MarApr 2020 TeeOff News

TeeOff News

March/April 2020

2020 Al Glaze Memorial Scholarship & Research Tournament Eagle Springs Golf & Country Club Friant, CA

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President’s Message Glenn Matthews, CGCS vast state. Fortunately, local, state, and national allied golf associations are working together to keep members informed about the latest developments at all levels.

of useful information relevant to your operation and the golf industry as a whole. I encourage all of you to take advantage of the resources made available to you through GCSAA. Check GCSAA is advocating for golf your e-mail regularly as we are sendon a national level in the halls of Con- ing daily updates linked to these regress and with state legislatures. To get sources. the latest news about what is happenUnfortunately, this pandemic ing nationally and within your state has forced us to cancel and reschedule GCSAA has developed a Covid-19 our April Field Day and Educational Pandemic resources page on its webmeeting at Ridge Creek Golf Course in site, which is regularly updated. There Dinuba. That meeting has been reyou can find information about minischeduled for September. Our next Glenn Matthews, CGCS mum golf course maintenance guideface-to-face meeting on the calendar is lines, advocacy reports and updates, the Al Glaze Scholarship event scheddaily updates by state, emergency busi- uled for June 22 at Eagle Springs Golf 2020 started off on a promisCourse. Hopefully we will be back to a ing path. The economy was strong and ness and communication templates, information from other golf course more normal existence so that meeting healthy, which is good for golf, but the superintendents, and ongoing Coronahappens and we raise some money for current events facing our global, navirus updates. a good cause. tional, and local communities are certainly testing the resolve of all. CovidAdditionally, GCSAA is host- I hope to see all of you there, 19 was a distant news event in early ing weekly Town Hall briefings. Those January, but has come to significantly online meetings began in mid-March affect the lives of every one of us. and are free to all members. The meetings feature commentary and critical Throughout California many insight from industry experts, GCSAA golf courses are closed while others staff, and other superintendents. They remain open. Regulations and standards vary from county to county in our typically last about an hour and are full

Glenn Matthews, CGCS

2020 GCSACC BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT GLENN MATTHEWS, CGCS VISALIA COUNTRY CLUB

VICE PRESIDENT PAUL BARR SAN LUIS OBISPO C.C. ALBERT NUNES MORRO BAY GOLF COURSE

JIM CULLEY SEED KING

PAST PRESIDENT ANDY CORDOVA CYPRESS RIDGE GOLF COURSE

CANDELERO ORTEGA RANCHO DEL REY G.C.

SECRETARY/TREASURER MARK WEITZ ALISAL GUEST RANCH ROB LOMELI RIDGECREEK G.C.

JOSE ALVAREZ FORT WASHINGTON CC

MATT GRAVES BELKORP

Official Publication of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of Central California. The purpose of this publication is information and education for the membership.

Published bi-monthly by GCSACC, 3273 Richert, Clovis, CA 93619 Phone (559) 298-6262 Fax (559) 298-6957 Email gcsacc@aol.com Newsletter Chairman & Newsletter Editor Michael Scott, CGCS Executive Directors Irene Cline & Kimberly Milne

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Save The Dates 2020 June 22, 2020

Al Glaze Memorial Scholarship & Research Tournament Eagle Spring Golf & C.C. Hosted by Bob Brueggemann

August 24, 2020

Tri Chapter Event Hosted by the Sierra Nevada Chapter Del Rio Country Club Hosted Superintendent Dave Bermudez

September 2020

Field Day with UC Extension Ridge Creek G.C. Hosted by Maggie Reiter UC Extension Rob Lomeli Superintendent

October 5, 2020

Lowell Stone Charity Event Madera Country Club Hosted by JJ Gonzalez

December 5, 2020 Annual Holiday Event Windows on the Water Morro Bay

2021 January 2021

Annual Election Meeting Volunteer Today!

