Tuesday, Nov. 03, 2009

Back-to-basics trend gets boost at conferences

Golf course superintendents are problem solvers by nature. They hate to see a puzzle go unresolved, even if that puzzle belongs to a colleague from a rival course.

That is why some of the best lessons at a three-day conference for golf course superintendents in Myrtle Beach this month will be taught in the hallways, not just the classrooms.

The Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association's annual conference and trade show brings together more than 2,000 industry professionals each fall.

Steve Hamilton, certified golf course superintendent at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, will be among them.

"You pick up all sorts of valuable tips and ideas just from bumping into people," Hamilton said. "With something like 900 courses in the Carolinas, there's a good chance someone out there has encountered, and maybe solved, a problem you're just now facing.

"Of course, you can work your phone from the office, but it's amazing how tips and ideas get spread so quickly when we're all in one place for a few days."

Given how expensive golf course ailments and their remedies can be - in money spent and rounds lost - the annual networking opportunity can easily return dividends beyond the price of admission.

It seems golf course owners and operators understand the merit of such an investment, at least close to home.

Pre-conference sales for the Myrtle Beach event are down less than 10 percent from last year at the same time.

By contrast, organizers forecast a slump perhaps as severe as 40 percent for the national Golf Industry Show in San Diego, Ca., in February.

"You cannot afford to fall behind on new science and new technologies. That can cost you a lot more than it does to attend a conference," Hamilton said. "But it's hard for a lot of operators at the moment to come up with the money to send their golf course superintendents as far as California for a week.

"That's why we are so lucky to have the event we do here in the Carolinas. It's recognized as far and away the best regional conference for golf course superintendents in the country."

Hamilton, a past-president of the Palmetto Golf Course Superintendents Association, may be a little biased. He chairs the conference organizing planning committee.

But it's harder to argue with the observations of national industry figures like Ohio-based analyst, Pat Jones.

"The Myrtle Beach conference is likely to be very successful when compared to the other regional turf shows," Jones said. "Thank your lucky stars ... that you're not in the West or the Midwest where these shows are going to get hammered this year."

While techniques and solutions learned at the Carolinas conference make life easier for superintendents and save money for their employers, golfers are the ultimate beneficiaries through better conditions and better pricing.

Not all the learning is problem-specific, however. Conferences can also lend steam to nascent trends.

Right now, one such trend is back to the basics.

The economic squeeze has certainly added to the impetus toward a less manicured look away from tees, greens and fairways.

Superintendents can save a lot of time, money and labor when they reduce the acreage they maintain intensely.

But the call for a return to the game's simpler roots pre-dates the recession.

One of the major proponents of getting the game back to its core and away from elaborate window dressing like flower beds, ornate bunkering and wall-to-wall green is Golfweek correspondent Bradley Klein.

Klein is among several conference speakers who argue the game would be better off if it focused more on the substance of a course than the show.

Richard Mandell, Pinehurst-based golf course architect who will also speak in Myrtle Beach, put it this way:"We have created more problems than solutions in the search for the perfect playing field. Ironically, golf was never intended to be played on a perfect playing field."

He contends that simpler course maintenance can not only save operators money but save the spirit of the game.

Then it will be up to golfers to play ball and accept that step back to the future.