David L Doherty said: I feel the need to clarify the recent "Do Greens Need to be Aerified?" article that was published in the Jan/Feb Boardroom issue. Due to health issues, Dave was unable to write a current article for the publication and this was a late 1990s article that they decided to republish. This explains the 1991 and 1995 references. Make no mistake, the article is poorly written, poorly edited and should be re-titled "How to Quantify the Need for Aerification?" You are right that things have changed since this article was originally written and some of the biggest advancements are the knowledge of the superintendents and the outside resources that they have to utilize for their support. Sometimes the hardest part of a superintendents job is quantifying what he/she wants or needs to do. The idea is to support the decisions with facts and proactive approaches, regardless of the outside sources used. We apologize for any confusion or hard feelings that this article has caused.
Who is "I" then if "I" isn't Dave?
Anyway, what an arrogant, b.s. article. Even if it was written in the 1990's it comes across as gospel and yet, shortly thereafter, Gaussoin along with Rossi come out with their own research which basically, at a minimum, makes a reevaluation of the ISTRC research warranted. So who is right? No wonder the superintendent didn't have a hard and fast, quantifiable answer to Dave's spur of the moment interrogation.
Some things cannot be quantified. There are far too many variables involved.
Is a retraction going to come out? The problem is you cannot undue this mistake. Any golfer with an ax to grind has found his "proof".