Austin, TX — The house where the short-game guru Dave Pelz lives, in the foothills west of Austin, Tex., is a golf geek’s Shangri-La, with practice grounds designed to fit its owner’s fantasies. Just outside his back door, Pelz can take dead aim at faithful reproductions of his favorite targets: the 12th green at Augusta, fronted by a creek and an alabaster bunker; the 17th at Sawgrass, ringed by water; and the 14th at Pebble Beach, with its tiny tabletop, as forgiving as the roof of a VW Bug.

When Pelz and his wife, JoAnn, moved in last year, she chose the china, but he had final say on the elaborate landscape, which also features tributes to the 17th at Pebble, the 13th at Augusta and the Road Hole at St. Andrews, along with enough practice greens, skewed at different angles, to keep Ben Crenshaw endlessly entertained.

The short-game facility extends across two-acres of SYNLawn synthetic turf that never requires watering or mowing, and that features a special patent-pending underlayment that allows his putting surfaces to receive shots like real bent – and Bermuda grass greens.

On any given morning, when he isn’t writing books, or tweaking a new gadget, or working with Phil Mickelson in the run-up to a major, Pelz can be found at his rear doorstep, in his trademark bucket hat, with a bag of balls beside him, fine-tuning the array of precision shots on which he’s made his name and a three-decade-plus career.

The Tour pro D.A. Weibring, a Pelz protégé and friend, describes the property as “Pelz’s playground” — a phrase the man himself dismisses.

“It’s more like a laboratory,” Pelz says. “A place for pushing forward with my work.”

It takes a different kind of person to regard a golfer’s dreamscape as a research center, but then Pelz has always had a stats-jammed mind of his own. “Not everything Dave has said has been embraced right away,” says 19-time Tour winner Tom Kite, who worked with Pelz in the late ’70s and early ’80s. “But people eventually came around to seeing that what he said was right. When you look at the long term, you realize the immense impact that he’s had.”

Since the mid 1970s, when he left a job as a NASA research scientist to immerse himself in golf research, Pelz has unearthed answers in the data while others were still digging for them in the dirt. The truth that serious players hold today—that you drive for show, but chip and pitch for dough—was far from self-evident when Pelz got started. The term itself—”short game”—didn’t even exist. By treating every course as a laboratory, and every round as part of a grand experiment, Pelz not only showed that short shots deserve their own classification—he proved that they’re what matter most.

“Joe Blow golfer may still go out and smack drivers on the range for an hour and think he’s accomplishing something,” says Andy North, a two-time U.S. Open winner-turned-ESPN analyst, and one of the first Tour pros to embrace Pelz’s teachings. “But throughout the game, there’s a deeper understanding of how golf is really played. Much of the credit for that goes to Dave Pelz.”

Pelz has evolved from a one-man operation, conducting esoteric studies from the far edge of the fairways, into an institution—an author and inventor, a global speaker and instructor, with short-game schools in this country and abroad. Now 72, he has penned six books, holds 17 golf-related patents and has fathered inventions of immense impact, among them the 60- and 64- degree wedge and the two-ball putter, one of the all-time best-selling clubs of any kind.

Pelz’s insights have influenced Tour pros and amateurs alike. His stable of students, with 19 majors under their collective belts, has included Vijay Singh, Paul Azinger, Lee Janzen, Michelle Wie, and, most famously, Mickelson, who turned to Pelz for help in late 2003, months before he won his first Masters. “I was 0-for-43 in majors before I met him, and I’ve won four, plus a Players Championship, since,” Mickelson says. “That says it all about him in my book.”

Pitching balls in his backyard, Pelz cuts the profile of a man in his natural setting. But like the space probes that he once designed for NASA, he has traveled a long way to get where he is today.

Pelz was born in Indiana, raised in Kentucky and grew to 6 feet 5. He became a standout athlete, earning a four-year golf scholarship to Indiana University. His Big Ten career was sound but unspectacular, notable mostly for the record he compiled against an Ohio State star named Jack Nicklaus: zero wins and 22 losses. Enough golfers not named Nicklaus also beat him that, by graduation, Pelz had reconsidered his Tour ambitions.

With a degree in physics, Pelz landed a job at NASA, where he built mass spectrometers, particle-measuring devices that were instrumental to research into other planets’ atmospheres. Interesting work. But the more he tinkered in a lab, the more he daydreamed of the course. “I realized I was a golfer who loved physics,” Pelz says, “rather than a physicist who loved golf.”

