FLORIDA SUPERS HEAD BACK TO SCHOOL

THE NEW YORK Audubon Society has made remarkable strides in Florida over the last year or two, enrolling and certifying courses in its Cooperative Sanctuary Program at a quickened pace. Now it's turned to the second target area, schools, and with the help it's getting from some environmentally conscious groups, expect students of all ages to start getting the word that golf is environmentally friendly.

One of the Society's most ardent supporters is the Treasure Coast Golf Course Superintendents Association, a group of about 120 responsible for the conditioning and maintenance of most of the courses between Vero Beach and Hobe Sound on Florida's Atlantic coast.

In its annual fund-raising effort -- the Blue Pearl Charity Tournament -- last month, it filled Loblolly Pines Golf Club in Hobe Sound to the max -- eightsomes! -- and raised $10,000-plus. It allocated that amount for use at schools taking part in the Cooperative Sanctuary Program.

"By funding environmental and ecological awareness programs in grade schools," explained Treasure Coast president Tim Cann, "we can inform and educate, not only students, but also teachers, administrators and parents. We can foster and nurture an age of children who grow up knowing the benefits of a healthy environment and the benefits golf courses offer to people, wildlife and the environment."

With the start of the 1995-96 academic year in the fall, 10 schools in the Treasure Coast area will be selected for membership in the Cooperative Sanctuary Program. Students and teachers will be brought out to the course, where they'll be shown steps the golf industry has taken to ensure a healthy, productive relationship with the environment. The schools will also be able to apply for grants, up to $500, that can be used to make their grounds more compatible with wildlife and the environment.

"We think it's a great program," Cann added. "When we thought about what we wanted to do this year, kids were the things we kept falling back on. And we're hopeful this is just the start of something other organizations throughout the state will pick up and do as well."

Dick Gray, a member of the Treasure Coast board of directors, was involved in the construction of Loblolly Pines, a certified sanctuary with the program, and he's a champion proponent of golf's increased awareness of its relationship to the environment.

"When we built this place," he says, "our mission was to maintain and preserve the integrity of this ecosystem that we found around the golf course. If we couldn't preserve it, we'd restore it, and the other project we have [the Florida Club, also in Hobe Sound] will be the same way. . . . There's a good marriage between golf courses and Mother Nature, although some people don't believe that. . . . And if they disseminate poor information to the kids . . . ." He's determined to do his best to see that doesn't happen.

"The kids are what make this so attractive," he says. "They're like empty buckets; they have open minds, and what you tell them, and show them, they're going to learn. And in turn, they'll teach.

"We didn't want to target the kids because they're gullible; we wanted to target the kids because they're the ones who are going to inherit the blue pearl [Gray's term for planet Earth, taken for its appearance when seen from distant space] when we leave, and they'll have to know what to do with it."

-- Rich Skyzinski

A PERFECT SPOT

THE THINNEST strip of land on the South Fork of Long Island, with Shinnecock Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and the Great Peconic Bay and Long Island Sound to the north, is shared by Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and Southampton College of Long Island University. From certain vantage points on the course, in fact, the wooden sails of the school's 275-year-old windmill can be seen.

For centuries the residents of eastern Long Island have been bonded to the water, and that is certainly true for the college, located literally on the doorstep of the Atlantic. A marine station located on campus, with a fleet of research vessels, gives the student body of nearly 1,400 direct access to the water.

Thus, it is no surprise the college has developed one of the country's most celebrated programs in marine and environmental science. Over the past two decades the programs have produced 18 Fulbright Scholars, including two this year.

Southampton College may be the youngest and most rural of Long Island University's three campuses, but its influence reaches to the far corners of the globe. The marine science program participates in internships as close as Cape Cod and as distant as Hawaii, and one course, tropical marine biology, includes travel to the South Pacific, where the waters of Fiji, Tahiti and Australia are studied.

The college believes in learning through hands-on experience, and nowhere is that exemplified better than in its unique SEAmester program. Students with a love for the sea -- and a great sense of adventure -- spend nine weeks studying aboard a 125-foot schooner. The ship sails the eastern seaboard and even dips into the Caribbean, stopping at selected ports to study various ocean environments.

The college's involvement in golf is limited to those times when the Open is played at Shinnecock Hills; then, the school leases some of its available land for parking. Some of the country's finest courses are located only minutes away, but, alas, the college does not sponsor a golf team.

STORY OF THE CENTURY (PART IV)

IN 1947, 10 men from Long Island got together to form a new country club in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. They purchased a golf course from the estate of the famed Wall Street financier, Otto Kahn. They did not have the financial resources to buy Kahn's renowned castle-like home that sat in the middle of the course, so they settled for his horse stables. This became the clubhouse and survives today, after many refurbishings, as Cold Spring Country Club.

