Letters to the editor

Spending money wisely
I appreciate Jim McLoughlin’s column about the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America board perks (“GCSAA board perks,” May, page 20). His opinions are pretty much where I was at during my two years on the board. While many of the perks are reasonable, some were a bit excessive. Obviously, not everyone at the GCSAA believes that, or they would have been changed. I know most GCSAA members have no idea about how many dollars are being spent to support the board each year.

The perks are only part of the story. The other issue is about some of the locations where meetings are held and some of the social functions related to those meetings. While I agree some of these meetings are a part of conducting business, I don’t think we really get our dollars worth when we send multiple attendees to many events where we don’t even have any significant meetings planned or outcomes expected. I know there are others who will disagree about the value of us being at such events, but all too often some of these trips involve very little real business. As I stated earlier, this is just my own personal opinion, and I know others disagree.

At our board budget meeting last fall, I challenged my fellow board members to think about where we held our meetings and how we spent our members’ dollars. I don’t think anything has changed since that time, but I hope the new board members and future boards recognize it as an important issue. It’s the duty of the elected board members to use the members’ money wisely.
I want to thank Jim for putting this subject in the spotlight where hopefully more GCSAA members will give it some thought. I want to thank him for caring about our industry, staying involved and providing quality education to many of our members in his local programs.
Gary K. Carls, CGCS
Sunnyvale (Calif.) Golf Course

Ha! Ha!
I read Pat Jones’ piece/commentary (“The politics of golf,” March, page 62) and got a good chuckle out of it, even though there’s more than humor there. Sometimes truth is stranger and funnier than all the fiction we see on the boob tube. Actually, as I was reading the commentary, the columns written by David Feherty came to mind. Feherty’s humor and Jones’ run in the same vein. (That was a good one about the sheep!)
Anyway, keep up the good stuff and keep it in the short grass.
David Whelchel
Golf course architect
Hurdzan/Fry
Columbus, Ohio

I read Pat Jones’ bobblehead piece (“Bobbleheads,” http://www.golfcoursenews.com/news/news.asp?ID=2385) and thought I was listening to Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. Some sense of humor. It’s somewhere between Louis Grizzard, Dave Barry and Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He must be spending a little too much time with writers Geoff Shackelford and Brad Klein.
Ed Walsh, CGCS
Shelter Harbor Golf Club
Charlestown, R.I.

Clarification
The marketing column in the May issue (“Electronic marketing,” page 16) was co-authored by Phil Wiggins of Wiggins Golf Consulting in Pinehurst, N.C. GCN