Editor’s Perspective
Don’t Let an
Unintended Consequence Keep you from
Mark Vaughn, CGCS Virginia Turfgrass Journal Editor
U
nintended consequences: outcomes that are not the ones intended by a purposeful action. The recent political campaign commercials went something like this: “ My opponent, John ‘Adolph’ Smith, has been twisted from an early age. As a child, he was a member of the ‘He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club.’ Since then, he has hated women and old people, and he has regularly tortured cats. This seems odd, since he is a direct descendant of the ‘Fat Cat’ Smiths who used to own slaves and run a toxic, ironore smelting factory (which no doubt poisoned our local water supply for thousands of years). If elected, he and his rich friends will engage in child molestation behind the walls of their gated estates, all the while seizing your homes by eminent domain and requiring the populace to attend church four times per week.” On the heels of this follows an ad by “Adolph’s” out-of-state PAC. “ Our opponent, James ‘Bidenbama’ Carter was really JULIA Carter before her/his ‘transformation’ back in 2001. If Julia….ah, er… James has her/his way, your children will be receiving their government chip and birth control in preschool. He LOVES sending jobs to China, Pakistan and Vietnam because he was born in all three of those places and hates ALL Americans. If elected, our state (um, Commonwealth) will no longer
Fredericksburg exist because he plans on selling it to illegal aliens and shipping all you law-abiding citizens to Mexico. Just giving the voters what they want, they say. Back in the “open a golf course a day” silliness of the 1990s, what did architects design? Long, then longer and then longest. Firm, then firmer and then rock hard. Rolling, undulating and finally mountain goat. Light rough, deep rough and then lose-a-child natural areas. Shallow, then deep and finally rappel-into bunkers. Just giving us what we asked for, they said. Newspapers begin gobbling up each other in a desperate feeding frenzy to remain relevant and profitable. Because of staff downsizing, most local reporting goes away and is replaced by the standard Associated Press or other wire stories. What local news remains is almost always negative. Hey, gotta do what we gotta do, they say. Marketing firms, political PACs, charities, et.al., decide that after a long hard day of work, what people really want is to be polled, told and sold about what kind of detergent they use, why our country is going down the tubes if you don’t elect Candidate X or what you can do to save the world. Whaaa… people need to know these things, they say. After many years of the VTC’s annual conference being held in Richmond in January, a certain red-
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head on the board of directors suggests that it is getting stale and should be moved to the beach in November. This will be GREAT, he reasons: get out of downtown Richmond; it’ll still be warm at the beach in November; and besides, the Carolinas revitalized their show when they did this. What could go wrong? The long putter was officially introduced to the golf world in the 1980s. For years, it was used sporadically, mostly by older players whose putting prowess was leaving them. In the early 2000s, it began to be used by younger players who eventually took it to the PGA Tour and won tournaments. In 2011, the first major was won using a long putter. Since then, several more major wins were recorded for the long putter. This year, the ruling bodies of golf decided to ban the long putter, beginning in 2016. Needed to protect the integrity of the game, they say. So. Let’s start with the last one and work our way back to the top. Personally, I don’t like the long putter. On the green (at least, until recently) was the one place I felt like I had an advantage. I’ve never been the longest hitter out there, and my iron game comes and goes. HOWEVER, I know people who are still playing golf today who probably would have quit without the long putter. Having struggled recently with putting myself, I know the game is not much fun without regularly making the five-footers and occasionally making a twenty-footer. Can you see the scenario when we’re