There is a distinct lack of golfing blogs from the BBC this year - unless I am looking in the wrong place on their Carnoustie coverage page - and I wonder if it is because last year was not as successful as they hoped?
Last year I was disappointed with the BBC's lack of coverage of the presentation of the golf course at Hoylake and this year, they are once more, more content on covering just the golf, the golf personalities and their own ego's and paying scant regard to the professional greenkeepers who prepare the turf.
Maybe they will not interview John Philp because he may be seen as a bit of a maverick after his spat with a 16 year old apprentice greenkeeper who would not take his cigarette breaks at the right time.
Come Peter Allis et al - lets cover some of the grass a bit and show the trade that has enabled you all to make a healthy living!
Perhaps, the problem is the lack of understanding of how a golf course is prepared and maintained? Commentators will often refer to the stimp meter because that is how they know what speed the greens are running at but I bet, if you asked them how many blades there are on the cylinder reel of the mower used to cut a golf green, they would not know.
That is like Lewis Hamilton not knowing what powers his formula one racing car.
In the good old days, a club pro would have to take a course on grass management but alas that all seems to have gone by the wayside in this day of the money obsessed golfer.
Come on Ken Brown, get up with the larks and get out when John Philp and the green staff are setting the course up for the days play.
For anyone interested in Greenkeeping and golf course management there are two great site to look at.
The British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) and The Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI).
Peter Dawson, the Secretary (Chief Executive) of the Royal and Ancient explained in an interview with Peter Allis that they [the R&A] have produce a new website called Course Management - Best Practice which you can use as a rule of thumb to check out your own golf course as a sustainable ecology.
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