Chicago District Golf Association

The Chicago District Golf Association (CDGA) is a non-profit organization that represents member clubs and individual golfers from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It was founded on March 18, 1914 with the purpose to promote amateur golf in the mid-west. This establishment holds over 90,000 members and has 400 member clubs making it one of the largest/oldest golf associations in the U.S. This association is made up of directors known as “Blue Coats” and they spend a huge amount of time each year, giving services and time to people. CDGA services and the benefits that come with the association are to the member clubs and individual golfers at the facilities. It’s run by 17 personnel and is held at the Midwest Golf House Complex in Lemont, Ill. The CDGA handles thousand of studies through the year from personal visits, email when dealing with rulings, tournament set-up, information on places to play, and greens keeping practices. The CDGA have other additional services and Turfgrass experts on staff, led by Dr. Derek Settle.
CDGA Services include:
• Handicap Program
• Course Rating & Measuring Program
• Tournament Program
• Sunshine Through Golf Foundation
• Three-hole Sunshine Course
• Chicago District Golfer Magazine
• Education Program
• Turfgrass Research Program
• Scorecard E-Newsletter
• Keeper of Records
The Chicago District Golf Association is a great networking experience for anyone in the turf industry. It provides adequate information and can help turf managers with their career pursuit. I look forward to gaining networking connections from Chicago through the six months I’m there on my internship at Medinah Country Club.

Importance of Organic Matter

Why use organic matter in greens instead of to using straight sand? Using straight sand, can be difficult for a grow in, because it cannot hold nutrients well and the water drains too fast for the grass to utilize it. The carbon structure of organic matter is made of a ring structure that is harder to break down by microbes. It has great surface area, a high amount of negative charge, and it holds water very well. It can result in a poor growing environment when you have too much organic matter because your percolation rate may decrease. What can you do to remove or control the buildup of organic matter is to pulling cores or dilute with an aggressive topdressing program.
In top soil, organic matter helps many factors of the growing medium. These include:

• Increased CEC
• Increased aggregate formation(structure)
• Energy for microbe development
• Heat absorption due to its dark color
• Micronutrients can be present.

Organic matter is a source of carbon, but addition, organic matter will affect the carbon to nitrogen ratio; the ideal ration being 30:1. So when carbon starts to decrease, the available nitrogen levels start to increase again. Nitrogen is important because microbes need it to survive and to break down the OM.
Raw clippings from grass cuttings are a source of organic matter. The clippings consist of 75% water and 25% dry mater. The dry matter contains carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. The ash alone contains the nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and sulfur. Many other factors that the raw material holds include 60% carbohydrates, and other complex molecules including 10% protein and 5% fats.
By using organic matter, the percolation rate on your greens might decrease and increase your water-holding capacity. By having too much organic matter this may cause compaction to your greens. The golf course then may aerify their greens or be concentrated with top-dressing.

Norway Spruce

The Norway spruce belongs to the family Pinaceae. Spruces are symmetrical and are conical trees. In this family alone there are about forty different specimens. This report will explain the growth, culture, diseases and insects the plant may get, some propagation techniques and the landscape uses it has to offer.

The Norway spruce can grow from forty to sixty feet high and have a spread of twenty five to thirty feet. The zone it can survive in between three to eight. The bark on the Norway when it is young is thin, but can become thin with gray brown flaking scales on the bark off older trees. It’s pyramidal with pendulous branches. The fruit are cylindrical cones can get to a purple or green color when young. Foliage around the medium grade of the tree and the leaf color it offers is bright green to a purplish color when maturing. A culture it has to live in order for it to survive is moist, sandy, acidic, well drained soils but can survive in most soils around the specific zones. This plant prefers the cold climate and should be pruned in the spring. Examples of select diseases and insects that affect spruces include red spider, spruce gall aphid, bud worm, and borers. The Norway Spruce are often used as windbreaks and are used a lot for large scale landscaping such as parks, golf courses, highways, and public buildings. One of the benefits of propagating Spruces is that the seeds germinate without pretreatment and can be directly sown in to the grown. Root pruning is optional and should be performed between from November to January.

The Norway spruce can be beneficial for decorative purposes and for weather preventative cases such as wind-breakers. Planter’s can benefit from this because they are not pretreated and can be directly sown in the grown and root pruning is optional so there is less maintenance.

This report mentions important facts about the plant that landscapers can use to their advantage. They will also learn some background information about the plant including where it came from and what zones it can be found in and survivein.

Success

In order to be successful in the turfgrass management industry, you have to be a good communicator. What that means is being able to communicate to your crew members for what needs to be done and to communicate to the people who just play golf and decide rather you should have this piece of equipment or not. In this business, you really don't have to be that great at growing grass. What really moves you up in the rank to be a superintendent is communicating well to the right people. About 10 percent of the industry is growing grass the other 90 percent is communication. I have met some people through the years that were very good at communicating and some that needed to work on it. Also being a good communicator allows you to accomplish a lot more tasks on the golf course because of the organization with your crew and the way you treat them. When you communicate to others, you expand your network of people and can go big in your career and to ask for assistance if say you're having trouble identifying a disease or whats a good product to spray for dollar spot etc.. In my experiences when working on a golf course, I tended to work harder when my employer treated me with respect and that's a trait on good communication skills.

Hand Mowing vs. Triplexing

Their are many advantages and disadvantages of hand mowing and triplexing. Hand mowing gives your course a more uniform cut and can improve the visual appearance of a golf course. When doing a grow in, hand mowers come in good use for the first few cuts of a new establish turf. But with hand mowing, comes more labor and more time consuming to give you those results and not many courses do this due to their budget and man power.

Triplexing is great also to save on labor for courses. But with triplexing come many disadvantages. Using a triplex can take jobs away which can be a good and bad depending on whose view your looking from. With hand mowing, you would need usually 4 walk behind mowers to take care of 18 holes in 4 hours but using a triplex, only need 2 mowers to cut greens in half the time it would take the walk behinds to do the job. From a turf managers prospective, they can cause compaction to your greens if using them constantly, have the potential of hydraulic leaks, and not getting as of a uniformed cut. Now days though a lot of company's have been making improvement on their triplexes where they are getting very close to what a hand mower would give your course.

Medinah Country Club 2010 Internship

This summer I'll be taking my internship at Medinah Country Club located in Medinah IL, which is thirty minutes away from the city of Chicago. The last event that was held there was the 2006 PGA Championship that was won by Tiger Woods. The next upcoming major event will be the Ryder Cup in 2012. It is a 54-hole golf complex and was established in 1920 by a group of Shriner's. What I will be trying to learn during the course of this internship will consist of understanding the chemical importance in this industry, knowing the sprayers and applicators and how to operate them properly. I also will be learning the different kinds of machinery used on a golf course, gaining a better understanding of how superintendents deal with particular problems on a golf course, and comprehending water management skills and learning how to save water and to use it efficiently.

For Starter's

My name is Chris Funke, I'm 21 years old and I was born in Northeastern PA in a little town called Mountain Top. I started my career in the Turf Industry when I was 15 years old at a 27 hole facility, Blue Ridge Trail Golf Club. I am currently in my first year in the two-year program for Golf Course Turfgrass Management Program at Penn State University.