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Around the Green

By Matt Graves & Jim Culley

We want to congratulate Fuzzy Cochran, Superintendent at River Island G.C. in Porterville on his retirement.

Fuzzy has been a member for many years and is looking forward to the next adventure. Trini Hernandez has taken the superintendent position at Sundale Golf Club in Bakersfield. Sundale reopened under new ownership after Young Ohr sold the property. Congratulations Trini and welcome back to the industry. We were saddened to hear of the passing of Randy Hansen, the owner/General Manager of Sherwood Forest Golf Course in Sanger . Randy passed on March 24th.

The course is presently run by his daughter Stacey Hanson.

We know that you all are aware that we unfortunately had to cancel our Field Day at Ridge Creek Golf Course that was in conjunction with field trials being done by Maggie Reiter with the UC Extension. We will be holding that event in September if all goes well. As of now the Al Glaze Memorial Scholarship & Research Event is still on for June 22nd at Eagle Springs Golf Club. If our “Shelter In Place” rules continue past the projected dates we will advise the membership of any and all changes to the calendar.

We hope that all of you continue to be safe and healthy. Please be sure you are receiving all important information that we send out daily. This will help provide you with all the up to date changes.

Golf Course Materials Topdressing Sand - Bunker Sand Decomposed Granite - Drain Rock 1/8” Minus Turf & Tee Bulk Humus Brush Removal Call for competitive rates

David Knott, Inc. (559) 449-8935 or (559) 760-5387

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Member Highlight Matt Graves, BelKorp This issue’s Member Highlight is on Matt Graves, Golf Account Manager for BelKorp AG. and Affiliate Representative to our Board of Director.

Matt started with MidCal Tractor as a mechanic some 15 years ago. In 2011 BelKorp Ag was formed to acquire the Deere dealerships located in Modesto and Patterson.

BelKorp’s group of companies is a second generation family owned business whose origins date back to the 1940’s. Since 2011, they have expanded to 7 locations in the North Coast and Central Valley. Matt continued on as a mechanic during this transitional move and then in 2016 he was promoted to golf sales. He now covers the San Joaquin Valley as the golf account manager.

Matt likes getting to deal with different people in his job and helping them with their equipment needs. His expertise as a mechanic provides complete knowledge with issues when they arise. Matt is an active member of several chapters and not only serves as board member for our chapter but also has served on the Sierra Nevada Board.

Matt grew up in Lodi and attended school there and then moved to Susanville to attend College. He now lives in Stockton where the BelKorp office is located. Matt and his wife Brenda have two boys, Zachery and Darren.

In his limited spare time, Matt loves paintball. I’ve heard that this is known to be one of the most stress relieving shooting games around. Well in Matt’s case I hope so because with his growing business and crazy schedule he will need some stress relieve. Thank you Matt for your service to our industry and to the association.

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Newsletter T itle

From the Field

Jeff Jensen, GCSAA Field Staff, Southwest Region I hope this finds you and your families safe and healthy. This column was originally committed to my favorite time of year as a sports fan with March Madness, The Masters and Opening Day in Major League Baseball.

Well, how things change in a hurry. COVID-19 has thrown all of Jeff Jensen our best laid plans into the waste basket (including my previous column).

What started as precautionary cancellations of major events has turned into something much larger with potentially much greater implications for our personal lives as well as our golf facilities.

At the time of this article, GCSAA affiliated chapters across the Southwest Region had cancelled all of the remaining March events as well as many of the upcoming April functions. Undoubtedly the correct call by the various board of director members and chapter executives in Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada.

GCSAA also responded to the situation by modifying operations and mandating employees to work remotely. While not ideal, the move still gives our employees the ability to continue their duties with little or no interruption in service to members.

Our organization as well as our chapters and members showed leadership, values and flexibility in making these decisions. I applaud them and that’s why you elected them to lead.