Where college taught him the nuts and bolts of science, NASA schooled him in the rigors of sound research. One subject of inquiry consumed him: How were some players with unimpressive swings winning on golf’s biggest stages?

Take 1969 Masters champ George Archer, a subpar ballstriker by Tour standards. Or Gay Brewer, whose swing looked a little bit like a helicopter in a death spiral. Somehow, both won green jackets. “It occurred to me,” Pelz says, 
 “that if I couldn’t tell Gene Littler”—who had a famously silky swing—”from Gay Brewer, then I really didn’t understand the game.”

In 1976, Pelz resigned from NASA and focused his scientific acumen on the PGA Tour. For the next three years, notepad in hand, he bounced from one event to another, jotting down the results of every shot he saw. His empirical approach to golf, in a pre-ShotLink era when the game was ruled by received wisdom, made Pelz an oddball. It also produced results.

That the findings hardly come across as earthshaking today are testament to the revolution they inspired. Pelz’s data showed that the short game—shots of 100 yards or less—was 60 to 65 percent of golf, a majority share that also happened to be the weakest part of most players’ games. From beyond 100 yards, the average Tour pro missed his target by a 7 percent margin (a 14-yard error, for example, on a 200-yard shot). From inside 100 yards, though, that figure jumped to 16 to 20 percent. For the game’s best players, straying right or left on wedges wasn’t the problem. It was distance control. “A guy who tugged a 60-yard shot 10 yards off line would hang his head in disgust,” Pelz says. “But he’d fly one over the flagstick, 20 yards long, and be thinking he’d hit a great shot.”

The logical conclusions his research led to amounted to a challenge to the old world order.

Before Pelz, players carried 1-irons, 2-irons, 3-irons—an arsenal of clubs to cover an array of long-distance increments—and only one club to handle everything from 100 yards and in. Pelz recommended filling that gap. Many Tour pros heeded his counsel, including Kite. In 1981, Kite became one of the first Tour pros to carry a 60-degree wedge and went on to lead the money list and win the Vardon Trophy for low-scoring average.

As Pelz’s influence seeped through the pro ranks, his reputation spread to well-heeled amateurs. In 1982, he opened his first short-game school, in Abilene, Tex., fetching up to $1,500 a head for a full-day session with a foursome. But instruction wasn’t his passion. “I was trying to learn the game,” Pelz says, “not trying to teach it.”

To support his research, Pelz focused on equipment design. He made a good inventor but a lousy businessman. Among his financial missteps was the two-ball putter, the design he dreamed up in 1986, only to sell the rights a decade-plus later, to Callaway Golf, for $250,000. It seemed like a good deal at the time, but in the years since, Callaway has sold 5 million of the putters.

The bottom line could be better. But it could also be worse. “Dave Pelz” is an integrated brand that extends not only to his books, clinics and schools but also to training aides, equipment and apparel. Even the family’s Bedlington terrier, PEDO, falls under the company umbrella; his capitalized name is an acronym for Pelz Executive Dog Officer.

Like his restless dog, Pelz rarely sits still, often grinding on his research between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. The results fill thousands of pages in books, magazines and scientific journals, and while all his theories are grounded in science, his approach is not as rigid as his background suggests. “He’s a scientist, but it’s not his way or the highway,” Weibring says. “He’ll say, ‘This is what my research has told me. How does it work for you?’ “

Case in point is the Pelz-Mickelson partnership, a study in contrasts that pairs golf’s top science guy with its ultimate feel player. When they first teamed up, in 2003, Mickelson had a rep as a short-game magician whose tricks failed him in majors. Pelz being Pelz put those impressions to an objective test.

The result was something of a myth-buster moment. Mickelson, it turned out, while spectacularly good on spectacular shots, was surprisingly ordinary at ordinary ones. Leave him short-sided with a flop shot over water, and no one was better. But the prospect of a more straightforward pitch turned Mickelson into a middling player, with a conversion rate in the Tour average of 55 to 65 percent. “People think of Phil as this freakish natural talent,” Pelz says. “The truth is that he’s a coordinated guy, but he still has to practice. The reason he was ordinary at these ordinary shots is that he paid virtually no attention to them.”

Mickelson started working on simple chips and pitches and now boasts a conversion rate north of 80 percent, among the highest on Tour, Pelz says. Course management is another matter, one on which the two butt heads. Pelz cringes when he thinks of Mickelson’s famed 6-iron from the pine straw on the 13th hole in the 2010 Masters. As he sees it, no shot is worth taking if a player can’t pull it off nine times out of 10.

