FORE YOUR INFORMATION September/October 2019
2019 ANNUAL MEETING CAMERON PARK C.C. Hosted by Jeremy Payne November 4, 2019
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P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S AG E
Scott McCullough
Doug Heinrich and his staff did an outstanding job preparing the course for this years President’s Cup at Montreux. C.C. The course was in spectacular condition. It was actually breath taking to see the course. The Poa greens picked up speed as the day went on as well as my score. Many of us have a trained eye and I was personally impressed with the level of overall detail. You can tell this staff
goes the extra mile. Next month will be our Election meeting on November 4th. It will be hosted by Jeremy Payne at Cameron Park C.C. We’re looking to fill some board positions so I thought I would give you some insight about board service time. We have our board meetings the 2nd Thursday of each month at 10 AM. We’re flexible on the dates and times to see what best fits everyone’s schedule. The board meetings are kept within an hour knowing that all of us are busy. We usually meet in person at least once per year for a strategic planning msession. Sometimes we have to make Accounts Receivable calls if the AR starts to increase, but its not often that we have to make these calls. The Scholarship and Re-
BY
SCOTT MCCULLOUGH
search Tournament ELCOME organized by Dave Bermudez is the EW EMBERS event with the most work and requires us reaching out to Justin Becker, Class A vendors for donaThe Club @ Copper Valley, tions for the silent and live auctions. Tyler Marcotte, Class C We also have differClear Creek C.C. ent committees you can volunteer on Craig Strong, Class B, like the Education Cherry Island G.C. and Member relations (welcoming new members) for Lonnie Dunn, Class B, example. If you’re Wildhorse G.C. interested in learning more about running for the board ask myself or any of the past or present board members. Lastly after the November election meeting, we will be finishing up the year at Teal Bend for the holiday event on December 5th. We then kick off 2020 with the Turf Tech on January 7th. With the summer coming to an end and the optimum growing conditions returning I hope everyone has a great fall.
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2019 M E E T I N G DA T E S
November 4, 2019 Annual Election Meeting Cameron Park C.C. Hosted by Jeremy Payne
December 5, 2019 Annual Holiday Event Teal Bend Golf Course Hosted by John Farley
2020 January 7, 2020 Turf Tech Workshop The Ridge G.C. Hosted by Scott McCullough
January 25-30, 2020 Golf Industry Show ORLANDO 2020 CONNECT. DISCOVER. ELEVATE CALIFORNIA ROOM JANUARY 29,2019
July 2020 Scholarship & Research Tournament Northridge Country Club Date to be Confirmed Hosted by Larry Johnson, CGCS
August 24.2020 Tri Chapter Event Hosted by the SNGCSA Del Rio Country Club Hosted by Dave Bermudez Visit our On Line Industry Calendar for all event https://californiagcsa.org/?page_id=3712
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SUPERINTENDENT PROFILE: JEREMY PAYNE BY SCOTT MCCULLOUGH
Jeremy Payne will be our host Superintendent for the election meeting on November 4th, at Cameron Park Country Club. Jeremy has been in the business since 2000. He started off with several intern positions at well known clubs such as Poppy Hills and The Meadow Club. Jeremy’s first Assistant Superintendent position was at Sharon Heights and then he continued on at Sierra View C.C. in Roseville. He has grown as a Superintendent with his prior experience at Winchester Country Club, Empire Ranch Golf Course, and Napa Golf Course, When Jeremy was younger his career counselors asked him what he would like to work towards. His answer was he wanted to be on the golf course, either working or playing. Jeremy ended up choosing to work on the golf course and decided to study that in college. Jeremy earned a BS in Environmental Horticultural Science specializing in Turfgrass Management. Jeremy has had many accomplishments in his career, volunteering on the Sierra Nevada GCSA Board of Directors and serving President. He earned multiple “valued employee” awards from ClubCorp and Valley Crest, and he
was the GCSAA/EIFG Merit Award Winner. Other career highlights include helping finish the McKenzie restoration project at Meadow Club. Jeremy also likes to help his staff grow by helping give direction with their own career development in making the transition from a greenskeeper to a superintendent. The thing that Jeremy loves most about is job is managing the blend of sport, art, and environmental stewardship. He enjoys mentoring, coaching, and training employees who are passionate about the job. Like myself he enjoys sunrises and the ability to get immediate results you can be proud of. Jeremy is very athletic. He enjoys being an Ultra trail and obstacle course racing and running, bowling and golf. Jeremy’s index is a 13.2. Jeremy is supported and driven by his wife Molly, son Benjamin and daughter Alexandra. Cameron Park was designed by Bert Stamps and opened in 1963. The course offers 18 holes of golf with course yardages ranging from 5,114-6,498. The course offers fast challenging greens. The other challenges the course has is high cost (domestic) irrigation water and trees (roots, shade, leaves, etc.) Their current and future projects include irrigated turf reduction and native grass planting, bunker renovations, fairway turfgrass conversion (eliminating Bermuda and converting to ryegrass). Re-
cently they have completed a solar project that offsets all the property electrical usage. An interesting story about the course is that while being built they found gold nuggets onsite and it was used to help fund and finance the building of the course.
