Tom Hill rode with me for two days on April 14 and 15 to see what life is like behind the wheel in the Georgia/Atlanta markets. We met with Ken Mangum at The Atlanta Athletic Club where he told us about his preparation for the 2011 PGA Championship Tournament. Ken has been extremely happy with the results he’s seen with Trinity on Zoysia Patch and plans to continue its use.  While riding with me and after visiting with customers, Tom was able to see how the weather has impacted the Southeast.  
 
I took a Sports Turf Managers Association group, which included managers from The University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and The University of West Georgia, to FarmLinks on April 23-25.  The itinerary was set-up specifically for the STMA groups—the “on the course tour” even took place at a local baseball and football field where the guys talked shop. It was a great learning experience to listen to these guys discuss their different management styles.  I definitely learned a lot.
 

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I spent the entire week at FarmLinks with my teammate Robby Marionneaux.  We hosted two great groups on Tuesday and Thursday—there was excellent participation of a great number of superintendents.  We had a fantastic time!
 
Superintendents from The Cliffs are looking at ways to incorporate the BASF bentgrass program into one of the courses in upstate

Spring has sprung for sure—it won’t be long until summer! As the season gets rolling, distributors are very busy trying to get customer orders shipped and delivered.

At a local GCSA meeting this past week, I got a chance to talk with several superintendents about their spray strategy and programs so far this year.

Everyone said they had aerified their greens and put down at least one fungicide spray. But early fairway sprays are being put off, because as expected, many superintendents are trying to stretch their budgets.

On another note, I completed the Driving Dynamics course. It was informative and challenging. It was good to learn how my vehicle would respond under emergency braking and maneuvering.

That’s it for now.

I spent a couple of days in the field with Campbell Cox earlier this month in the Athens/Atlanta, Ga.-area and visited with two golf course superintendents and one distributor sales rep.

Day 1 started off with a cool morning ride along with Ken Mangum of the Atlanta Athletic Club. Ken has been the superintendent there for 20 years and last year was trying out some Trinity™ fungicide. He has been pleased with the results but understandably doesn’t dive in head first with any new product on the 45 holes at his golf club. A measured approach to golf and golf course maintenance is key here.

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I just want to talk about the week at Farmlinks. Fred Eckert and I spent the first half of the week together and then I had a group of 21 come in the last half of the week. I will admit that it is truly a great experience! I can not believe that there are that many truly nice people in the South who really enjoy their jobs at Farmlinks (outside of BASF of course). The staff is so down to earth, wonderful, helpful and really nice. It seems the South is really a great place to live.

As a side note, I was able to spend the week with Brian Thompson. He is going to fit in so well with the FarmLinks team. He will do BASF proud. He has the knowledge, capacity to learn our products, excellent understanding of a superintendent’s job and is a great person.

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