The 10 founders hoped to attract 190 more members and then planned to deed over the club to the membership for exactly what it had cost them.

Within a short period of time, each of the 10 was able to convince two others to join so that the nucleus became 30. Now the difficult part began. They still needed 170 more members to share the cost of building and running a full-service club. They knew they would need many new facilities if they were to compete with other clubs in the area. One by one they slowly started to add members, but it was painstakingly hard and they worried they would not be able to sustain the club until there were enough families to share the load.

The 50th and 51st members they were trying to attract were two tight-fisted CPAs who were partners in a small accounting firm in New York City. Before the two would agree to join, they wanted to see budgets, projections, a cash flow analysis and a roster of the present membership. All the items they were shown met with their satisfaction, with only the list of members left to finally entice them.

My dad, one of the founders, was the first golf chairman, and he had erected a large, slotted board on the wall that contained all the handicap cards. In those days, you finished your round, went to the handicap board and recorded your score and the date. Every month, dad would take the cards and manually refigure the new handicaps.

Dad proudly led the two accountants to his beautiful handicap board, which now contained 125 different names and handicaps. He proceeded to tell them about each man listed -- how the fellow played, where he was from and what business he was in. This was no easy feat since 77 of the names were fictitious, made up by my dad to give the impression that the club was a flourishing and viable entity.

This was enough for the two to join. They quickly wrote out checks and were now full-fledged members. Two weeks later, dad secretly eliminated two phantom memberships from the board and inserted the two accounting partners.

Whenever a new member was accepted, a new handicap card was filled out and a phantom disappeared from the board.

About a year later, the two accountants were standing in front of the infamous handicap board, whispering to each other. As my dad passed by, they collared him. "We've been personally responsible for helping to bring in at least 15 of these new guys in the past 12 months," one said, "and we see many other new faces here every week. There must be at least 75 new members since we joined, but we still count only 125 handicap cards on the board, which is exactly the same number as when we first joined."

My dad thought quietly for a minute and then replied. "Well," he began, "you know nine guys died, seven have filed for bankruptcy, 10 moved away, eight got divorced, 12 decided they hated golf, six left for a better gin rummy game at other clubs, eight didn't like the food, five said they couldn't wait around until the pool was built, five left because they claimed they could still smell the horses from Otto Kahn's stables, and five resigned because they hated accountants. Let's see, that's about 75, isn't it?"

Two years later, when the club was finally deeded over to a full contingent of 200 equity members, the two accountants finally forgave my father.

-- Carl J. Schlanger

Palm City, Fla.

SCORES OF OPEN SCORES

CAN YOU NAME the U.S. Open champion who began preparations for the competition by practicing for only a week -- after not touching a club for eight months? Do you know why past champions have a fondness for the 1954 Open? Do you know the year that both the host-course architect and its greenkeeper-professional tied for eighth place?

These stumpers and thousands of other bits of lore are contained in The Official U.S. Open Almanac (Taylor Publishing Co., $18.95), a 320-page softcover book compiled by Sal Johnson. Crammed with numbers, the book is broken into segments covering the championships, the players, the courses and facts and figures. It includes full summaries of each Open, the champion's hole-by-hole scores, final-day pairings to help recreate the scene, lifetime statistics for each winner and profiles of every Open site. It is an exhaustive compendium of Open history.

The book contains everything from the academic to the arcane. It also has, hidden in its pages, the answers to the three questions above: Willie MacFarlane, who defeated Bob Jones in a 1925 playoff; that '54 was the last year all past champions were exempted into the field; and Myopia Hunt Club architect Herbert Corey Leeds, a third-year player, shot 347 along with host pro John Jones.

HONK IF YOU LOVE THIS SOLUTION

WILLIAM Yanakakis knows the frustration of having his course's fairways soiled by flocks of migrating geese. It wasn't that the superintendent at New Meadows Golf Club in Topsfield, Mass., hated the birds. He wasn't too pleased with the way they would "fatten up on our lush turf" and then leave their calling cards behind.

This year, however, Yanakakis floated out a solution to other New Hampshire Golf Course Superintendents Association members. Writing in the group's newsletter, Turf Talk, Yanakakis shared his way to herd the flocks from the ponds and fairways.

"Over the past six years I have tried just about everything to try and alleviate this problem, from dogs chasing them, pyrotechnics hurled at them to yet another futile attempt using artificial swans (a natural predator)."

Yanakakis's brainstorm came while holiday shopping last October. "I was walking through Toys R Us and passed some remote-control vehicles," he wrote. "A two-foot boat was on display. After getting some information on price, range and operation, I decided to give it a try."

