Here to help

Explain your role as national director of the USGA Green Section.
I’m responsible for all the Green Section’s activities including the Turf Advisory Service, which is one of our major core programs; our turfgrass and environmental research committee; and our construction education program that’s run by Jim Moore. I’m also editor of the Green Section Record magazine. My role is administrative to a large degree though I travel frequently, much of it to the universities where we’re funding research and at meetings and conferences.

Jim Snow

What’s the relationship between the USGA and universities like?
Most of the universities don’t have large numbers of extension specialists today. In the ’50s and ’60s, they would hire extension specialists who would visit golf courses as part of their responsibilities. That was competition for us, but it worked out OK. As funds have become tighter at the universities during the last couple decades, they haven’t been able to do as much field consulting. However, today we have a good relationship with them. It’s a good collaboration.

Elaborate about the relationship the Green Section has with superintendents.
It’s a very amicable relationship for the most part. There’s a lot of mutual respect and admiration. Many of our agronomists have been superintendents or assistants for quite a few years. All of our agronomists have worked on golf courses and have at least a fair amount of experience. So we’re sympathetic and understanding of the issues superintendents deal with. It’s not surprising that we have a good relationship with them.

On the other hand, we’re there to help the course improve its facilities. Course officials pay to have us come, so naturally they’re involved. We take a positive approach to our visits, but everybody has problems. Whether they’re acute or long-term issues, we can offer positive recommendations for improvement, without making anybody look bad. The USGA agronomist has to have the right personality and understanding to pull it off, or else he won’t last too long.

What disagreements exist between a superintendent and the Green Section?
There are very few absolutes in this business. There’s a lot of room for different ideas. One of the benefits of our Turf Advisory Service is that each agronomist visits more than 100 golf courses each year, and they bring a lot of ideas and perspectives to the table. Ultimately, the superintendent is the one who has to decide which ideas to use, but there’s no doubt he has more ideas to choose from to help him make that decision. We’re definitely not there to make anyone look bad. We want to help them, and that’s what we’re there for.

When an agronomist first visits a club, he has to be careful about how he states things. When he develops a good relationship with the superintendent over time, the superintendent and agronomist can be more honest with each other and disagree in a friendly way, if there’s disagreement at all. Oftentimes the superintendent will try a suggestion and see one way or the other whether they think it works.

Are most USGA visits concerned with problem-solving or maintenance practices?
It could be both or either one. There are many reasons why a course might take a visit. Sometimes it’s an acute problem. Last year, the phones were ringing off the hook in August, for example. We generally receive a majority of calls in August each year, but it was worse throughout the country last year because of the severe weather.

At many courses, we help course officials understand better what the superintendent’s role is and the difficulties he has to deal with. You might say we’re a communications link between the grounds committee and the maintenance staff. The USGA can come in and say, “You really should be doing these things, but you need to provide the superintendent with the tools and resources he needs” to the course officials, or “You’re doing a great job, but why don’t you try these couple of things and maybe it will be even better.” It helps the green committee members, who know nothing about turf management, to at least say, “We have had a second opinion, and it sounds like we’re doing a pretty good job there.”

Is your visit a blessing for superintendents because you’re educating green committees?
Yes, it certainly can be, and perhaps it’s the biggest reason we visit golf courses. Superintendents who know us and trust us know it’s good for them because 98 percent of what they do is probably exactly what they should be doing. But if you were on a green committee and didn’t know anything about turf, you’d like a second opinion to make sure money is being spent wisely and effectively. That’s what they want to know. In the process, they receive specific information about problems they’re having.

How many golf courses does the staff visit throughout the country annually?
About 1,700, depending on the year. We make multiple visits to some courses, so it comes close to about 2,000 visits. There’s about a 30-percent turnover from year to year. The courses that don’t have big budgets would like the service annually. Let’s say we might go in and recommend 10 different things, however there may be no way they can do all those things in one year, so it takes them longer to adjust. As a result, they might go a year or two without a visit, and then they’ll come back and take another one. It might be every other year or every third year. You have this rotation, but in the end, you still have about the same number of clubs every year.

How has the USGA changed its views about golf course maintenance?
Throughout the past 15 years, environmental issues have changed a lot, and we’ve been at the forefront of that, along with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. The environmental research program we started in 1990 has produced a lot of great information about the effects of golf courses on the environment. Many of the current best management practices have been based on that research. There are many other things that have changed, but we’ve put a lot of emphasis on environmental stewardship through our support of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary program, the research effort and our Wildlife Links research program.

Are many superintendents following your lead?
It’s a bell curve. There are some who jump all over the Audubon program and do everything they can. Then there are the courses that do some, and then less and less until you get to the other end where some don’t do anything. It’s hard to characterize the industry as a whole.

It’s true superintendents are stretched in a dozen different ways, and it’s hard for them to spend a lot of time on that. The bell curve is moving to the right, though. More people are doing more good things for the environment, which benefits the game of golf and the environment.

What’s an example of an environmental practice superintendents are doing more now because of the USGA?
There’s a much better understanding of pesticides among superintendents. We’ve recognized, through research programs and other avenues, some pesticides are much more benign to the environment than others. Superintendents are learning which ones are more of a concern, and many more are making better decisions about which ones to use based on current conditions instead of just considering the effectiveness of a compound. This is one little thing, but it’s an important one.

