11/15/2017 8:11 AM
Fellas,
Our local GCSAA association recently held a conference where we invited (I'm the conference committee chairman) Mr. Derek Sprague PGA Honorary President and past President. Derek was most recently at Liberty National and is now headed to TPC Sawgrass. He is a very superintendent friendly Golf Professional who at one time studied agronomy and held his pesticide license. He fully appreciates the challenges we face not only in tournament golf and those of who manage everyday courses. His presentation focused on "How to get along with your golf course superintendent" and he did a great job.
The PGA and PGA Tour face a difficult scheduling task, in addition to the other major fall sports the Fed Ex, Ryder and Presidents Cups and now the Olympics, Mr. Sprague explained to us that this was a long term solution and definitely not related to any recent issues. While it opens up many of the great southern and transition zone golf courses it makes a lot of the classic and modern northern courses not practical due to a short spring growing season. They factored all that in and determined this to be the best path forward.
One of many things that impressed me from Derek's presentation is that the PGA and the PGA Tour are dedicated to growing the game, providing accessibility and cooperation amongst all the industry partners. We as superintendents need to be fully vested in that partnership and work to make our industry strong. Think about it and be sure you are part of solution.