As we move forward, our industry is going to face quite possibly its greatest challenge. The economic fallout with be immense with courses closing doors for unspecified periods of time throughout the region to deal with the effects and fallout of the virus. Jobs and livelihoods will be at stake.

But just like the Great Depression, World War II, the Great Recession and the endless other challenges that have been presented to the game over the last century, golf will survive and continue to offer a solace to who choose to play this great game. As historian Thomas Fuller said, “the darkest hour is just before the dawn.”

Whatever the outcome, I know we have the leaders and resources in place to continue forward and I look forward to working with you all to make it happen.

Best of luck to all of you as we navigate through these difficult times and if I can be of any assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jjensen@gcsaa.org.

Stay safe, take the proper precautions and I hope to run into all of you at some rescheduled event later this Spring and Summer.

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RESOURCES GCSAA in partnership with the USGA

REGULARLY UPDATED

GCSAA COVID-19 Guidelines Handout

GCSAA Disaster Relief Fund Daily Update By State

Minimal Maintenance Examples If Play is Open

Advocacy Resources and Updates

Minimal Maintenance Examples If Play is Closed

GCSAA COVID-19 Updates

Message to Lawmakers to Keep Play Open

gcsaa.org

Message to Lawmakers to Keep Maintenance Going When Play Has Closed

Ongoing Coronavirus News

GCM Online

GUIDELINES, EXAMPLES AND TALKING POINTS Minimum Maintenance Handout

CAL CHAMBER

The CARES Act Explained COVID-19 Business Loans Explained COVID-19 Workforce Reduction Guidance

GCSAA WEBINARS COVID-19 and Turf Care Center Activities Gary Bogdanski

Federal COVID-19 Leaves: Key Points

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Newsletter T itle

Duck and Cover Duck and Turtle Antibiotic Immunity to Algae by Patrick Simmsgeiger President, Diversified Waterscapes Inc. I remember my mother refusing to get a turtle for me as a pet.

She understood that turtles transmit Salmonella, but she probably had no idea a baby turtle could transmit Hepatitis B. She also told me not to touch the ducks in the neighborhood lake. She probably heard about the Alpha-Herpes virus, that caused high mortality rates in ducks, geese and swans. This disease first appeared in Long Island in 1967, transmitted from European flocks. In the last 50 years, these health threats have spread worldwide and normalized in the public mind. There is now an emerging concern that turtles, ducks and geese, adapted to the diseases they carry, spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria. As an aquatic expert, what keeps me awake some nights is the possibility these bacterial strains

could transfer their resistance to algae in our water features.

Ducks and turtles are as ubiquitous to water environments as shells on a beach. These water species excrete waste loaded with bacterium, which settle into soil laced with antibiotic run-off from human activity. Over time, the soil becomes a habitat for new generations of bacteria. In a scientific study of a Meat Duck Farm conducted in 2017, the data strongly indicated that the deeper the excrement layers, and the longer these layers went without removal, the more numerous the antibiotic-resistant bacterial species, plus the greater number of antibiotics to which these species showed resistance. These bacteria also evolved resistance to Zinc, Copper and Cadmium. Copper is the prima-

ry element used to control algae and cyanobacteria in water. Toxic blooms, or Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), are the result of runaway growth of algae and cyanobacteria, when certain conditions like heat and nutrient loads are abundant.

Could algae learn antibiotic and copper resistance from bacteria?

Algae are in every environment on the Earth, having emerged as a simpler species about 1.7 billion years ago. Bacteria existed a couple billion years before that. Cyanobacteria preceded these by about 1 billion years, being the first life on this planet.

Clearly these species learned or stole abilities from each other, then continued to diversify to the present day. It would be very unlikely that

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Antibiotic Immunity Contnd from page 8 this behavior to adapt and then evolve has suddenly come to a stop. More likely, these microorganisms are reacting to human activity, feeding on modern waste, adapting to our chemicals, while they continue to compete and learn from one another. To put this in a proper perspective, keep in mind that the majority of bio-mass on the earth is micro-organic.

our defenses, it will find a way to spread to every nutrient source available.

