Text Box: From the Director’s Office by Jeff Maynor, PGA Director of Golf Text Box: Text Box:

University of Maryland Golf Course

College Park, MD  20742

Winter 2008

“Friend of the Golf Course”.   We need your help to achieve our goal of enhancing and upgrading our wonderful layout.  Improvement will only happen with your help.

                 I hope to see you on the course soon - spring is just around the corner!

when spring arrives, you will be able to see a positive effect from the work done during these next few months.

                 In anticipation of the upcoming season, the golf staff has been busy working on the tournament calendar, clinic schedule and junior program.  We hope to make the 2008 member tournament program the best ever.  To do this we need your help.  If you have a format that you would like to see please let us know.  The schedules and information on all of our programs can be found on our website.  Take a minute and check them out.

                 As we head into the golf season, I hope that you will consider joining me in becoming a

                 The 2008 golf season is just a couple of months away.  Hopefully we will get some good weather for the remainder of the winter and we can get an early jump on spring.  We were very lucky early in the winter with a few warm days, but winter as finally caught up to us.  The course is holding up well and is in nice condition for this time of year.

                 The maintenance staff was busy trying to keep up with leaves and continuing to mow the fairways and greens late into the fall.  They are just beginning to tackle their list of winter projects which include clearing underbrush, trimming trees and addressing some drainage problems.  I think that

Text Box: Please feel free to pass on any thoughts you have as to how best to help honor our course during the 2009 timeframe. Tell me in person, or send me an e-mail (at nstarkey@umd.edu). Thanks. Norm Starkey Text Box: Schutz, was present that day for the ceremony and played in one of the first foursomes to test the newly opened layout. He has shared with me some fond memories of the events leading up to the opening of the course. His inputs, along with University of Maryland archival material, are the basis for a commemorative pamphlet that is in work. As you know, the course will be closing for a major renovation next summer, and the goal is to re-open as near to the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication as possible. Planning activities for events and commemorative items that will be available to members and Friends are underway. Text Box: What a year of weather! By the time this newsletter reaches you we will probably be experiencing normal winter weather. The “probably” stems from the fact that for my first full season here we have not experienced much “normal” weather concerning both temperatures and rainfall. For example, during the months of May and September we received only (approximately) an inch of rain each month which was well below the 4.0 – 4.5 inch that is average for these months. June and July were not much better as we also received less than fifty percent of the monthly average of rainfall for each of these months. Overall, for the five month span from May thru September the College Park area received only 47% of the average precipitation. Other examples of the abnormal weather we have been experiencing include this October (2007) being the warmest October on record for the state of Maryland and that from September 15 thru October 19 College Park received Text Box: zero measurable precipitation setting a record for consecutive days without precipitation. Despite all of the aforementioned weather irregularities I feel the golf course held up fairly well this season. The warm, dry weather allowed the bermudagrass in the fairways to grow lush throughout the season and rapidly fill into areas where we were without grass after chemically removing the non-bermudagrass species this past spring. Another benefit of the warm, dry weather was that the turfgrass disease pressure was greatly reduced on greens and tees this summer and disease is actually the number one reason for turf loss in the Washington D.C. area during most summers. However, there are some negative things that we experienced with the warm and dry weather. First off, as most of you that played during the summer noticed, multiple workers spent most of the summer dragging Text Box: irrigation hoses around the golf course. The two reasons for this are to either cool off the grass during the midday heat (called syringing and essential for the health of the greens) or to add water to areas that are either poorly covered by irrigation heads or not covered at all (especially greenside rough areas). Also, with the increased watering required this past season, the irrigation system experienced an increased number of breaks, blown-out heads, etc. that required numerous man-hours to repair. As this golf season comes to an end the maintenance crew and I look forward to continuing to improve the course for another season and also to the renovation project scheduled to begin in July. and I hope to see you on the course! Thanks, George N. Long Text Box: Our 50th Anniversary…by Norm Starkey, Coordinator, 50th Anniversary Commemoration A Great Past…Fifty Years Later…A Better Future Text Box: On the Course with George by George Long