Innovation in name … and action

Traces of innovation engulf The Edison Club.

Let’s start with the name. The club’s roots extend to the early 1900s when General Electric formed the club as an employee and manager benefit. The company named the club for Thomas Alva Edison, who co-founded the company in Schenectady, New York. The original General Electric headquarters is less than five miles from The Edison Club’s current 286-acre campus.

The lightbulb represented Edison’s signature invention. The club uses replica lightbulbs as tee markers on its 27 holes.

There’s no record of Edison being involved with the club besides the name association. It’s unlikely somebody who shaped the modern world had time to shape golf shots with brassies and cleeks.

Karsten Solheim is an innovator who made time for golf. While working on a project as a GE engineer, Solheim ventured to The Edison Club, where he experimented with a new putter design on the Poa annua/bentgrass greens. Solheim eventually invented the hollow-back putter and resigned from GE in 1967 to become a full-time clubmaker. The success of the putter led to Solheim launching Ping, which developed into a golf equipment juggernaut.

More than a century after Edison propelled New York’s Capital Region onto the global innovation scene and nearly 60 years since Solheim’s emergence as a golf trendsetter, director of grounds and facilities Jeff Madison and his team lean on turf innovations to keep The Edison Club viable in an evolving marketplace.

The dynamic of the club changed as GE transitioned its headquarters away from its Schenectady beginnings. Instead of operating solely as a benefit for GE employees, the club was sold to the membership in the late 1960s. Business leaders and innovators throughout the Capital Region now consider The Edison Club their home course. The layout stems from a Devereux Emmet design opened in 1926. Emmet’s creative designs dot the Northeast private club landscape.

Madison understands the nuances of the history, land and design as well as anybody. A native of Burnt Hills, a small town 15 minutes north of The Edison Club, Madison first reported to The Edison Club for work as a 16-year-old, joining superintendent Mike Dilorenzo’s crew. Landing a young Madison proved a hiring triumph for Dilorenzo. Madison’s father, Tom, and grandfather, Andy, were both superintendents.

On his first day, Madison was asked to remove dew from greens. He ended the day mowing greens, replacing a veteran employee who endured a rough morning.

“I’m out there whipping dew and the superintendent goes to me, ‘You said you’ve mowed before.’ I said, ‘Yep.’ He said, ‘One of the guys who was mowing, I think he’s hung over, and he’s not going to make it. Do you think you can mow?’

“It was a Greens King IV. I got on the mower, made my first pass, turned around, came back and it was a perfect straight line. The superintendent goes, ‘I think you got it, kid. You just need to know where to mow.’ That was my first day and that was great because it kind of elevated me above the other kids.”

Madison learned the fastest route between The Edison Club greens and experienced a rapid career ascent. He obtained a degree at nearby turf powerhouse SUNY Cobleskill and landed his first superintendent job at Bergen Point Golf Course on Long Island. He was just 23. He received The Edison Club job less than three years later.

His success hinged on the ability to maintain 4½ acres of greens. The surfaces he inherited resembled the ones he remembers mowing as a teenager, which resembled what Emmet’s team crafted by horse and hand in the 1920s.

“As far as shape and size, they’re pretty much the same,” he says. “It’s somewhat unique in the fact that in this area they didn’t really have the money to bulldoze everything back in the mid-1950s or mid-1960s, and ‘modernize’ it, so we have original Devereux Emmet greens surrounds and green contours, which is kind of neat.”

A few practices have changed since Madison’s youth. Mowing heights have dropped from one-eighth of an inch to one-tenth of an inch during the peak season. Rolling is executed with more frequency. Producing firmness has become a maintenance mission.

Still, regardless of mowing heights or number of rolls, anthracnose has pestered Madison and his predecessors, even during periods not regularly linked with the disease. “Believe it or not, with our pressure here, we have seen anthracnose under the snow in the spring,” he says.

Madison estimates he’s started at least six of his 16 seasons as superintendent with a late March or early April anthracnose spray. “Coming out of snow cover, we have gotten right out there with a Spray Hawk — because we can’t drive on greens yet — and sprayed for anthracnose,” he says. “It’s not going through the Poa, but it’s like, ‘If we don’t do something pretty quick, we’re going to have an issue.’”

The process of controlling anthracnose to begin a season starts at the end of the previous season, when Madison sprays Instrata for snow mold protection. Instrata combines the active ingredients in Daconil, Medallion and Banner Maxx II, and can reduce spring anthracnose starting pressure.

“We spray the full rate of Instrata in the fall now for snow mold,” Madison says. “I noticed that has definitely checked up the anthracnose in the spring, so it’s not as much of a 911 situation where we have to get out there.”

Once the golf season begins, Madison incorporates Ascernity into his anthracnose control program. Launched in 2020, Ascernity is a Syngenta innovation combining the SDHI SOLATENOL technology with the DMI difenoconazole. Ascernity possesses no heat restrictions, and despite a location perched above the Mohawk River in upstate New York, temperatures exceeding 90 degrees are a summer occurrence at The Edison Club.

Potential turf stress is amplified by the conditions and politics of the Mohawk River, the club’s water source. The river can provide more water than the irrigation pond setup at most golf courses, yet situations arise such as the one Madison experienced in mid-May when the state dropped water levels and limited pumping.

“Anthracnose is a huge problem here,” Madison says. “It’s been a problem for decades. The previous two superintendents battled it. With some of the new products and changing some practices, I think we have finally gotten ahead of it and it’s not the issue it used to be. We focus on plant health and use a lot of biological stuff in addition to fertilizer. And then there are some great products like Ascernity. We’re actually spraying it [on May 16], because we’re in a high-stress situation with little water on greens. It’s safe to spray in heat and stress, and has a low-use rate. It’s a good product.”

Staying current with product innovation, especially when handling myriad pest and disease (Pythium and annual bluegrass weevil are other potential issues at The Edison Club), contributes to a superintendent’s longevity. Madison evaluates his programs annually and demonstrated an immediate interest when retired Harrell’s territory manager Fred Montgomery mentioned Ascernity.

“It’s an ongoing thing,” Madison says. “This is my 16th season, so I have seen how things have reacted in the past and know what to expect. When you put something out on anthracnose like Ascernity and work it into your normal program without changing anything else, and you see better results than you have seen in the past, you obviously take note right away and file that away for when you’re making your program for the next season.”

Innovations are also helping Madison’s team, which include superintendent Tony Ientile and assitants Bob Carson and Nate Glass, overcome water conundrums. The team devised a pumping system to drop the intake lower into the river when water levels drop. The course is 150 feet above the river. “It’s kind of like a Rube Goldberg system,” Madison says.

As ingenious as Edison, Solheim and Goldberg were in their respective fields, they never had to keep old greens thriving under dry conditions. The club rebuilt five greens in the 1980s and 1990s. They are the only sand-based putting surfaces on the course. The other 22 greens are original pushup surfaces amended in the 1940s.

“When we roll them and get them firm and all that for tournament conditions, they putt very well,” Madison says.