The Unseen Enemy

You know, it's a funny thing about golf course superintendents, when a group of them get together and start talking about turf problems they sometimes play the game of "one-upsmanship." It sounds like this: You think you've got June beetle grubs? They plowed by fairway so bad I replanted corn instead of grass; or, my poa seed was so heavy and so whate that they held the Olympic cross country ski trials at my place. All of us at times believe that our job is a little tougher than the other guys, when in reality all of us get a chance, sooner or later, to deal with a worrisome, serious and difficult to handle problem. Here was mine this year. The unseen enemy. It's nothing short of guerrilla warfare. They can strike suddenly or be slow and methodical. But you never see them. Their damage can be devastating or it can be minor. All the while you're blaming it on something else. The damage may have been going on for years but you're not sure why and you may still now know, because you've been trained not to look for them. Everyday is Halloween to these perpetrators because they always have a mask on. The symptoms appear to be something else. Covert operations in the turf. The CIA should employ them instead of Oliver North. Nematodes! Stop laughing, it's true. They hit my greens this spring and we're not talking high sand content either. Our soil is more of the familiar parking lot consistency. Our greens looked as good or better than I'd ever seen them until late April by Bill Neus