Editor’s Perspective
Mark Vaughn, CGCS Virginia Turfgrass Journal Editor
Do
Our Newest App
you love technology? I do. Well, in it’s purest sense. I mean, what hasn’t gotten easier in the last 30 years or so? My climate-controlled house is programmed to be cool for me when I get home; my car senses that I am standing beside it and unlocks the doors for me; my computer can connect me visually to my daughter in another state; and I figure I’m pretty much still alive because of medical technology. But, just like food stamps and welfare, good ideas can go bad in the wrong hands. For example, here is the phone tree at my cardiologist’s office: “You have reached the office of Dr.______. If you are a referring physician, press 1. If you are requesting a prescription refill, press 2. If you would like to make or change an appointment, press 3. If you would like to speak to a nurse, press 4. Etc, etc. If you are dying, do not press option 23, take your nitro, and call 911.” And now, thanks to Steve Jobs (moment of silence, please), we live in the “app” world. Yes, yes, I know I’ve referenced the beloved and his creations many times in past columns.
at Goodyear GC
And yes, I’m drinking the Kool-Aid right now as I type on my MacBook. Siri reports that there are now over 500,000 apps in the Apple App Store. One of the newest is an app that allows you to complain instantaneously about your TSA airport screening. Yep, with the serious financial problems of this country, apparently this issue (along with who J-Lo is sleeping with this week) is of utmost importance in the United States of the Offended. Having flown twice in the last couple of months, I can tell you that I don’t mind the TSA process one bit. Oh sure, that last cavity search was a little rough, and I’ve had to buy a couple pair of new socks, but if it keeps the latest nut job from blowing me out of the sky, I’m all in. So, we’re trying something here at Goodyear GC to show we are on the razor’s edge of tech. We’ve combined smartphone technology with the old phone tree to come up with what we like to call “Kvetch.” Simply touch the Supt.-in-theGuillotine icon, and the app launches, immediately dialing our customized crisis-control number as the red head falls in the basket. It goes something
10 | Virginia Turfgrass Journal July/August 2012 www.vaturf.org
like this: “If the greens are too hard, please press 1. If the greens are too fast, please press 2. If your ball has landed in goose poop, please press 3. If the fairways are too tight, please press 4. If the fairways are too shaggy, please press 5. If you’ve gotten a bad lie in the rough, please press 6. If your ball has ended up in a bunker footprint, please press 7. If the greens are too soft, please press 8. If the greens are too slow, please press 9. If Sasquatch is playing in front of you and dragging his feet, please press 10. If the bunkers are too soft, please press 11. If you feel the pin placement on the prior hole was unfair, please press 12. If grain caused you to miss that 18" putt, please press 13. If the maintenance staff seems to have nothing better to do than harass you and your foursome, please press 14. And, if you think the entire maintenance staff should be fired because you never see them doing anything, please press 15.” I’m working on a similar app for the pro shop. “If the group in front of you is playing too slow, please press 1. If the group behind you is pushing you around the course, please press…” c