Jason Friedman
Superintendent, Longleaf Golf & Family Club. Southern Pines, NC
THE INTERVIEW
The future of golf is alive and well at Longleaf Golf and Family Club in Southern Pines, NC. Home to the US Kids Golf Academy, Longleaf is committed to serve all players, from professionals to absolute beginners. And Jason Friedman, superintendent at Longleaf, is committed to taking data collection to the next level with the GS3 ball and DEACON management system. After a year with the GS3, Jason talked to us about his data collection journey.
Q: So, tell us a little bit about Long Leaf.
Jason: Yes, we are owned by U.S. Kids Golf Foundation. And the Foundation is responsible for all the tournaments all over the world. European Championships. It all comes out of here and Atlanta.
Where the headquarters are.
We host two weeks of world championship youth tournaments at the end of July. First week is the U.S. Kids' Golf Teen World Championships, and then the second week is the U.S. Kids' Golf Kids Championships, along with, I think, 14 or 15 other courses in the area.
Q: Before acquiring the GS3 ball and DEACON, did you ever experience data collection? Was that a part of anything that you were doing on a daily basis?
Jason: Yes and no, I think like everybody else in the industry, we probably were tracking weather temperature, humidity, wind, rainfall, accumulation amounts, stuff like that. So, data collection hasn't been a huge focus in my day-to-day planning, weekly planning, or monthly planning, but it was interesting.
Though, it's something that I can really kind of sink my teeth into, because I I'll sit there and just reanalyze it, look at it and say, hey, you know, what did we do here? Why did this happen there? And what did we do that caused that to happen over there?
Q: What do you like most about the ball?
Jason: It's another tool in the toolkit. But unlike a mower, a shovel or a hose or a sprayer, it's a tool that I think could help with something that I might struggle with a little bit more, which is communication.
Prior to the GS3 coming out, we really didn't have an objective measurement tool to go ahead and say, "Look, everybody agrees that the greens are smoother when you verticut or after you verticut, or when you top dress. But when you start showing them numbers that say, hey, look, when we do this, and we drop from 4.2 on our smoothness down to 3.8 on our smoothness. Now, we definitely know they are smoother after we verticut and top dress.
Q: Before the GS3, was it tough to explain the playability greens post aeration?
Jason: It's definitely it's going to be more helpful now that we have it. When you've got an objective measurement device, now you can actually say, "Well, no, look, they are actually smoother.
Q: With the GS3, what metric is most important to you?
Jason: Smoothness. I think that's the one that gets overlooked a lot. There's always that increasing competition for faster, faster and faster speeds. But I think smoothness is a better indicator of a better struck putt.
Q: By using the GS3 and DEACON, has it changed your maintenance practices in any way?
Jason: No, we were going to do the same thing, whether we had it or not, but the two combined help justify and put some objectivity to it. And it's another way to bolster confidence in, hey, give your superintendent, give your director of agronomy, give your director of maintenance the things he needs to do, what he needs to do, and then let him go.
Q: There's a lot of competition here in the Sandhills for rounds for play. Do you think that GS3 gives you advantage in terms of playability?
Jason: I think in regard to competition, there are some heavy hitters in town that are always going to attract the golfers that want to say they played those courses, right? I think one of the things that the GS3 will help do is provide more consistency, which a lot of times translates into better course conditions.
Q: Are you seeing the return on an investment with the GS3?
Jason: I definitely think I am. I mean, for some, the cost of the ball, is the cost of a fungicide app. Or it’s two months of fuel, gas and diesel, it's fertilizer. But if you if you're trending a certain way, you know and you don't need to mow to get the smoothness you want. There's six less hours on a hydraulic pump on a mower. That’s six more hours of less cutting on that bed knife that you need to change out or grind afterwards. There is your savings.
Q: What would you say to a superintendent who's on the fence about the GS3 ball?
Jason: This actually explains that what you're doing is working. So as long as whoever's questioning it understands the goals that you're trying to achieve and how you're using that to measure what you're doing works towards those goals. It's an easy way to communicate. That's the main benefit I'm taking away from it is being able to objectively measure and then communicate to the people that need to know this is what we're doing, and this is how it's helping us get to our goal.
