Ontario Golf Superintendents Association OGSA 3284 KEELE STREET, SUITE 10 DOWNSVIEW, ONTARIO M3M 2H8 PHONE 416 -6 3-1591 President NEWSLETTER James Wyllie 14 Cheltenham Ave. Brampton, Ontario PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Phone 451-1875 It certainly has been a long time between Newsletters and if Vice-President it had not been for the hardworking efforts of Ross Haines and Allan Robert T. Heron Beaney, there probably would not be one at all. 43 Eldomar Avenue Brampton, Ontario Phone 459-3299 I am not going to apologize for this fact as you are all aware that this summer must go down in the record books as the most Secretary humid one since the Ice Age. .1 b Ross Haines 54 Bannon Avenue Toronto 18, Ontario As of today, according to my diary, we have had 48 days of 85 Phone 233-6105 degrees plus and of these, 23 were over the 90 degree mark. Probably the hardest worked item on the golf course, other than the "Super" has Treasurer... Paul Dermott been the sprayer. Box 131 Islington, Ontario I know at my club our chemical and fertilizer budget was shot Phone 231-0925 to pieces a long time ago, and by the looks of the weather we are Directors experiencing right now, it is going to be a lot worse. Allan Beeney Maple Ave. West We have run the complete gauntlet of disease this season, Georgetown, Ontario starting with HELMINTHOSPORIUM LEAF SPOT which did a pretty good job Phone 877-2642 of eliminating the blue grasses in the Metro area. Then came the Edward J. Charman worst infestation of Dollar Spot I have ever experienced, in the Box 11 latter part of July, and this disease has been working right up until Thornhill, Ontario Phone 889-3303 today. My fairways were so bad that I thought they would never come back, but with a lot of work and some luck, they recovered quite Cecil Roy French quickly. I do not like to give any product a pat on the back publicly, R.R.#1 but I must comment on the complete eradication and control that we have Copetown, Ontario Phone 627-3394 had from Dupont’s 1991. We sprayed our fairways that were quite bad with 1 1/2 ozs. per thousand and the rest at 3/4 oz.rate. This was Robert Hall applied July 25th and until today, September 5th, there is still com­ 16 Cleaveholm Drive plete control. Our greens were sprayed at the same timeat 1/2 oz. Georgetown, Ontario Phone 877-2885 per thousand and we sprayed greens and tees again on September 4th for the first time there was some Brown Patch showing on September 4th, A. V. Whitey Jones but still no Dollar Spot. 225 Kennedy St. W. Aurora, Ontario Phone 727-5640 The first reaction I am sure you will have, is to say that this material is too expensive and granted it is. The material to spray all John Stoughton of our Fairways, tees and greens, cost in the area of $1300. and a R.R.#3 follow-up next week of 1/2 oz. per thousand will cost about $800. for Barrie, Ontario Phone 728-0183 a total of approximately $2100. This is a very small amount of money when your members see the results. Past President Wm. Hynd The point I am trying to make is that this has been a season 435 Islington Ave. Islington, Ontario of great extremes and many of my fellow Superintendents tell me they Phone 239-9630 do not have the money left in their respective budget for such extra­ vagant spraying. I must ask these fellows that if their pumps burned — continued — out in the middle of July, would they leave them sit until winter to repair or would they go to their Green Chairman and explain that we have a crisis on our hands and I need the money now for repairs or your golf course is going to suffer badly. Do not feel this is a humbling thing for you to have to go to the Board and explain why you need more money. I am sure your club will appreciate the fact you are aware of this situation and if they say NO then it is not your fault if they have to play winter rules during August and September. I am sure if you do explain these unforeseen problems that Mother Nature drops on us, your Professional image will be much higher in the eyes of your members. J.A. WYLLIEPresident. FOR SALE - 6 bladed, 5 gang Roseman fairway mowers, hydraulically operated, 3 point hitch model. CONTACT - Cameron Cairncross at Summit Golf and Country Club, Box 430, Oak Ridges, Ont. Phone: 884 - 5234 PAST MEETINGS by al beeney The April 17th meeting was held at Brock Golfland, St. Catharines, with our hosts being Ed Rybski and Walt Windjack. About 50 supers enjoyed their first outing of the season and what a beautiful spring day! Many of the Toronto area supers were unable to attend as they were frantically preparing their irrigation systems. After a good day of golfing, followed by a huge meal, a short business meeting was held highlighted by Dr. Jack Eggens slides’ of plant propogation and Bill Hynds recent trip to Scottish golf courses. The May 8th meeting was held at Richmond Hill Golf and Country Club with George Darou being the host super. The day was typical for this past spring, wet! And could we use some of that now. Some fellows were hardy enough to golf, but most were content to sit in the