Wow. Mega kudos to Pat and crew for all the excellent GIS coverage. In case you blew your homework assignment and failed to make golfcourseindustry.com your homepage during the show, you can check out the archives under the Multimedia tab, or search articles from the show. Lots of cool things for our industry in 2011.

One thing that's becoming more and more popular with superintendent blogs is the creation of slideshows. Doesn't matter if it's a PowerPoint (PC) or a Keynote (Mac) or maybe a web-based presentation, it's a very effective way to communicate to your members or your fellows in the industry.

Ken Williams, golf course superintendent of the Stanford University golf course, proves this point on his excellent blog http://sgcsuperintendent.blogspot.com/

He makes timely posts about the projects and conditions around the course, and has put together a great slideshow about bunker renovation that I highly recommend. Let's face it, if you work at a golf course that is more than say, 5 years old, you have the same issues Ken and his crew are tackling. This is worth a look.

Another great slideshow I recommend is over at the website of McDonald and Sons Golf Course Builders. They recently completed some renovation work at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, site of, among other notable events, the 2011 US Open. Along with work on tees and bunkers, fairway contours, and a practice facility, they rebuilt the 10th and 18th greens to USGA specifications. Full documentation of the project was a must, as they needed to maintain the original contours as much as possible. Check out the slideshow documentation of the work over at http://www.mcdonaldgolfinc.com/construction/clients_featuredcourse6.html.

Thinking about starting your own golf course maintenance blog? Get the inside scoop from Jonesy here on one way to go about it.

To follow up from my last installment, turf industry technicians are having a blast over at GolfTECHS.net. Membership is free and it's a great site for everything tech-related. Tips, tricks, industry news and events are all showcased. Question is, can YOU answer the trick question to get in?

Lastly, for those of you (or should I say ʻthose of usʼ) who are getting pretty sick and tired of looking at snow, ice, branches, logs, and stumps that are the bane of our collective winter golf course existences, I offer you the following from youtube user h2oxpress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRZdqn3YDfc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

You can almost smell the clippings. Enjoy!