Mickelson takes a different tack, Pelz says. “When we started working together, Phil believed that if he was capable of hitting a shot, he should try it, no matter what the odds were. Since then, he’s moved more toward a 50 percent guy. If he thinks he can pull it off half the time, he’s going to do it. That’s still too risky in my book, but that’s Phil. I’m not trying to turn him into Dave Pelz.”

At the same time, Pelz’s star pupil has rubbed off on him, or so it seemed one morning in the Texas foothills, as Pelz stood in his yard, aiming at his homage to Augusta’s 12th. The shot he faced was testy: an awkward 40-yarder over a creek to a pin tucked right. The Pelzian play—that is, the percentage play—was to the center. But Pelz was feeling frisky. Lob wedge in hand, he waggled, swung. The ball settled two feet from the stick.

“Not the smart shot,” Pelz said, smiling. “But every now and then you’ve got to have some fun.”

Read the full story on Golf.com

The Autism Charity Golf Classic will be held on Saturday, May 5, at the Tubac Golf Resort and Spa just 35 minutes outside of Tucson, AZ. Rodney Peete, former NFL quarterback and author of ‘Not My Boy! A Father, A Son, and One Family’s Journey with Autism’ will be in attendance with his son RJ. Also attending again this year is Randy Blunt and his son Tyler. Randy recently won Dave Pelz’s ‘What’s Your Major’, a nationwide contest presented by Golf Magazine. This very tournament was Randy’s major. Both fathers express joy at being able to share this experience with their sons.

Tucson, AZ — The Tucson Autism Community Center (TACC) is hosting the 2012 Autism Charity Golf Classic at the Tubac Golf Resort and Spa on Saturday, May 5, 2012. Proceeds will benefit Tucson Alliance for Autism, (TAFA).

This year Rodney Peete, NFL quarterback and author, will be back for his second year in a row with his son R.J. “I was very excited to be a part of the TACC Golf Tournament last year and was impressed with the hospitality I received at the Tubac Golf Resort & Spa,” Peete said. “TAFA is doing incredible work and I have vowed to return whenever I’m available.” Peete, a native of Tucson, is the author of “Not My Boy! A Father, a Son, and One Family’s Journey with Autism.” The story, based on the Peete family’s experience raising a child with autism, is receiving wide acclaim. Through the book Peete describes the journey from a father’s perspective – a perspective that is often overlooked.

“Winning the ‘What’s Your Major” contest is a win for Randy
and a win for Autism,” — Dave Pelz.

Another father/son team competing this year is Randy Blunt and his son Tyler. “Last year’s event was an amazing two days for me and my son, Tyler,” Blunt said. “We took the third place trophy. His presence at the tournament last year was an inspiration to everyone, especially me.” So when Blunt saw the chance to win private lessons with short game legend Dave Pelz by entering the ‘What’s Your Major’ contest sponsored by Golf Magazine he knew the Autism Charity Classic would be the perfect major to share his compelling story. Blunt submitted his essay describing why the Autism Charity Classic met so much to him and his son. Hundreds of essays were received, Blunt won! His prize included a set of Callaway golf clubs, a backyard putting green from SYNLawn Golf and private lessons from short game legend Dave Pelz at the Tubac Golf Resort & Spa. This was a big win for Blunt, for Tyler, and for Autism. “Tyler will be my ‘caddy’ for many years to come. We’re going after the top prize this year,” Blunt said.

Ron and Angela Canale, co-founders of both the TACC and TAFA, have a beautiful 14 year old daughter who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3-1/2. They helped create TACC and TAFA as a result of the many challenges they faced when trying to obtain information about services available in the Tucson community for those affected by autism.

Ron, a TACC board member, organizes the Autism Charity Classic Golf Tournament every year. “The goal of this tournament is to raise money to help families and children who are affected by autism,” Canale said. “Just as important is to raise awareness. That is why we get so excited when people like Rodney Peete, Dave Pelz and Randy Blunt get involved, because they help bring attention about autism to the forefront.”

The CDC estimates that 1 in 88 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that ASD’s are almost 5 times more common among boys (1 in 54) than among girls (1-252). Autism can be difficult to detect and diagnose. Research shows that the earlier a child is identified, the more interventions such as speech therapy and behavioral training are likely to help.