What problems does the Green Section see repeatedly?
The biggest one we see consistently is the demand from golfers for perfect conditions or nearly perfect conditions all the time, or extremely fast green speeds all the time. That causes major agronomic problems for the superintendent during difficult weather conditions. Last year is a great example.
Almost every superintendent had to deal with that issue in some form or another. Many superintendents lose their jobs because they can’t provide perfect conditions all the time, but let’s face it, nobody can.

Does the USGA defend superintendents to help explain what’s unrealistic?
Absolutely. I’ll bet nearly every report that goes back to a club mentions this topic because good golfers want nearly perfect conditions all the time. They want championship conditions, yet it’s likely most members don’t want such extreme conditions. If we’re going to have proper stewardship of golf courses from an environmental standpoint, you can’t be throwing water and pesticides all over the place just because somebody wants 14-foot Stimpmeter readings every day.

Are golfers listening to this, or are they disregarding it?
There are some who take the time to understand and recognize it’s not possible. There are many people who don’t care one way or another. There are plenty who do care but don’t understand. It’s difficult to educate 26 million people. You can’t do that. So what our agronomists can do on their visits is point it out to the officials. Then it’s up to the club.

How often are the specs for a USGA green changed?
We introduced USGA green method construction in 1960, and it works very well. There haven’t been many changes – mostly tweaks. The latest one was just a few years ago in 2002. Before that, we made many small changes, but in principle, they weren’t very different from what was introduced by Marvin Ferguson in 1960.

Are there going to be many changes in the future?
We helped fund a big study at Rutgers University. We spent between a half million and three quarters of a million dollars since 1990 on research related to green construction and root-zone mixes. Dr. Jim Murphy is in his eighth year on these trials, and after seeing eight years worth of results, I’m pleased about how well the USGA green has worked. I don’t see any significant changes in the near future. It’s a well-designed method, and it’s remarkable how close Dr. Ferguson was to having a terrific method of green construction. I give him a tremendous amount of credit because at that time nobody believed that sand-based root-zone mixes would work.

Can a USGA green be built to spec at different courses for different prices?
Sure. Chances are, if the courses are in the same city, they’d probably be using the same materials, but there are many soil amendments that can be used. Peat moss is relatively inexpensive and effective, and there are good quality compost materials available in many locations. That’s one thing that has probably changed a bit. There are more people using compost, but they still have to conform to our guidelines, so it’s perfectly acceptable to do that. There’s some tweaking as far as the cost goes, but to leave out the drain system or the gravel layer or something like that isn’t a good idea.

There’s also the California green, which was developed back in the ’60s. It’s used quite often, particularly in the Southwest. It’s also used elsewhere in the country, and it works reasonably well most of the time, as long as you build it according to the recommendations.

Is there a USGA research project that stands out in your mind?
We’ve funded more than 300 projects since 1983. Turfgrass breeding is a core part of our research program, but it takes a long time to get results. We’re working with breeders on salt grass in the West. We have four or five breeding projects with different species of grasses going on right now. As time goes by, these breeding projects will make a lot of difference on how golf courses are maintained, helping reduce the cost of maintenance and having better turf with poor water quality. It comes down to the environment. I’d say 98 percent of the projects we fund are related to the environment.

What’s the biggest criticism the Green Section receives?
The main one, which we’ve had since 1953, is that it costs too much. We hear that every year.

What does it cost?
In 2006, a half-day visit is about $1,800, a full day is $2,400; but there are discounts if you pay in advance. It’s between $1,500 and $2,400 depending on what you want and when. In 1953, when we started the program, based on an inflation basis, it was more expensive than it is now. There are clubs that would like to use the service, but they don’t have much money, or they don’t realize they probably would get many times the value in good recommendations and money-saving suggestions.

Our fees cover only about 38 percent of the cost of having the staff do the work. So the USGA subsidizes the program to a large degree. This isn’t a break-even program. Although it costs much more to operate the program than what we collect in fees, the USGA feels it’s very important. The program does a lot of good for golf, and the USGA is willing to put money into the program. There are courses that complain about the fees, but how much can you cut back when you’re only getting 38 percent of your cost covered by the fees?

Why would a course call on the USGA as opposed to other consulting agronomists?
If you look at what our guys do, each of them visits more than 100 golf courses annually, and that’s the key factor. When you visit that many golf courses and see what’s going on every single day throughout the golf season, you know a lot about what’s happening. Most consultants visit a tiny fraction of that many courses in a year. Golf courses recognize when USGA agronomists visit that many golf courses, they can bring a lot to the table for them. Also, we don’t sell anything other than our service, so we’re not biased when we recommend products or equipment or whatever it happens to be. That’s not always the case with private consultants. They often sell fertilizer or pesticides or other products to supplement their income because it’s tough to make a living being a consultant unless you sell something. Also, for us, it clearly helps to have the USGA name involved.

How are course conditions for a tournament implemented?
We have 13 national championships each year. We set up each championship to be challenging based on the capabilities of the particular group of golfers playing in that event, so you can expect it to be difficult enough to allow the best golfers to rise to the top. Each course is handled differently, depending on many different things such as the length of the course, the bunkers, lakes, rough, the type of grass and many other circumstances. There’s no one way to do it.

How do you address complaints about unfair playing conditions?
When you’re challenging the greatest golfers in the game at the U.S. Open, for example, you’re approaching the edge for green speed, firmness, depth and density of rough, and fairway widths. What we try to do is make it very challenging but fair. Everybody remembers the instances where we fell over the edge, but there have been very few times this has happened. Every year there is somebody who will complain about course setup. Somebody will shoot an 80 and think it’s unfair when somebody else will shoot a 68 and win the event. GCN

Jim Snow can be reached at jsnow@usga.org.