Jeremy is pictured above during the 2019 Toughest Mudder West Race. He accomplished 30 + miles, completed 100 obstacles in 10:24.
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Remember to Shift Gears October 1st is a symbolic day for me. It marks the end of summer and the beginning of shorter, cooler days which I enjoy. I shift into low gear mentally and begin the important process of winding down. Being a turf manager in the central valley of California is stressful, to say the least. Turf loss can occur at any time due to dry spots, disease, insect damage and hydraulic spills. You have to be on your toes at all times. You have to be vigilant and have your guard up. Then, come October 1st, all that changes. It’s a time to do two things; first get away. Second; look back and assess how you did overall. I have been the superintendent at Teal Bend for 17 years. In that time I have learned how important it is to get away from the course and separate yourself both physically and mentally. While it is tempting to charge hard into the winter months and start a million
by John Farley
projects, I would advise against it. Oh sure you need to work on the things that you couldn’t complete during the summer season, like drainage projects, bunker rebuilds, and tree work., but make sure to take time off in between jobs in order to recharge your depleted batteries. If you don’t do that then you run the risk of burning out next summer when you can’t afford to. I tell my guys that I need “all hands on deck” during the critical summer months. In order to do that you’ve got to take time off and just get away for a while. October is also a great month to look back and grade yourself. How did I do? How effective was my weed prevention program? How efficiently did I irrigate this year? How consistent were the greens? How did the crew fair? Were they managed as well as they could have been? Did they receive the proper training
with regards to golf maintenance? Were they recognized adequately? Sitting down with your assistant and answering these questions together will help you make better decisions the next year. You can tweak rates and move application dates according to how well the programs performed. Use October to help you the next year. Learn from what you did wrong and make the necessary changes while leaving the programs that performed well in place. So give October its due. Shift into low gear and go trout fishing. Go camping, go to the coast ,or go to the mountains. Take a week off and work on some projects you’ve been trying to get to around your house. Do anything that gets you away from the golf course. Create that essential separation that needs to happen this time of year or risk burning out next summer because you didn’t follow my sage advice.
2019 SNGCSA BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT Scott McCullough The Ridge Golf Course VICE PRESIDENT Sam Samuelson, CGCS Wildhawk Golf Course
Dave Bermudez Del Rio Golf & Country Club
SECRETARY/TREASURER John Farley Teal Bend Golf Course
Jason Wolf Lincoln Hills G.C.
DIRECTORS Tracy Shanahan Peach Tree C.C.
PAST PRESIDENT William Hamilton CGCS Lake Wildwood Association
Keith Hill, CGCS Hidden Valley C.C.
Affiliate Representatives Rodney Muller Akoni Ganir Sierra Pacific Turf Simplot Partners
Mark Callahan Plumas Pines
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F ROM T HE F IELD BY
JEFF JENSEN GCSAA FIELD STAFF
It’s hard to believe that the 2020 Golf Industry Show (GIS) and GCSAA Golf Championships are right around the corner. This year’s show and golf has been moved up a Jeff Jensen week and will take place Jan. 25-30, 2020 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. Orlando sets the high-water mark for GIS attendance and 2020 will be no different with more than 13,000 attendees and over 550 vendors expected to participate. Education tracks featuring nearly 90 seminars will be offered along with numerous free sessions on the trade show floor. Seminars are available in 1.5-hour, 1.75-hour, half-day and fullday sessions. Seminar costs for members are $75, $85, $140 and $185 respectively. In addition to the trade show on Jan. 2930, other show related events to put on your calendar include the Opening Re-
ception on Jan.28, Grassroots Ambassador Academy, Opening Session on Jan. 29, Ladies in Turf Networking Social, Collegiate Turf Bowl, Health in Action 5K, GCSAA Annual Meeting (now at 9:00 a.m. on Jan. 30) and the always popular Closing Celebration with live entertainment on Jan. 30. Housing and early registration for GCSAA members opened on Oct. 15. Early registration (thru Jan. 8) price for members is $500 and registration is available at http:// www.golfindustryshow.com/. The GCSAA Golf Championships will take place Jan. 25-27 at three Orlando area facilities including ChampionsGate, Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes and Shingle Creek Golf Club. The event features the National Championship, Golf Classic, Four-Ball and Scramble. The National Championship (open to the first 100 superintendents with a handicap index of 5.0 and below) and the Golf Classic (flighted by handicap, using a point quota scoring system) are $475 per player before Dec. 21 ($575 for affiliates participating in the Golf Classic). Entry fee for the Four-Ball and
Scramble are $200 per player before Dec. 21 ($300 for affiliates). Tournament entry includes green fees, cart, range balls, tee prizes, drink tickets, on course contests, awards, Welcome Reception and 19th Hole receptions following each day of play. The GCSAA Golf Championships represent one of the world’s largest amateur golf events (450 plus players) and spots fill up quickly, so register now at http://www.golfindustryshow.com/gcsaa -golf-championships/registrationinformation We hope to see all of you in Orlando and If you have any questions or need anything to make your GIS experience more beneficial, please contact me at jjensen@gcsaa.org and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @GCSAA_SW for daily industry updates.
