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Taken from the Hearthstone Town & Country August 18, 2005
 Dr. Grass

To see how to fix a ball mark or how to replace divots click on the links!  Jeff and Owen thank you for your patronage and also thank you for taking care of Sweet Water Golf Course and Driving Range to help keep it in great shape! See below for other great tips!

Other Helpful Hints for Taking Care of Golf Courses from the Golf Course Superintendent's Association of America

Ever wondered what the proper way to repair a divot is or the best way to rake a bunker? Here are some helpful hints on these and other forms of golf etiquette.

·  Bunker raking

·  Using golf cars

Have you ever been inconvenienced by a frost delayed tee time or annoyed that the course was aerified just when you wanted to play? Read on and find out why these minor inconveniences are necessary to the maintenance of superior turf.

·         Aerification

·         Frost delays

·         The use of effluent water

·         Green speed

·         Speed Can Kill

The following are some informative articles to help keep you safe on the course.

·         Its Easy to Reduce Chemical Exposure on Golf  Courses

·         Lightening Safety

 

Taken from the Hearthstone Town & Country Newspaper August 18, 2005

Turf master Jeff Vietmeier makes a living testing a golfer's upper limits, and he's learned from the best..  

By Jim Brinckman
Driving down Magnolia Lane leading up to the clubhouse at Augusta National, 24-year-old Jeff Vietmeier and his father were just looking to find housing for his summer internship at the course in the spring of 1986. They saw a man working on the course and explained that Vietmeier was one of three Penn State students who earned an internship at the prestigious country club that is home to the Masters every April. What they found was not the head greens keeper, but merely an assistant. "He said, 'You need to see the head greens keeper,'" Vietmeier, now 43, recalled. "'He's down on number 12. Take a cart and go see him.' I was like, 'Oh my gosh'". Befuddled and appalled, he hopped in the four-wheeled buggy and slowly made his way to Amen Corner, or holes 11, 12 and 13, which earned that name for breaking many a professional golfer's solid round during the PGA's first major of the year. "I drove down there through the woods because I didn't want to drive on the grass," Vietmeier said of the flawless course.

This was the break of a lifetime for a youngster attending Penn State's turf management program, which happened to be the best in the country, and he made the most of it. If you're a golfer, you know the 1986 green jacket was special. It was Jack Nicklaus' sixth green jacket which amounted to his 19th and final major. Vietmeier remembers it well. "I got to meet Jack Nicklaus," he said. "He was all business. He complimented us on what we did well. He told us what he thought we needed to do better and I thought, 'OK, you're Jack Nicklaus, I guess you have the right to do that.'" Vietmeier has a picture of the two of them hanging in his clubhouse at Sweet Water Golf Course, just inside the door to remind him of what he learned in the couple months he spent down at the little golf course tucked away behind magnolia trees in Georgia.

He walked across the Gene Sarazen bridge, promptly named after the golfer who double-eagled the par 5, 15th to force a tie in the 1935 Masters, holing a shot from 220 yards out. Sarazen when on to win the green jacket in a playoff.

In his short time at Augusta, Vietmeier also figured out how Amen Corner earned it's name. "Holes 11, 12 and 13," he said. "It's intimidating but breathtaking. TV does not do justice to the mounds on those greens." And remember this year when Tiger Woods putted off 13's green, down the hill and into the creek? Don't laugh, Vietmeier says that's very easy to do. "Number 13 has little mountains on it," he said. "If you had the ball in the wrong spot, it's practically impossible."

Now, some 19 years removed from being a part of a 50-plus member crew responsible for preparing the course for the Masters, Vietmeier is using his Augusta knowledge and applying it to his course, but at a reasonable level. From the tee box to the green, Vietmeier, who's owned Sweet Water since 1999, wants to make sure the average golfer who visits his course feels like Nicklaus did that Sunday in 1986 at Augusta. Vietmeier warns Sunday golfers to not hold local courses, or any course for that matter, to the Augusta standard. It's just simply not fair.

"When you see that on TV, it's perfect," he said. "They spend........ it's astronomical. It's unrealistic to expect your local country club to look like that." But little things can make a round of 18 that much better. As a golfer, you can do your part by replacing divots, wearing spikeless shoes and repairing all ball marks. It's like being a Golf Doctor's assistant. And if you think attending to grass is easy, guess again.

For instance, the Latin names for all plants and related weeds must be at Vietmeier's fingertips. The Latin term for bent grass is Agrostis species. Easy enough. On top of that, knowledge of soils, various turfs and all aspects of horticultural are a must to keep the rough long, the tee's level and the greens properly drained. "It's absolutely a science," he said. "You're cutting grasses at 5/32 of an inch. The good Lord didn't make it for that length. You have to be on top of things. Just like people get sick, grasses get sick." Too little of a chemical, the grass turns brown, Too much of a chemical, the grass turns brown. "We're basically doctor's of the turf grass," Vietmeier said. (Minus the high insurance rates and referrals of course.)