How good are you at golf course history?

The fall semester is well underway all across the country and many students have already experienced a few surprise quizzes. They are usually offered as a way to measure what students are actually learning rather than a measure of ability to take exams.

So, in that spirit of academia I offer the GCI golf course history pop quiz.  We’ll leave it to our great turf college programs to gauge contemporary and technical knowledge.  No reference books allowed.  Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer; 70 points are required to pass.

• The GCSAA will soon announce the winner(s) of the 2011 Col. John Morley Distinguished Service Award. One past recipient of the DSA received this award three times. Name that person.
• Who/what graced the cover of the July/August 2010 issue of the USGA Green Section Record?
• How long has golf been in America?
• In the history of golf courses in America, what has been the predominant golf turf?
• The role of women has steadily risen over more recent years – as superintendents and assistants, as sales reps and corporate officials, and as faculty researchers and instructors. Who was likely the first woman to make major contributions to the science of turfgrass management?
• A lot of turfgrass research was conducted at the Arlington (VA) Turf Gardens of the USDA, from the earliest days until the WWII period. At that time, the turf research was moved to a USDA facility at Beltsville, MD. What was built on the site of the Arlington Turf Gardens?
• Charles Piper and Russell Oakley earned a prominent and important place in our history of golf turf. How?
• Why should the name Edwin Budding ring a bell for you?
• What company sold the first commercially available triplex greensmower? When was that?
• T or F. The USGA Green Section “Specifications for Putting Green Construction” celebrated its 50-year anniversary this year.

If you passed, congratulations! If not, study hard; maybe you will have better luck next quiz.

Answers
1.O.J. Noer, agronomist for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District (MMSD) and developer of the turf market for Milorganite.

2.There isn’t a print copy of the USGA Green Section Record anymore. The last print issue was May/June 2010 and the cover featured Green Section
Award Winner Dan Potter.

3.Since Feb. 22, 1888. On that date, six men gathered at a hillside cow pasture in Yonkers, .N.Y and teed up a gutta-percha golf ball. Six clubs were used, all handmade by Old Tom Morris.

4.Every quiz should have at least one gimme question – for this quiz it is this easy question. The easy answer? Poa annua.

5.Dr. Fanny Fern Davis. She supervised experiments that led to the development of 2,4-D and the modern era of weed control on turf. She was the director of the USGA Green Section during WWII.

6.The DOD’s Pentagon Office Building.

7.By writing the first comprehensive and thorough textbook on golf course turf management, “Turf for Golf Courses,” in 1917. It was revised and updated a number of times and for decades after its introduction was the principle reference of golf turf.

8.Mr. Budding, an English engineer, worked at a carpet mill back in 1828. He watched the final trimming of a carpet with spinning blades set at a height above the carpet nap. It occurred to him the same idea would work to trim grass at the same height, resulting in the reel mower.

9.Jacobsen, in 1968. On a brief personal note, I attended the first Jake school for turf students in June of that year. We were introduced to the prototype (they had three of them – one in Racine, WI, one out west and one down the south). I was drafted into the Army for two years, and when I came home the triplexes were on most courses, both Jacobsen’s and Toro’s.

10.True. The specs were introduced in 1960.