Presidential Perspective by Dave Kazmierczak CGCS, Superintendent at Prestwick Golf Club
If you are within the friendly confines of this association as defined by geography, you have been getting plenty of rain this season. For most golf course superintendents, way more rain than you had hoped, and sometimes in amazing singular amounts. Not that the rain is unwelcomed per se, but it’s what the moisture can help cause, along with hot temperatures, that can be problematic: fungus.
growing season from our early start and ideal growing conditions, the fungus is among us and the only people even remotely happy would be the chemical salespeople!
The question I have is, is this the new normal? We have had two consecutive long growing seasons along with two very mild winters. The concern over global warming is ever-present. July 2016 was officially the hottest month ever kept on record for the world. I have never been a big global warming alarmist. I am not naïve in thinking man has had an impact on rising My oh my, what a wonderful temperatures but I am not one who season for fungus. I don’t know thinks we are all going to perish about you, but my course has been a in 50 years due to scorching heat, plant pathologists dream lately. The ungodly storms or the oceans combination of plenty of moisture swallowing us up whole. coupled with some well-timed heat has produced some interesting But the proof may just lie in results in my fairways and roughs the short grass. I have never seen that I haven’t seen since my days summer patch like I have in my in Kansas City. With an extended roughs this year. In fact, I can’t
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