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A Look Back: Oct. 25 1904: Denny Shute, winner of the 1936 and '37 PGA Championship and the 1933 British Open, is born in Cleveland, Ohio. He died in Akron, Ohio, in 1974. 1910: Willie Anderson, winner of four U.S. Opens, dies at age 31 at his Chestnut Hill, Pa., home, reportedly from arteriosclerosis. 1970: Ken Still defeats Lee Trevino and Bert Yancey in a playoff to claim the Kaiser International Open Invitational. 1992: Nick Price defeats Steve Elkington in a playoff to win the Texas Open. 1998: John Huston wins the National Car Rental Golf Classic at Disney World by one stroke over Davis Love III. |
Equipment
Two new models of irons are introduced by Titleist: the DCI 762,
which replaces the DCI 990 and is a high performance blade designed for
pros, low- and mid-handicap amateurs; and the DCI 8220S, an offset and
oversize set of irons for players of all skill levels that is more forgiving
on mis-hits. Set to ship in November, the 762 will retail for $108/per
iron for steel and $156/per iron with the proprietary GAT shaft while
the 822OS irons carry a suggested retail price of $108/per iron for steel
and $130/per iron in graphite.
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Demand for a "2-ball"
putter from Odyssey increases after Paul Lawrie uses it to drain
a 40-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Dunhill Links Championship
at the Old Course at St. Andrews. The putter, part of the Odyssey White
Hot series, features a mallet head with two golf ball-sized alignment
aids positioned behind the center of the face and will be available in
January.
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California professional
Chad Sorenson uses new Pixl Blade irons to win the Montecito Pro-Am
by six shots. The Pixl irons use more than 200 independent pieces, called
pixels, that act independently at impact to increase the energy transfer
on mis-hits and reduce distance loss.
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A Golf Datatech survey
recognizes PING as the top equipment company for custom-fitting
of irons, drivers and putters. Company founder, the late Karsten Solheim,
believed that properly fitted clubs were critical to a golfer's performance
and pioneered custom fitting techniques in the 1960s.
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People
Peter Hill, CEO of Billy Casper Golf, accepts an appointment to
the Employment Committee of the Professional Golfers Association. Committee
members are selected because of their ability to bring valuable opinions
and expertise to committees, which serve as a fact-finding and research
bodies for the PGA's Board of Directors.
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Plastic golf cleat
maker Softspikes hires John Aylsworth as its new sales representatives
for all of Connecticut except Fairfield County. Aylsworth brings more
than 18 years of golf sales experience to his new position.
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Rise J. Lundblad
joins Never Compromise as the company's Controller, where she will oversee
all operations of the accounting department. She brings more than 20 years
of experience to the job.
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Business
Net sales were down $4 million in the third quarter for graphite shaft-maker
Aldila. The company's nine-month results reveil net sales down
more than $13 million, which company officials attributed to reduced orders
in the uncertain economy.
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Textron, makers
of E-Z-GO golf cars, announces a quarterly dividend of $0.325 per share
of common stock, $0.52 per share of Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock,
Series A and $0.35 per share of Convertible Preferred Dividend Stock,
Series B.
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Architecture
Golf course architect Rick Jacobsen breaks ground on a municipal
course in Stony Point, N.Y., about 40 miles northwest of New York City.
The 18-hole, par-71 championship course is expected to open summer 2003
and will be characterized by dramatic elevation changes and exposed rock
outcroppings as well as scenic views of Bear Mountain State Park and the
Hudson River.
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Real Estate
Real estate investment trust Golf Trust of America closes the sale
of Polo Trace Golf & Country Club in Delray Beach, Fla. Southern Golf
Partners purchases the course for $8.35 million.
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Sales of condominiums
at the Barefoot Resort and Spa's North Tower in Myrtle Beach reach
more than $24 million and exceed an 80-unit pre-sale, Barefoot Realty
and Drake Development announce. When the resort is completed, it will
feature modern conference and spa facilities including over 400 condominium
villas and four championship 18-hole golf courses.
