The Turf Guru

The way this post starts is superb…something general at first, then right into the specific example. Very nice.

Try breaking your thoughts into more paragraphs, as I’ve done here:

As time goes on and the city of Toronto gets bigger there are more and more permits and stakeholders when considering construction. This is proven at islington golf club located at the west end of Toronto.

In Toronto nowadays you have to get a permit just to cut down a tree. The quickest the permit can be approved is in six weeks. We had a class field trip there this past week. The superintendent and assistant superintendent really showed us how much work it is to make changes around the golf course and please everybody.

Throughout the morning tour they showed us changes that are going on and recent changes that have been done. They went through with us everyone that was involved in the changes and people that would have a vested interest in the final outcome of the project.

It is almost crazy to think of how many people Robin the super. has to go through when he wants to make an improvement to the golf course. Robin brought us to the sixth green were they always had problems growing turf grass. This is because the green was surrounded by massive trees and the green wasn’t getting any sun. It took him four years just to convince the board they needed to get rid of the trees.

After that, he still has to get permission from the city to remove the trees, which takes at least six weeks.

And finally he has to convince the members that this will be for the best, because the members might not want to remove them.

I come from a smaller course in a rural environment and things are done in a somewhat similar fashion. But once you make the board happy with your plans you can go out and do it.

Personally I believe it is going a little far to make things even that much more difficult for golf courses in that area…especially when the turf grass industry is already in tough times.