Seth’s Travelogue: Northwest Golf and Environment meeting, Portland, Ore.

How I ended up on this All-Star bill is anyone’s guess! A report from the Oregon GCSA meeting.

By Seth Jones

When a trip starts with an explosion, that’s typically a bad thing.

Unless that explosion is the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, that is. And since I might be one of about 30 people who will get that reference, I’ll sum it up quickly:

JSBX was a ‘90s alt-rock band. A quick search at www.pollstar.com before flying out told me that they’d be playing in Portland the first night I was in town for the Northwest Golf and Environment meeting, hosted by the Oregon GCSA.As any die-hard rocker would do, I drug fellow speaker and golf architect Andy Staples to the show. Judging by the crowd size and the venue, I am literally one of the last remaining JSBX fans in North America.

But it was great to start an event with a bang. Or in this case, an explosion.

Like I said above, the NW Golf and Environment meeting had an impressive roster of speakers. On-hand for the event, held at the Oregon Golf Club in West Linn, Ore. were Steve Kealy, CGCS, Glendale CC; Kevin Fletcher, Ph.D., ePar USA; Chava McKeel, senior manager, information and policy, GCSAA; Scott Dahlman, executive director, Oregonians for Food and Shelter; Andy Staples, ASGCA, The Golf Resource Group; and rounding out the group was yours truly, Seth Jones, hard rock die-hard and editor-in-chief of Golfdom magazine.

ePar USA’s Fletcher led off the talks that day. He asked the audience if they thought the high-powered offense of the Oregon Ducks football team had a strategic plan each game?

After a few audible boos for the Ducks (this is, after all, Oregon State Beaver territory), Fletcher told the crowd that just like the Ducks and their offensive strategy, golf courses also need an environmental strategy.

Fletcher talked about the advantages of having detailed records of training and licensing immediately on-hand in a facility. He related one story of a local fire marshal visiting a maintenance facility. When the fire marshal saw how organized the shop was, with training manuals all clearly labeled and lining a wall, he quickly left, knowing there would be no violations to find at the facility.

At last month’s USGA water conference, Fletcher said the general consensus was that golf needed to become more sophisticated.

“These aren’t my words, but it was stated at the meeting that golf needed to become more innovative to survive,” Fletcher told the room. “Golf is like a lot of small businesses… it’s about ten years behind.”

Steve Kealy, CGCS, then took the stage to discuss the First Green program, a program he co-founded that uses golf courses as learning labs. The program enables golf courses to host area students and teach them such things as testing water quality, taking soil samples, identifying plants and assisting in streambed restoration.

“Once you bring kids out to the golf course, they look at things in a whole different manner,” Kealy said. “Once they come out for a field trip, I guarantee you they come back.

Kealy says he always takes the students to an area of the golf course where it won’t impact play, and he always checks the golf schedule before arranging a visit. Something as simple as gathering a few buckets of leaves provides an educational opportunity for the groups, he said.

“We have a contest to see who can find the most bugs, and how many they can name,” Kealy said. “I couldn’t believe how into finding bugs they were.”

The First Green has been asked by the USGA to apply for a grant that would enable them to expand beyond the Northwest. They’ll find out next week the results of that grant request.

“(The First Green) has changed the perception of golf,” Kealy told the group. “The PR that comes from this program, no way could you buy it.”

GCSAA’s McKeel and Oregonian’s For Food and Shelter’s Dahlman then made two presentations that nicely complemented each other, with McKeel speaking about national regulations and Dahlman speaking more with a local focus.

Dahlman told the group this regretful news: the state of Portland has some citizens who will file 40 to 50 complaints a year. What are they complaining about? Someone spraying something – anything.

“You guys are more at risk of activists,” Dahlman told the group. “You have a lot of people watching you.”

Following McKeel and Dahlman was Scottsdale, Ariz.-based architect Andy Staples of the Golf Resources Group, presenting “It’s Time to Build Smarter Golf.” In recent years Staples has focused on providing superintendents information to better understand the resources they’re using on their golf courses, and ways they can save.

Staples said something that caught my ear, as it validated something we put on the cover of a recent issue of Golfdom: moisture meter sensors.

“Moisture sensors are the most exciting and interesting technology that’s come along for you guys in a while,” Staples said. “Brandon Nichols (superintendent at Fayetteville CC) says his Spectrum meter is going to be like everyone aerating – it’s just going to be everywhere.”

For more on Staples’ talk, check out this week’s Golfdom Insider e-newsletter, where we do a Golfdom TV interview with Staples. The video will be available on www.golfdom.com/video/ next week.

Rounding out the roster of speakers was yours truly. I’ll spare you the awkwardness of me quoting myself, and will instead quote my new friend Larry Conkings of Precision Labs, who tweeted, “You must hear @Golfdom tales from the road. Seth is very entertaining and covers the game of golf with great humor and class!”

I was fortunate enough to schedule an extra day in Oregon to tour a few local golf courses, but I’ll save those stories for a future issue of Golfdom.

All in all, a fun, educational, and even rocking time in Portland. I made some new friends, reconnected with some old ones, and even scored a pretty sweet concert T-shirt to wear to my next alt-rock show.

So, in my best rock voice, I shout, “Thank you Portland!”