Olympics Golf Course Welcomes Competition Today

After years of preparation, a new world-class golf course in Rio de Janeiro welcomed Olympic golfers to competition today. In an article posted by the Washington Post last week, writer Adam Kilgore described the twists and turns that course construction took over the past few years. For the first time in 112 years, golf is…

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2106 Olympics Golf Course Completed and “Looks Good”

An interview on NBC Sports, posted online on February 2, featured NBC travel insider Matt Ginella who had recently spoken to Gil Hanse, the golf course architect who designed the course slated to host the 2016 Olympics golf competition in Rio de Janeiro this summer. Here’s a portion of what Ginella reported: “The best news…

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BlueJack National Makes Klein’s Top Ten Moments in 2015

Bradley S. Klein, senior writer for Golfweek and a former PGA Tour caddie, named his visit to Bluejack National as one of his “top 10 moments in 2015.” In a blog post dated December 18, he described the first course designed in the U.S. by Tiger Woods as “surprisingly understated, with wide-open ground game options…

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The Turf War — the Debate Over the Safety of Synthetic Turf Rages On

In yet another ominous report on concerns about crumb rubber in artificial turf, ESPN’s E60 series recently aired a 16-minute televised segment. ESPN reporter Julie Foudy interviewed almost a dozen people involved with the issue, including three toxicologists, two soccer coaches who have first-hand experience with goalkeepers who have died from cancer, a current cancer…

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Trouble in the Turf: Lack of Synthetic Turf Testing and Maintenance Puts Athletes at Risk

A disturbing investigative report by Channel 13 in Indianapolis, Indiana, revealed that many of the state’s synthetic athletic fields are not regularly tested — and some have never been tested — for surface-hardness levels a few years after installation. Crumb-rubber infill, which is added to the synthetic grass to support the “grass” blades and soften…

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Zoysia’s Original Emergence as a Game Changer

When Ken Mangum, CGCS, chose Zeon Zoysia to grass the fairways of the Riverside Course at the Atlanta Athletic Club more than 15 years ago, his (at the time, rather radical) decision was based on a desire for the course to stand out from other local golf clubs. His choice not only worked brilliantly at…

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