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SNGCSA’s 2019 In Review It is that time of year again and we are looking to present the annual review of our association and to hold the annual elections for the upcoming fiscal year. This year we won’t make too many changes in the board as most of the board has chosen to remain. Scott McCullough will be remaining as our President for another term. Scott has brought a great deal of focus onto our little chapter. This year he hosted his the annual Turf Tech Workshop for the six year in a row. He has received rave reviews from a National level for this event and this year he will be partnering with other California chapters to bring even more opportunity to our members and their crews. In addition, this past year, Scott,worked with the GCSAA National Board of Directors to bring their quarterly Board of Director meeting to our chapter and to his facility. His plan to coincide this with our annual Scholarship & Research Tournament made our event a huge success and our members had the opportunity to interact directly with the GCSAA National Board of Directors. During this event we invited the boards of the other six California Chapters to attend and share in the opportunity. It was a great experience and was well received. These are just a few of the wonderful ideas that Scott has implemented so far and we look forward to
seeing what he has in store for us in 2020. The Annual Meeting for the SNGCSA will be held at Cameron Park Country Club on November 4, 2019. We will review the state of the association and go through some of the accomplishments we have had this last fiscal year. Just to recap a few, the association was able to grant some $13,000 for Scholarships and Research dollars this last year. This is quite the number considering we have only 214 members. This project has been led by Dave Bermudez and Kurtis Wolford for the last several years and they continue to prove that our association is capable of great things. The board has kept it’s promise to keep meeting costs down and to provide excellent educational experiences. This year, members had seven opportunities to earn PDI Education points, PDI Service Points, and CEU’s. This is a trend we will continue to work toward to provide you with continued educational experiences. You will see more this year as we hope to work with the association courses in adopting their own BMP’s. Look for more on this in upcoming issues and information pushes. Our 2020 meeting schedule is filling in. As of now we have scheduled our Turf Tech Seminar for January 7, 2020, January also will be the Annual Golf Industry Show in Orlando. Coming up in the spring we will host an education event in either
March or April once this location is confirmed. May will be the annual Grass Roots Tournament. Coming in July, Northridge C.C. and Larry Johnson, CGCS, will host the Scholarship & Research Tournament. Then in August ,Dave Bermudez will host the 2020 Northern California Tri Chapter Meeting at his newly refurbished course. We will have the opportunity to tour the facility and see all the work that has gone into making this a premier course in California. In September will once again head up the hill to Truckee for the 2020 Presidents Cup. We are still working on confirming the location but without a doubt it will be another fun day for our members. As you see you will have a lot to look forward to and we want you to be well informed of the meeting locations, dates, and times. You will receive information through e-blasts and we will continue to have the information on our website. Thank you to all that have attended our events and we look forward to seeing you at our future meetings.
Visit us on line at SierraNevadaGCSA.com The SNGCSA is now on Facebook and Twitter. Check it out!
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Montreux Highlights
It was a crisp 40 degrees but the day was gorgeous. Views on the course were spectacular.
Several Past Assistants at Montreux had the opportunity to come back and visit their former boss. Thanks Doug for hosting us!
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President’s Cup Winners
This years Superintendent winner was Ram Sena, and affiliate winner was Steve Byrne
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FORE YOUR INFORMATION Published by the Sierra Nevada Golf Course Superintendents Association EDITOR Bill Hamilton, CGCS OFFICE SNGCSA 3273 Richert Ave., Clovis, CA 93619 559-298-6262 Fax# 559-298-6957 sngcsaa@aol.com