The Autism Charity Classic Golf Tournament is held every year at the Tubac Golf Resort and Spa, known for its friendly hospitality, luxurious Hacienda style and 27-hole championship golf course made famous by the movie Tin Cup. The Tin Cup Hole, #4 Rancho, remains one of the most famous in golf. The resort is located just 35 minutes outside of Tucson, Arizona at 65 Avenida de Otero, Tubac, AZ 85646. For more information about the resort, visit http://www.TubacGolfResort.com or call 800.848.7893.

Click here for the full story on PRWeb.com

SYNLawn’s exclusive EnviroLoc™ Backing System has an enhanced multi-layer component system that “locks” in durable turf fibers, extending the product’s life cycle.

Engineered using BioCel™ technology, the EnviroLoc Backing System replaces a large portion of petroleum-based polymers with biobased polymers created from soybean plants (a renewable resource), then adds Celceram™ (a recycled product of coal combustion) for superior strength and dimensional stability.

The EnviroLoc bi-component primary backing includes two layers of woven backing stitched together while adding a layer of polypropylene fiber in between. Together these biobased technologies provide a sturdy anchor for fibers for less “shedding” as well as provide an environmentally responsible approach to artificial grass that conserves Earth’s natural resources and will look great for years to come.

For environmentally conscious builders and specifiers, SYNLawn offers water efficient landscaping products using recycled content, renewable materials and innovative design which can contribute points to LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) project certification.

Tune in to the DIY network for Turf War “Pull Up Bars Vs. Tex Mex Cocina” featuring some nifty use of SYNLawn artificial grass.

On Team One, a personal trainer gets to pull-up multiple times on his personal wooden exercise bars. A pergola is beefed up with foam pads and color, and texture is added to a cinder block wall. Finally, a pondless waterfall is created out of boulders and rocks.

On Team Two, a modern design turns Tex-Mex with this composite outdoor kitchen area. A rustic water feature is the back- drop for a modern L-frame bench. Outdoor fabric is woven between large wooden beams and concrete square stepping-stones to create a modern path.

Upcoming viewing schedule: (check local listings)

• April 13, 2012 – 9:00 PM e/p
• April 13, 2012 – 12:00 AM e/p
• April 15, 2012 – 2:00 PM e/p

With an IPEMA certified installation you can rest easy knowing your SYNLawn Playground System is a safe play area tested by an independent 3rd party, specific to public safety. SYNLawn also offers customers a Certificate of Compliance verifying an IPEMA certified installation.

IPEMA has validated SYNLawn’s conformance to IPEMA prescribed installation methods and standards necessary for our products to meet the ASTM F1292 safety standard. This includes an onsite inspection of the manufacturing process and its quality assurance from IPEMA.

In the interest of public safety, The International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association “IPEMA” provides a Third Party Certification Service where an independent laboratory validates a participant’s certification of conformance to ASTM F1292 Standard for Impact Attenuation of Surface Systems Under and Around Playground Equipment safety standards for their products.

For designers and specifiers this provides the opportunity to offer a IPEMA Certified installation which provides an end-user the highest level of ASTM F1292 compliance, the ability to write a specification offering an IPEMA Certified installation, and the confidence that you are offering a safe playground installation solution.

Certified installation methods include the use of:

• SYNBermuda 200 (10’ critical fall height)
• SYNTipede 351 (9’ critical fall height)
• SYNTipede 322 (10’ critical fall height)
• SYNGreen 200 (9’ critical fall height)
• Two methods using SYNLawn’s basix 100 (5’ and 9’ critical fall heights)

For more information about SYNLawn’s Playground Systems please visit:
http://www.synlawn.com/artificial-grass-products/playground-products/.

For more information about IPEMA please visit http://www.ipema.com.

For SYNLawn CAD details and specs please visit http://www.caddetails.com.

Tune in to see SYNLawn artificial grass featured on the DIY network’s hit television show Desperate Landscapes. DIY Network’s Jason Cameron heads to Carlsbad, California to rescue the Czapinski firefighting husband and wife team from a fiery mess. Jason brings in his team and transforms a crumbling driveway to a paver and green space masterpiece with a walkway to match. After installing SYNLawn synthetic turf, painting an entire house and bringing in over 60 indigenous plants to Southern California, the neighbors come home to a jaw dropping transformation — all in under 8 hours!

TUNE IN:

• March 28, 2012 – 9:00 PM e/p
• March 28, 2012 – 12:00 AM e/p
• April 07, 2012 – 10:30 AM e/p
• April 14, 2012 – 10:00 AM e/p
• April 29, 2012 – 2:00 PM e/p

DALTON, GA — In a directive just handed down by President Obama, synthetic turf products made by AstroTurf and SYNLawn will become an increasingly important resource in federal government purchasing.