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Five Questions
Stephen F. Mona
CEO of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
Since he took the CEO job in November 1993, Stephen Mona has seen GCSAA membership increase from 13,000 to 21,000. He is involved with the First Tee initiative, World Golf Hall of Fame, Golf 20:20, National Golf Foundation, National Golf Course Owners Association and the National Minority Golf Foundation.
Q: What are GCSAA's concerns with technology and the potential obsolescence of some courses?
A: Our membership (is concerned) about whether golf courses built, say, half a century ago and some of the classic courses certainly fit in that category of whether they will be obsolete for the professional, the tour professional or the very highly skilled amateur player in the future. I wouldn't say it's an overwhelming concern, but clearly there are people among our membership who have concerns.
From a perspective of the golf course superintendent there are things that can be done to continue to provide a challenge for today's modern golfer within the confines of the existing golf course. Rough can be grown higher, the greens can be potentially firmer or faster.
You have to take a look at how the golf course was originally designed to play and whether those types of obstacles are taking away from the intent of the original design. So that's a bit of a balancing act -- you want to be able to provide a test, but on the other hand you want to maintain the integrity of the original design. That's part of what can be done from the golf course superintendent's perspective to keep the golf course a challenge for the even the best players in the world.
Keep in mind we are only talking about maybe a couple hundred players and for the average golfer the advancements in technology have made the game more enjoyable (and) not done much to obsolete golf courses. I'm talking about somebody who is a 10-15-18 handicap. I don't think you see any of those threatening the integrity of designs 50 years ago.
Q: Are you working with golf course architects or with other groups on the other end of the technology spectrum, in course equipment and agricultural advances?
A: The equipment manufacturers are making equipment that can maintain greens at lower heights of cut, maintain fairways at lower heights of cut, maintain tees at lower heights of cut so there are things that are being done by manufacturers as part of their strategy to continually improve their product. That is a tool available to superintendents and other club officials to enhance the difficulty of the challenge.
One other thing that doesn't get talked about very much is that people forget the athletes playing the game are, generally speaking, in better shape then the previous generation. They take strides to keep themselves in shape and that's something that no question contributes to the golf courses of today playing less difficult then they did 20 years ago.
Q: What are the major concerns of your 21,000 members going forward?
A: The No. 1 concern is the increasing expectations of golfers in terms of the condition of the golf course. It's not abnormal in any other walk of life for us as consumers to expect things to be better, to be faster, to be cheaper because that is just what we're used to as American citizens and part of the way our economy works.
It may not be something that is unique to the golf course superintendent, but we're seeing expectations rise and rise and rise and if you look back we're cutting some fairways and tees now at heights that, a generation ago, we cut greens at. So the level of maintenance has certainly improved dramatically from a generation ago and yet the bar keeps getting raised higher and higher and higher. The level of expectation for perfection on behalf of most golfers has risen dramatically in the last 10 years and the strain that puts on a golf course superintendent to create those conditions can be pretty significant at times.
Q: Do you think these higher expectations are more a concern on the private side or the public side?
A: You could generalize and probably say more on the private side, but I would look at what I would call upscale daily fee type courses. Those are not private facilities but resort courses that command a healthy green fee. When people play those courses they are expecting a high level of maintenance, which they should, so on that dimension there is plenty of pressure as well.
Q: Part of the GCSAA's anniversary project is to put together meetings with U.S. Congressional members. When will those meetings take place and what are your goals?
A: They will take place in March of next year and the premise is really twofold. One is to have a chance to sit down with lawmakers at the federal level and first, establish a relationship and second, to enable those people on their staffs to understand that we as an association and our members as individuals are a resource for them that they can call on. Then obviously we do want to make sure that issues we have concern about -- that they're aware of that.
Secondly, we want to give our members at the more grassroots level an opportunity to understand how government works and an opportunity for them to create relationships at the local level. You have undoubtedly heard the famous quote of the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, "All politics is local." We believe if we can get our local chapter to Washington and get them connected with their local legislators it will pay dividends long after our one or two days in Washington are over.