The Golfdom Files: Converting to the metric system

In the June 2015 Golfdom, Karl Danneberger, Ph.D., highlighted a trip he took to Egypt and described golf course maintenance in that country. While there, he noted that some local superintendents use the English metric system, learned from U.S. superintendents who have since left. It’s interesting that in Egypt, a country among the majority of countries that use the metric system, some superintendents follow a measurement system used by only three countries: Myanmar, Liberia and the United States. The metric system is foreign to most in this country, but it has always seemed logical that the United States eventually would join the majority of the world. That conversion is exactly what Fred V. Grau predicted would happen… in the October/November 1971 Golfdom. A legend in the industry, Mr. Grau was the director of the USGA Green Section from 1945 to 1953. He died in 1990 at the age of 88. The switch to metric didn’t happen in his lifetime, or in the 26 years since, but it’s still an interesting read.

The metrics are coming

By: Fred V. Grau

In the months and years to come there will be many heated discussions, both pro and con, regarding the proposed conversion to the metric system in the United States. The proposal, made in July by the Commerce Department, asked Congress to create a “central coordinating body” to guide the nation through a 10-year conversion to the metric system. America is the last major industrial country in the world to cling to the archaic “inch-pound” English system. The exception is our decimal monetary system, which is based on 10s and is very workable.

Metric refers to the meter, which is one ten-millionth of the distance along a meridian from the North Pole to the equator. A meter is rational, precise and constant…

Metrics have been with us, if only peripherally, for a long time. The push is on, however, for a widespread conversion to this system…

It may come as a shock to many taxpayers that the National Bureau of Standards, which is part of the Commerce Department, released an 11-volume report on July 29th that cost $1.3 million and took three years to complete. The title is “A Metric America: A Decision Whose Time Has Come.” The report proposes a 10-year plan to convert the nation to metrics — “predominantly, though not exclusively …” The conversion would begin in education and international engineering standards. The over-all cost to manufacturers might run from $10 billion to $40 billion and could increase export trade to metric countries by $1 to $2 billion a year. To allow the nation casually to drift into metrics might take 50 years and would cost far more than the 10-year Government coordinated plan. In two or three decades, the United States would recoup the cost if it worked at it. If we drift, it may take eight or nine decades to recover the costs.

It is of more than passing interest that the states, not the Federal government, are largely responsible for enforcing weights and measures and for assuring uniformity. It is significant also that the Government does not seem to be determined to eradicate customary measurements, even though the tide of metrication proceeds relentlessly. Beauty contestants undoubtedly will continue to be publicized as “36-23-36” (or similar) rather than the metric equivalent. Turfgrass devotees undoubtedly will cling to “1,000 square feet” for a long, long time.

Sod growers, though, may find it less difficult to market “square meters” of sod rather than square yards. Gallons of spray material will become liters and chemicals will be measured by grams and kilograms, which will introduce greater accuracy. (Hashish always is measured in metrics.) Computers undoubtedly will be more easily programmed with greater accuracy in metrics. Shoppers will find it far easier to compute mentally the cost per-unit of foodstuffs when metrics become the law of the land.

To read the full story from 1971, click here.