lounge and talk shop. After the. business meeting our guest speaker was Mr. Joe Curtin, who gave us an informative talk on how and where to invest any spare cash - (but with today’s spiralling cost of living — who has any???) The meeting adjourned around 5 p. m. and was followed by coffee and sandwiches. July 20th was Greens Chairman - Superintendent Golf Tournament at Brampton Golf Club. The weather was good and the course was in fine condition. About 80 supers and directors teed it up. Bobby Hall from Toronto Ladies Golf Club showed up with a lady, a Miss Fertuck, but don’t kill him yet Hazel, she is his boss! I had the pleasure of golfing with her and found her to be very nice and a good golfer. P. S. — Couldn’t swear all day.... The team from Galt Country Club, Paul Scenna, Super and Sandy Forbes, Greens Chairman earned top honours of the day. A cocktail hour followed by dinner, the presentation of prizes and the very humourous Cy Leonard brought to end a very good day of golfing and fellowship with our bosses. Our thanks to the Brampton Golf Club for being our hosts and to Ross Haines for the fine golfing conditions. . C.G.S.A. FALL FIELD DAY PLACE - Rivermead Golf Club, Aylmer, Quebec DATE - September 21st, 1973 COST - $18.00 per member - $10.00 Ladies TOURNAMENT - Shotgun start - 8 A. M. ANNUAL MEETING & EDUCATIONAL SESSION - 2:30 to 4:30 P. M. to be held . .... in Dining Room of Rivermead. EQUIPMENT DISPLAY - 1 to 5 P. M. on the grounds of Rivermead. COCKTAILS - 6:00 P. M. - Pay bar DINNER - 7:00 P. M. - Presentation of prizes and Entertainment to follow a Roast Beef Dinner. HEADQUARTERS - The Fall Field Day Headquarters will be established at the Embassy West Motel, 1400 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ont. HOST AT RIVERMEAD - Normand Ladouceur. Continuing the list of available publications from the last Newsletter from John Hutchinson I get 2 more. - - - thanks, John, for the very first contribution to this Newsletter, (come on, the rest of you bunch and get off your butts and do something to contribute). TURF GRASS TIMES 6 issues yearly. Rates: 1 yr. $5.00; 2 yrs. $9.00; 3 yrs. $12.00 Write to: Turf Grass Publications, Inc., P.O. Box 51088, 218 19th Avenue North Jacksonville Beach, Florida. 32250. and this one . . . . . NEWS &VIEWS monthly, free. Write to: Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Information Services Branch, 35 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto 195, Ontario. NEWS NEWS NEWS by ross haines Where's the News and who's the News??? Congratulations to TOM LEWIS of Peterborough who recently received the 25 year award of a lapel pin from the G.C.S.A.A. CHARLIE MUYLAERT reports that new construction on the old Pine Valley course is coming along great. The new name for the course, I understand, is going to be the P. G. A. NATIONAL. Anyone who is interested in seeing a fine course take shape, drop, over and see if you have any luck finding Charlie. Three times now — and I haven't! I am going to try and con Charlie into giving, possibly a feature presentation at the next O.G.S.A. Symposium. We never see enough of this talented, upstanding lad. A novel idea this year was born by two local Supers when they decided they would make up softball teams from their respective crews and meet head to head on the baseball diamond. The two Supers were PAUL DERMOTT of Islington Golf and Country Club and BOB HERON ¡of Markland Wood Country Club. Well, they sure did some scratching to get nine players each, but they did! And guess who was asked to umpire? Yup! Me! Well, what an experience! Between trying to keep track of the count, aswell as the runs, as well as calling the plays, I was lucky I got finished without getting skulled once or twice. But when it was over, it was down to the local,for a few ( a few dozen that is ). To be fair I won’t mention any scores, but to sit back and look around you and see two fine crews in the same business, mixing, chatting, going over the game time after time, and gener­ ally enjoying each other, you could easily see that the results were truly gratifying no matter what then final score. Almost a tradition now, is the Friday afternoon golf games being arranged and carried out by most of the local Supers. It works well and it works like this. A super will invite a foursome or two (including himself) of other local Supers for a game of golf on his own course. Then its usually into the clubhouse, sometimes in jacket and tie, sometimes not, for a little liquid and a nice meal. Afterwards, the talk invariably gets around to the course and some brain picking can be done and problem solving achieved by all. And who’s to care if one of the other guys does the same thing and you don’t get invited. Over the long haul, things tend to balance out and the important thing is that we are contri­ buting to our profession. The Pro/Superintendent Golf Tournament last week at Markland Wood was a great day. There was 43 teams representing their clubs. Our host BOB HERON had the course in great shape for the day as he always has. The low gross Super was