Once we accept the possibility of an inter-species exchange of resistance to Copper and antibiotics, what is the possibility this new algae strain would move out of its home pond? The same bird groups that excrete large amounts of waste also tend to move from lake to lake. Birds visit all the water features in their territory, and turtles have a capacity to travel as well. The wind also plays a role in transporting bacteria and other microorganisms over long distances. Anecdotally, the entire Earth is covered by microorganisms well-suited to each set of conditions. ‘Survival of the Fittest’ is the rule, so there is every reason to believe that, once a species can resist

secured, often a third-party removes the turtles and imply they will be relocated/rescued/adopted by some body of nearby water. Asking too closely where this property is may not be wise.

Restrictions on turtle or bird removal can be the ‘final straw’ that defeats an entire Lake-Cleaning Plan. A complicated Permit process, additional costs and Public Relation issues are the bane of a Property Manager, especially if they are a municipality. Most manmade water features in the US are decades beyond their life-span for muck removal. This delay in lake preservation and cleaning exacerbates the biologic risks.

professional discussion. Water management experts think in terms of years at a property, drawing on decades of experience. But recent events have demonstrated how quickly the statusquo can be changed, and how our assumptions about safety can be proven inaccurate. In 1967 Avian Infectious Bronchitis Virus was studied as a crossover vector for human Bronchitis, which interestingly was the same year flocks were found dead in Long Island from a European infection. Today, we may be ignoring signs of a larger problem, where algae could learn Copper resistance from bacteria vectored from birds and turtles, which densely populate neighborhood water features. Even if we heed the signs, our hands are effectively tied by sentiment for these ubiquitous creatures, many of which we encourage to live nearby in already unhealthy lakes.

Aquatic experts rely on a limited number of products to control algae, ultimately using Copper as the active metal when more natural treatments fall short. Although antibiotic resistance is a problem all its own, it is algae’s resistance to Copper that Many aquatic companies that should concern water managers. But treat algae claim to eradicate the prob- what can be done; is this an inevitable lem. The fact is, algae colonies cannot response of Nature to human activity? be completely killed off, only limited The most obvious step is to reduce huin size and reproductive rates by using man runoff into streams and lakes, proper tools and procedures. Not only which is a solution beyond the scope are there immense varieties of algae of aquatic experts. Next is the cleaning and bacteria, adapted to every environ- of muck layers from lakes and ponds, ment, but each of these has the capabil- which is commonly delayed for years ity to adapt and create daughter cells and even decades, despite repeated with new characteristics. According to warnings from water management. The a recent estimate, there are about one last solution is the control of bird and trillion species of microbes on Earth, turtle populations, which is an easy and 99.99 % of them have yet to be action to consider but politically diffi- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/27744296 classified. Clearly, microorganisms cult to carry out. have no problem evolving offspring Reducing bird and turtle poputhrough adaption that can reproduce lations first runs into permit and regu- Accumulation of antibiotics and heavy into a new species, well-suited to con- latory issues. These restrictions have metals in meat duck deep litter and their sume the most abundant form of nutri- nothing to do with The Endangered role in persistence of antibiotic-resistant ents, while resisting a threat that limSpecies Act of 1973, but rather stem Escherichia coli in different flocks on one ited their mother cell. from public opinion. When permits are

Being alarmist in no way benefits a

duck farm. - 2017

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ ijmicro/2017/5798161/ Antibiotic Resistant Bacterial Isolates from Captive Green Turtles and In Vitro Sensitivity to Bacteriophages – 2017 https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/theus-endangered-species-act

The US Endangered Species Act https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles /PMC375381/pdf/jvirol00329-0177.pdf Morphogenesis of Avian Infectious Bronchitis Virus and a Related Human Virus (Strain 229E)