A me 1974 A i_ S S ^ - E N C E dit O N L Y A fakh of Green Official Publication of the Michigan & Border Cities Golf Course Superintendents Association LET THE EXPERTS AT M AKE IT BUY DIRECT • SAVE MONEY GET FAST DELIVERIES Your budget will buy more — in chemicals and equipment to apply them — when you deal direct with Dill. As manufacturer, formulator and/or distributor, Dill can save you money. Consistently. Dill offers the most com­ plete line of quality turf chemicals in the midwest . . complete with appli­ cation instructions. Dill is headquarters for complete lines of: • Fungicides • Herbicides • Algaecides • Insecticides • Fog* gers • Sprayers. PROMPT DELIVERY throughout southern Michigan and northwestern Ohio, including weekly shipment . Good Seryice consultation — design — materials 3890 W. Eleven Mile Rd. Berkley, Mi. 48072 .... 543 - 7730 mJ 16 From the ‘Detroit News’ column . . . JACK BERRY ON GOLF NO MONEY WORRIES AT ONE AREA COURSE Carl Roehl laughs when he’s called Michigan’s top golf entrepreneur. “ Well, I guess I’m the largest one in the business and I hope I continue to be . . . I don’t like the alternative,” Roehl added, noting that he is 73 years old. Roehl is doing what he likes and he likes what he’s doing - running Maple Lane Golf Club on 14 Mile Road in Warren, 300 acres with 54 holes, the largest golf complex in the state. But Maple Lane is more than big. It’s a public club conditioned like a private club and when you average 941 players a day during the summer months, reach a single-day high of 1,313, stay open year-round and have a waiting list for summer leagues, you must be doing something right. Too often public courses are like public dumps with neither the players nor the operators too intent on making the course a pleasure to play and each blames the other. Greens are fuzzy, and ball washers are broken. Players don’t replace divots and they break rakes when they hit bad sand shots. The immaculately conditioned see on courses Harbour Town Links and Firestone - are impossible dreams. Maple Lane isn’t Augusta National nor are there U.S. Open-type rough or St. Andrews-style pot bunkers to contend with. But it is superbly con­ ditioned and you don’t get an average they 17 R .P . K LEIN & SONS, INC. T U R F EQUIPM ENT SERVING EASTERN MICHIGAN DUPONT LELY ROYER YORK AGRICO BEAN BERRIEN BRILLION Call Toll Free 800-462-3263 Please Call Us for Prices & Literature 54 Brown Street Croswell, Michigan 48422 TURF SUPPLIES INC. 6900 Pardee Rd.,Taylor, Michigan (313) 291-1200 DON’T EVEN THINK OF B U Y IN G .......................... GRASS SEED FERTILIZERS FUNGICIDES WITHOUT CALLING 291-1200 TURF SUPPLIES INC. 6900 Pardee Rd.,Taylor, Michigan (313) 291-1200 CALL LAKESHORE COLLECT (216) 65M600 FOR ALL YOUR TURFGRASS SUPPLIES - CHECK OUR PRICES - - QUOTATIONS ON REQUEST - LAKESHORE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLY CO. 10237 B E R E A R O A D C L E V E L A N D , O H I O 4 4 1 0 2 America’s foremost turf fertilizer MILORGANITE Y O U ’ RE E N T IT L E D TO T H E BEST Call Us For Your Needs GOLF COURSE CHEMICALS | (You’ ll get it - and more!) | Herb Carson Marvin Rothman A M E R I C A N R E S E A R C H C O R P . 11840 M A Y F IE L D A V E . L IV O N IA , M ICH 48150 (313) 522-2400 E xt. 2 40 1 /2 4 0 2 18 j “ This instrumental of 941 players around daily with U.S. Open rough or St. Andrews bunkers. “ The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” Roehl said, smiling, and then citing the volume of traffic. j is the only course around without a budget - we buy everything | we need and we buy as much as we i need. It isn’t like a private club where the greens committee tells the super­ intendent to make do with less. And j there isn’t anything we don’t have in ! the way of machinery.” Roehl also has one of the greenest < thumbs in golf as his greens superintendent — Clarence Wolfrom. Wolfrom has been at j Maple Lane since 1931, just four years j after Roehl put together a group of six men, including his father, Major John Roehl, and restaur ante ur Joe Muer, to buy 112 acres of 1 farmland.Wolfrom probably has trained more greenskeepers than any man in the state and 12 of them have gone on to super inten- j dent jobs at other courses. The list in- j eludes his sons Clem at Detroit Golf Club and Bruce at Barton Hills. Wolfrom also ' has been in Michigan State University’s nationally known Turf grass I Foundation. Roehl said the group purchased the land investment and that he I originally as an convinced them to build a golf course. They j in 1948 and added nine j added 45 acres holes, bought 80 acres in 1952 and added | another nine, then bought 53 acres and i built another nine in 1960. In 1970 they j redid the whole 300 acres with Roehl and ] Wolfrom doing most of the design. “We can’t go any farther,’’ Roehl said while riding around the course in a golf | cart, “we’re hemmed in now. There are houses and apartment buildings to the west and north, a road to the east and 14 Mile j on the south. “We’ve had developers trying to buy us 5 out, but I always say I’ve got a lotta blood I here and all they want to give me for it is J money.’’ Roehl, a retired attorney of 50 years, j has been at the course daily since the I middle 1960’s when he sold out his interest I in a machine shop. “I’ve got a cane and I walk two-three i miles a day around the course and check i things,’’ he said, laughing. “I let them * know if any of the drains are plugged or anything is out of order. “I don’t play golf anymore — I get too aggravated. You can teach a dog to keep | his head down, but not me.’’ the H a h n GN-3 Aerifier® The big area tow-behind unit. . . . brings up to 16,000 lbs. of top dressing per acre. • Vl ton capacity weight rack is standard. • Hydraulic lift for ease of transport. • Easily removed to free tractor for other operations. • S T R A IG H T L I N E A E R I F I C A T I O N means taking longer cores from higher, dryer, more compacted area; sm aller cores from lower, softer soil with a subsequent lev elin g action through dragging. • P A T E N T E D F L E X I- P R E S S S P R IN G S fit over spoons and prevent turf tearing. Spoons come in ‘open’ and 'thatch' type in F lex i-p re s s to match. M " . and 1 " with • T H R E E G N -3 U N IT S . . . 18 ft. of tow-behind A e rifie r® when three GN-3 units are used with the T r ip le x H itch. Great for safer athletic fie ld s and healthy fairw ays. P R O D U C T S T U R F Sold and Serviced by: LAWN EQUIPM ENT CORPORATION 520 W. 11 MILE ROAD ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN 48068 PHONE: (313) 398-3636 19 76 AND 84" TURF KINGS Th e new J A C O B S E N 7 6 ” and 8 4 M T U R F K IN GS have been redesigned to incorporate engineering and comfort features not previously a v a ila b le in a mower of this type. L ik e a new hydrostatic drive; a sleek new steering wheel in place of the old handlebars; a new comfort-cushioned seat with backrest; a recoil starter th a t’ s mounted so that the unit can be started from the operator’ s seat; optional ele ctric start; a 50% in mowing speed; a 67% increase in transport speed; and an increased fuel tank capacity to reduce re-fu elling stops. increase GARDEN AND LAWN EQUIPMENT COMPANY 1593 S. WOODWARD A V E . BIRM INGHAM , M IC H IG A N 48011 T E L E P H O N E : (313) 647-7700 " A Patch of Green” 3 1 8 2 3 U T I C A R O A D F R A S E R . M I C H I G A N 4 8 0 2 6 MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY - SERIALS E. 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