JACK HARRIS from Ancaster Golf and Country Club in Hamilton while the low Pro was BOB ROSE from Beverley Golf and Country Club, just outside Hamilton. They were 82 and 67 res­ pectively. The low gross team was BILL BOWEN and his pro from Peterborough. The low net team prize went to PAUL DERMOTT (gross 83, net 64, what’s this?) and JIM McKITTERICK from Islington Golf Club. How about our host? An 8 or 10 handi­ cap and he was 102 blows around his own track. Well, he’s the Golf Chairman for this year and has been working hard at his duties.... After years of just talking about it, we have finally issued a membership roster. BOB HERON was also the man in charge of this project and he has done another fine job. It’s a hard cover with a removable center section that will be replaced each year. Each member should have received one by now, and I am sure you will agree with me and join in and say Thanks, BOB, for a job well done. — continued — Talk about the town these days is that Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville has been purchased by Skyline Hotels. It has been reported in the TO papers, so it's hardly news. But it seems that they have asked the Golden Bear himself to do the layout. Nicklaus has been up a couple of times already and is reportedly very interested. Seems like they’ll go the same route as Pine Valley and close the doors and redesign the complete track. Fantastic opportunity for Super and fellow member DENNIS PELLERINE. COMING EVENTS C. G. S. A. FALL F1ELD DAY - September 21st Rivermead Golf Club Aylmer, Quebec. O.G.S.A. OCTOBER MEETING - St. George's Golf & Country Club McLUMPHA GOLF TOURNAMENT - October - Chinguacous Golf Club, Inglewood, Ontario. O.G.S.A. FOURTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM - January 3rd, 1974 - Lambton Golf Club ATTENTION PLEASE IF YOU ARE INVITED TO BE A GUEST SPEAKER AT THE NEXT SYMPOSIUM - P LEASE ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE AND DO THE BEST YOU CAN. Congratulations are certainly in order for that giant of a man by the name of Alex Chisholm of Niagara Chemicals. He will be leaving Niagara September 20th for a new post with the Ontario Government. His new title will be Executive Director to the Pesticides Advisory Board. Hope to see and hear from him as much as possible. ARE YOU RECEIVING YOUR MAIL ? ? ? ? ? ? Write and let us know! Ross Haines, 54 Bannon Avenue, Toronto 18, Ontario or Ontario Golf Superintendents Association, 3284 Keele Street, Suite 10, Downsview, Ontario. M3M 2H8. REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER Would you like to make use of this Newsletter for Wamt ads of equipment and the like? Well, it's free for the asking to members and clubs! Just write to any of the Executive and let them know..... FOR SALE - 1 Ryan Topdressing unit (good condition) Large quantity of snow fence Large quantity of rubber hose & couplings. CONTACT - PAUL DERMOTT, Islington Golf Club - 231-0925. Editorial WHY THE PROBLEM WITH LABOUR ON GOLF COURSES? I hardly intend to answer this question in this small space, even if I thought I was capable of answering it at all, I couldn’t. In the Metro area the problem has been increasing and spiralling for years now. I can assure you that if it hasn’t hit your areas by now - it is on its way. In order to achieve the optimum results that are expected and even demanded of us, we continually scrape the bottom of the labour barrel and rely on transients, students and immigrant labour to provide us with those high class manicured courses for which we all strive. I am getting mighty sick of it myself. Training, training, - always breaking in new personnel, and that is IF you are lucky enough to have someone answer your want ads. I don’t think we honestly have to worry about unions in this business, because the type of labour we are getting can hardly think for themselves - let alone- organize themselves. The directors at most of our clubs are in business, commerce and industry for themselves, can’t they see our dilemna. Or are we protecting something that is intangible by not crying from the rooftops about our problems in this area. It is the same directors which run our clubs that we are expected to compete with for the competent labour which I feel we deserve. American Motors, right up the street from my club took my night waterman back in May and paid him $5.25 per hour., and he was a student that was only going to work there for the summer. It’s the same story no matter who you talk to in this profession. Somebody is always right behind you to remind you that we all have problems and it is our job to handle them. Well, I’m telling you right now that we have enough problems on our various courses without compounding them with labour troubles. The complexities of this profession are enough to show the best man under and if we are expected to shoulder this problem by ourselves, then I say ’’Nuts to you, fella”. Ross Haines Note: - On the list of Directors on the front page of this Newsletter- Ted Charman is replaced by Helmut Kopp P. O. Box #9Thornhill, Ontario. Phone: 889-8381