Short Shots

Sycamore Ridge hosts annual Heart GCSA media event
   Each spring, the Heart of America chapter of the Golf Course Superintendents Association hosts members of the media for a golf outing at a Kansas City-area golf course. The event gives members of the profession a chance to better inform the media gathering just what a vital role superintendents and their staffs play in the game of golf.
   According to Sycamore Ridge superintendent Paul Davids, whose course played host for the event earlier this month, it’s also a chance for media members to make a contact that can go back to when a story concerning golf course conditions arises.
   “We’re hoping to expose them to what we do, how we do it and provide them an avenue to ask questions as they go through,” says Davids, three years the superintendent at the Spring

Hill club, site of the 2009 KGA Senior Four-Ball Championship. “If ever there is a question, comment or concern in an article that they’ve got, it gives them some avenues with people that they’ve networked with to ask those questions.”
   Foursomes for the Heart Media Day include both superintendents and media members for the scramble round of golf so each course manager has a chance to discuss their course and the challenges they might face. This year, the topic of staff size and how it relates to managing the maintenance budget in a difficult golf climate was discussed. Davids has just three full-time employees through the winter months before his crew grows to seven full-timers and part-time rough mowers in season.
   “Really all I’ve done is monitor staff expenditures, labor hours,” says Davids, 41 and a Kansas State University graduate. “Then the main thing, always being cost-conscious on chemicals, fertilizer, spending only what needs to be spent. Everything is our needs -- not our wants.”
   Of course any cut in maintenance budget forces the superintendent to walk the fine line of still providing superb playing conditions with less. And it’s magnified in a saturated Kansas City-area, public golf course market. The few concerns on course conditions that reach Davids’ ears are usually voiced by pass holders -- those players who play the course on a regular basis -- the superintendent says. His challenges come from managing a course that includes a more wide-open, links-style front nine and a hilly, wooded back side. Davids says the open front nine gets more wind and the treed back nine must be managed differently chemically to prevent turf disease.
   “I hear a few things here or there, whether they’re making notice of bunkers that haven’t been renovated that need to be done or turf issues that need to be addressed,” he says. “Negative comments, there’s not a lot once we get into season and get up to full staff. I try to cut (corners) in areas where the average golfer is not going to notice and that’s the important thing.”
   Davids, who came to Sycamore Ridge after serving as golf course superintendent at Shaker Run Golf club in Lebanon, Ohio, says there are a few ways golfers can make the job of those in his profession a little easier and help their golf course stay in top shape, including areas like his vibrant bent fairways.
   “Of course filling divots, we keep sand and seed on the carts – granted sand and seed only work when the weather conditions are conducive – I’d rather see divots replaced if it’s cool, but if we’re in the summer time I’d rather see them use sand and seed because we irrigate and the divots won’t survive a day,” he advises. “Fix your ball marks, rake bunkers and other than that, just enjoy themselves.”

KGA golfers moving on to NCAA regionals
   Several college golfers with Kansas ties and having experience in Kansas Golf Association championships have qualified for NCAA regional events later this month.
   The Wichita State men’s golf team qualified for the regional at the Traditions Club in College Station, Texas. The Shockers were placed in the defending NCAA champion Aggies region as the No. 12 seed after collecting their automatic bid by winning the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference tournament on April 27.
   Senior All-American and MVC Golfer of the Year Dustin Garza of Mission, Texas, will lead the

Shockers into their third straight NCAA appearance. Other Shockers contributing to the MVC-winning score at Prairie Dunes Country Club included Anders Engell, Hunter Sparks, Tyler Gann and Rafael Becker.
   Kansas State University’s team didn’t qualify, but two seniors did as individuals. Fort Scott’s Joe Ida and Waterloo, Ill.’s Mitchell Gregson both will compete in the Alpharetta, Ga. regional at Capital City Club. The Wildcats had qualified for the NCAA tourney as a team in both 2008 and 2009.
   University of Missouri-Kansas City freshman Korbin Kuehn of Overland Park will compete in the Georgia regional as well after winning the Summit League championship in a playoff to become the automatic qualifier. Kuehn is just the second UMKC golfer to compete in the NCAA event, joining Kangaroo Hall of Famer Robert Russell.
   University of Kansas junior Nate Barbee will compete in the San Diego regional at Carlton Oaks Golf Club. Barbee of Dakota Dunes, S.D., had eight top-10 finishes this season and won last fall’s Kansas Invitational.
   All six NCAA regionals will be played May 20-22. The top-five teams in each of the regionals and the low individual not on an advancing team will move on to compete in the NCAA Championship, June 1-6 at The Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn.

KGA in Salina, Manhattan this month
   The Kansas Golf Association has two more championships to close out a busy first month of its season. On May 17-18, the Association heads to central Kansas for the 2010 Senior Four-Ball Championship at Salina Country Club. Thirty-six holes of four-ball stroke play are planned in three senior divisions: championship (gross scoring only), net (net scoring only) and super senior (both players must be 65 or older).
   The championship division will be contested from a longer set of tees than the other two divisions, according to championship officials. Last year, Raytown, Mo.’s Steve Groom and Kansas City’s Andy Smith teamed to grab the Four-Ball title by three shots at Sycamore Ridge Golf Course in Spring Hill.
   The Association closes out the month with its annual Public Links Championship May 22-23 at Manhattan’s Colbert Hills Golf Club. The home of the Kansas State Wildcats will be the site for two rounds of stroke play in gross and net divisions for public golf course players 25 and younger, 26-49 and 50 and older.
   Wichita’s Steve Newman held off Kansas City’s Don Kuehn and Sterling High School standout/2010 KGA Junior Player of the Year Michael Gellerman to win the 2009 Public Links at Newton’s Sand Creek Station by four strokes.