Getting In The Mood: Joe Daley Makes Players Debut At 52

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Super story from last week by Doug Ferguson on Players Championship rookie Joe Daley.

As winner of the Senior TPC, Daley earned a spot in this week's Players.

Daley only had two full years on the PGA Tour. He spent 10 full years in the minors, long enough to play under three umbrella sponsors - Nike Tour, Buy.com Tour and Nationwide Tour. When he turned 50, he had to Monday qualify for Champions Tour events. He finally got his big break with a 66-64 weekend in the Senior PGA Championship to tie for fourth, which make him eligible for the Senior Players.
And here he is.

"It's a lot of years of hard work, man," he said. "It's pretty cool."

To put some of that into perspective, the winner of The Players Championship gets $1.71 million. That's nearly as much as Daley's earnings ($1.96 million) in two decades playing the PGA Tour, the Champions Tour and what is now called the Web.com Tour.

Videos: TPC Trying To Get Out From Under Downpours

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Garry Smits calls them a "strange few days" and the videos would seem to confirm freakish weather in advance of The Players where a cool spring had already been causing trouble.

Video of the 18th fairway:



Meanwhile, if the grass growing thing doesn't work out for TPC Sawgrass Agronomy team member Lucas Andrews, he's got the accent and desire to let his hair get messy in high winds to be a CNN hurricane correspondent, as evidenced by the latest post on the TPC Sawgrass Agronomy blog.

TPC Sawgrass' 17th Is Barely An Island Green Today

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Tony Agolini Tweeted this post-tropical storm Debby image of the 17th at TPC Sawgrass, date and time unknown.

The TPC Sawgrass maintenance blog has video of the scene Monday after over six inches of rain. Good luck to superintendent Tom Vlach and team with the damage assessment and cleanup.

Reminder: Players TV Times, Live @ 17

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NBC/Golf Channel goes all out for this one and with the previously mentioned innovative efforts (plus one other surprise I learned of yesterday) and the limited commercial interruption, these are always some of the season's best telecasts.

The ET schedule for broadcasts and the online coverage accessible at PGATour.com:

Thursday, May 10, 1-7 p.m. - Golf Channel
Friday, May 11, 1-7 p.m. - Golf Channel
Saturday, May 12, 12-2 p.m. - Golf Channel 

2-7 p.m. - NBC
Sunday, May 13, 12-2 p.m. - Golf Channel 

2-7 p.m. - NBC

LIVE VIDEO SCHEDULE
    •    Thur-Fri 9:00a - 7:00 p
    •    Sat-Sun 12:00p - 7:00 p

Getting In The Mood For The Players...Agronomy Blog Edition

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Whether you are interested in turfgrass management or not, you must check out the great content being posted at the TPC Sawgrass's outstanding agronomy blog. There is no shortage of videos and insights into what Tom Vlach and team are doing to make the TPC play so well.

I believe they will also be Tweeting pretty heavily during the week at the TPC Agronomy account, as evidenced by Tuesday's activity.

A sampling...

Johnny, No SubAir References At The Players, Please

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This story from Garry Smits is probably only of interest to the maintenance world...but they have a new air sucker and hot blast blower system at the TPC Sawgrass. Actually, it's been in place a while but only now is fully converted to Precision Air.

TPC Sawgrass superintendent Tom Vlach said the maximum temperature of the warm air is 140 degrees, and he can blow cool air on the greens as low as 50 degrees. Precision Air has already been installed under 12 greens at the Stadium Course and will be put under the final six (Nos. 6, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 13) within the next few weeks.

The delay for those holes was because electrical wiring for power had to be strung out to their remote locations on the golf course. The Precision Air system is using the same infrastructure as the Sub Air and is about 1 feet beneath the putting surface.

None of the greens had to be dug up to install the components.