TEE-OFF News
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Around the Green by Mike Cline Mike Cline
Dragon Fly Golf Club in Fresno was stuck by fire on July 2nd. Welders working on a fence set fire to the hillside adjacent to the course. Superintendent Kevin Wiles, lead a team of 10-15 golf course personnel to fight the fire until the local fire department could arrive. The fire which started at 8:00 am was not contained until well have 6:00 PM. During that time in addition to pulling water hoses course personnel evacuated the entire golf course via a different route and also helped save a fire truck that had become
stuck in the path of the wild fire. The fire consumed over 30 acres and threatened to jump fire lines several times which could have been devastating to the club house and cart barn areas. The Roddy Ranch Golf Course in Antioch closed this month. It was one of the newest courses in the Bay Area. It was another blow to the California Golf Industry. In the last 18 months Northern California has seen Sunol Valley near Sunol, Grayson Woods in Pleasant Hill, Springtown in Livermore and Pine Meadow in Martinez close and The Shadow Lakes course, less than a mile east of Roddy Ranch, is operating a partial
schedule, mostly weekends. Availability and cost of water was cited as a key factor in every case. The California GCSA State Chapter recently held their annual elections. We are well represented on that board with Glenn Matthews, CGCS taking the Secretary Treasurer position for this year. Glenn will also represents us at the delegates meeting coming up this October in Lawrence. The committee on foreign investment in the US has approved the purchase of Syngenta by ChemChina. Its looks like this major worldwide accuesition is going to happen.