Thursday, December 5, 2013

Nothing Makes Me Happier Than a Big Dump...

Take that to mean whatever you want but specifically today it's a reference to the snow!  Overnight and for most of the day we've had 30 cm of good, dense snow.  As I've said before, the stretch of cold weather up until now is good news with respect to tarps (not a lot of soil activity with things frozen this deep so not much opportunity for anoxia via CO2 build up) but not the best for greens without tarps since any liquid moisture on the green the surface will become ice.  However, the amount of snow we now have is good and offers some protection if the "Pineapple Express" comes through in January.

With things being obviously slower in the winter I sometimes go to a book where I enter ideas or items I want to investigate further.  Some entries are impractical and mean nothing now but others keep surfacing.  I've never really understood the idea of "Twitter" but I spent sometime looking into how other golf superintendents use it as a tool and I think I get it....sort of.  I created an account and began following a few guys I know as well as some professional associations and the information available definitely runs a broad spectrum.  One good use as it may relate to players at KGC during the regular season would be supplying relevant information about the course in a quick fashion.  Think frost delay, for example.  Instead of having to call the golf shop to see if there is frost you would, if you're following my Twitter feed, receive a text providing information about the delay as soon as I know there is going to be one.

At this point I am going to hover around the perimeter of the "twittersphere" and observe and by the time spring rolls around I hope to have a idea of how to effectively use it.  If you're already subscribed Twitter you can click the "Follow" button just below the archived posts on this page.  If you're not on Twitter and have no interest in Twitter but still want to "Follow" my feed (and assuming you have a cell phone) go HERE and follow the instructions ( basically you type 21212 in the "To:" window and then type "follow KGCtweets" for the message part and press send.  You would then receive a text of anything I post on Twitter).

For me, most of social media tends to come across as a bit narcissistic.  But assuming I keep the tweets relevant to the goings on at KGC, I hope Twitter will really just be another way to keep members/players informed.