down from prior years. I can't tell whether it's the economy or more retrievers are being carried. I did recently find a PRACTICE ball that had been marked with a Sharpie for ID purposes. I would love to meet the cheap sake that did that.