President Obama has directed the federal government to dramatically increase the purchase of biobased products over the next two years, which will create jobs and drive innovation where biobased products are grown and manufactured. The decision will also result in a 50 percent increase in the number of new products that are designated as biobased. Biobased products include items like paints, soaps and detergents, synthetic turf, and carpet are developed from farm grown plants, rather than chemicals or petroleum bases. The biobased products sector marries the two most important economic engines for rural America: agriculture and manufacturing.

AstroTurf, a member of the Biobased Products Coalition, makes synthetic turf which features backing made by Universal Textile Technologies and made from soybean based polyols. SYNLawn, the landscape division of AstroTurf, also features soy-based backing in its landscape turf products.

“My administration is committed to using every tool available to promote economic growth and create good jobs in rural America,” said President Obama. “Today’s announcements reflect our continued focus on expanding opportunity for rural Americans and all Americans, including supporting new and innovative businesses, and improving rural health care and education. And the actions we’re taking today are possible thanks to the feedback and ideas I’ve received from hardworking Americans across rural America, including the participants at the White House Rural Economic Forum.”

For AstroTurf and SYNLawn, the decision opens the doors for synthetic turf sports and landscape applications at federal government facilities throughout the country, including military installations.

AstroTurf has worked closely with soybean farmers throughout the country in creating awareness of its synthetic turf products. In 2011, AstroTurf installed the new football field at Kansas State University, where AstroTurf President Bryan Peeples and Kansas Soybean Commission Chairman Bob Haselwood were presented with a game ball and 5,000 fans received samples of the soy-backed AstroTurf.

“This is a monumental decision,” said Peeples. “AstroTurf and SYNLawn are on the cutting edge when it comes to the sustainability movement, and biobased manufacturing has become a huge part of our corporate culture. We are providing the best synthetic turf products available, all while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and helping to create American jobs.”

The Presidential Memo builds on the Congressional support for biobased products established in the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills. Key provisions in the new memorandum include:

• Requiring federal agencies to include goals and milestones for biobased purchasing in their Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans.
• Including biobased purchasing in the scorecard that the Office of Management and Budget uses to rate agencies’ Sustainability/Energy performance.
• Directing a 50 percent increase in the number of new product categories that are designated by USDA as biobased for preferred federal purchasing.
• Requiring new public reporting of federal agencies’ biobased product purchasing.
• Requiring federal agencies to sample and verify that biobased products are being included in purchasing contracts, identified in purchasing catalogs, and integrated in product specifications and contracting procedures.
• Directing the implementation of new biobased purchasing training, education, and outreach efforts to federal buyers.
• Providing assistance to small businesses to improve the selling of biobased products and services to the Federal Government.
• Directing the Secretary of Agriculture to prepare a report to the President on job creation and the economic impact associated with the biobased products industry.

“We know that when biobased products are used, it’s going to create new manufacturing opportunities in rural areas and we also know that it’s going to reduce our reliance on foreign oil,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

The federal biobased initiative is also an important model for state and other governments, such as Ohio, that passed legislation that requires state agencies to buy biobased products that are designated through the federal biobased program. Counties across the nation have started using biobased products as well.

Biobased product manufacturers and allied organizations launched the Biobased Products Coalition, of which AstroTurf is a member, in 2007 to focus and coordinate industry efforts to improve the federal biobased program and promote other favorable federal policies. The BPC provides a forum for biobased manufacturers of all sizes as well as farmer and other trade associations to present a unified industry voice on federal policy.

Greening of Georgia Street: wishtv.com

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – It’s similar to the material you see on a football field. Now, the artificial grass is making its way to Georgia Street in Downtown Indianapolis.

It‘s all part of the push to spruce up the area in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to pack Georgia Street Super Bowl weekend and the days before.

Saturday, a small crew form SYNLawn spent the majority of the day installing artificial grass.

SYNLawn — the company the city contracted to install the grass — donated nearly $14,000 worth of material to help spruce up the city.

The company’s owner, Phil Phillips said, “We saw that we might be able to do something and be apart of it and the whole family went for that very quickly.”

Jan Pritchard and her husband, Ron, spent the day checking out the recent changes.

“We wanted to walk and see what it is going to look like before the Super Bowl,” Jan Pritchard said. Her husband added they wanted to beat the big crowd leading up to game day.

Meanwhile, Super Bowl week warming stations will line Georgia Street. There will also be a host of activities for you and the family.

To see the entire story online, please visit this location.