Returning to DC this afternoon, its like I never left.  Inconsistent weather continues!!  Examining the pitches at SoccerPlex this evening, we are still fighting the same inconsistent growth on cool season and bermudagrass.  Its all good though..  we need the rain, and the sun looks to be coming by Wednesday!

Now that I am back home, the time for reflection and creating ideas begins.  The key categories I have established to work through the many new topics and ideas currently are:

1) Professionalism-  The professionalism exhibited by all the Groundsmen I met on the trip is amazing.  They understand that extra traffic on a field is reality.. so they spend their time working to negate it.

2) Confidence and aggressiveness-  During the renovation process, most all fields are grown back from seed in 4 weeks time.  If someone in the USA did that, we would think they had gone mad!  I respect the confidence to do the “right thing” in using seed-  to eliminate the layering and to save money

3) Self Sufficient and Efficient- From doing renovations “in house” on a rotating basis to achieve the end goal to using larger size equipment…  Most all operations I observed were all about “getting things done” in an impressive manor

4) Open Minded-  New technologies (Desso, Fibre Sand, Crumb rubber, Fescue and Bluegrass w/ rye, performance testing, etc) and being tried and implemented on a daily basis

These 4 topics are a great start-  I look forward to expanding on them more at length to create many, many new ideas!