When he returned to the course, Yanakakis found about 60 geese preparing to graze on his fairways. "My dog, happily in pursuit, chased them into the pond," he wrote. Within four hours the boat's batteries were charged, and Yanakakis launched his craft.

"As it moved toward the flock, 60 long black necks turned as if in disbelief. I split the flock with my toy boat, then circled the pond. The geese couldn't leave the little pond fast enough. Amidst much honking and flapping of wings they took flight. My flock was gone.

"Since then, smaller flocks have landed, but my grounds crew keeps watch and launches our boat at the first sight of uninvited guests. It has been music to my ears when golfers ask, 'What happened to the geese?'"

FIRST TOTHE PARTY

WHEN Turnbull Bay Golf Course in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., opened in early February, it decided it wanted to do something special for the player who made the first hole-in-one.

It arranged for a local restaurant to donate an expensive bottle of champagne, shrimp cocktails, linens, crystal -- the works. Then they waited. And waited.

Finally, almost three weeks later, on Feb. 24, 62-year-old John Clark of Pawling, N.Y., stepped onto the sixth tee and holed his wedge shot from 106 yards -- the first hole-in-one of his 50-year playing career.

When the group returned to the green later for the celebration, Clark was obviously tickled. "I had played the course twice before and loved it," he said, "but after this, I really love it."

NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN

JACK KNAUFF was a little apprehensive. He had played golf for 42 years during a business career with General Motors that had seen him transferred seven times. Now he was in retirement outside Ocean City, Md., and being forced to go to "school" if he wanted to play in some local tournaments.

He had heard about the seminar being conducted at his club, Ocean Pines Golf Club in Berlin, but he wasn't sure why, with his background, he had to go to class.

"Actually, my thought was, 'What am I going to learn?' But I was surprised. It was really good," he says. Or, as another longtime golfer put it, "I was surprised to find out how much I didn't know."

Normally, mention "golf" and "school" and one immediately thinks of grip, stance and swing. Not at Ocean Pines, where the classroom emphasis is on pace of play, Rules and course etiquette, among other things. Often, these are topics that generate a lot of talk but no action.

As it developed, the class grew out of necessity.

"About two years ago, it became apparent we were having problems on the golf course, not only in the time required to play, but in how the course was being treated," says Paul Desmond, one of the originators of the class concept.

"With a large group of retirees living at Ocean Pines, it was possible many of them either came to golf late, or had not played for years. This was evident in our MISGA [Maryland Interclub Senior Golfers Association] group when members would go to play at another club and not know the Rules or the proper etiquette."

Although Desmond, a member of the executive committee of the men's golf group at the time, and Roy Betts conceived the idea, they asked fellow member Joe Russo and another member to do the research.

"We found there was a definite need for such a program," Russo says, "and during 1993, our discussions with a number of people produced the idea of a refresher course designed to help those lacking some basic knowledge of golf."

"We recommended the idea to the Ocean Pines board of governors," Desmond adds, "but they did not accept it at first. However, last year, the club approved the program on a voluntary basis. As a committee member, I made a decision regarding our MISGA involvement -- make the refresher course mandatory to play in those events."

Russo, instrumental in the project's growth, is the professor. The 90-minute class includes comments by club golf director Buddy Sass and superintendent Randy Denton, and a brief Rules video from the USGA.

Among topics discussed are proper pace of play (4 hours to 4:15) and etiquette, especially as it concerns other players and the course -- proper ways to repair ball marks and replace divots, for example.

"We heard about handicapping, too, and what the index means," Knauff says. "They made it interesting, too, and several people spoke, rather than letting just one speaker drone on. Really, I learned a lot."

Last year, its first full season of operation, more than 400 people took the refresher class -- some 230 MISGA members and another 180 non-members who went for their own edification.

Golfers only attend one class session, so the numbers were down a bit this spring, although three classes drew more than 150. This season the program has been made mandatory by the women's nine- and 18-hole groups at the club.

Russo has been talking up the class in the area, and it has spread to nearby Ocean City Yacht & CC, for instance, where plans for using it are under discussion.

Where Knauff had been playing for years, George Thomas came late to the game. Thomas spent 40 years as an educator before retiring last April and indulging his "fascination" with golf.

"The school was great because it helped me with the fundamentals," Thomas says. "Since I had waited so long to begin, I didn't want to have to unlearn bad habits first. I'm discovering, though, it is a never-ending learning experience."

Desmond need look no further than his own course to see the success of the program. "There is no question our golfers are taking it seriously, because it has definitely speeded up play, players are more comfortable when they play at other courses, and you can see the improvement in the condition of our course."