By PAUL GIORDANO
Courier-Post Staff

PITTSGROVE
Ed Carman: The Innovator.
There are a little over 4,000 golf courses around the world that have yardage measured to the green by over-sized blue (200-yard), white (150-yards) and red (100-yards) plastic golf-ball markers in the center of the fairway. Ed Carman's idea.

``I began to think about it in the late 50s,'' Carman said. ``One day I walked out on the golf course and saw red paint on the trees and it hit me. I had used stakes and bushes and all these different things.

``Then, I built the marker and took it to a professional plastic manufacturer and I had him run off some marker tops, and we used rivets to put the top to the bottom.

``I took it down to Leo Fraser at the Atlantic City Country Club and asked him what he thought about it and he said, `When can you put them in? That's the best idea I've ever seen.' That was in 1983 or '84.

``Then I put them in at Pitman and had them in at Centerton. I have a patent on them. I have them in about 4,000 golf courses all over the world. Mostly in the United States, quite a few in Canada, a couple in England and now the Germans are starting to buy them. In Japan, a lot of them too.''

In the 70s, Carman came up with Sand Smoothies, a rounded sand bunker rake without teeth. It leaves the bunker with its natural look, without marks left by rakes with teeth.

``I came up with that idea in '75, '76,'' Carman said. ``I haven't done much with them lately, but I still get calls and may go back to making them again.''

Carman also said that he was the first to have a breakfast buffet. ``I started that buffet in 1965 in a little room at Centerton (Golf Club) and it grew to a point where I was serving 1,500 people every Sunday,'' Carman said.

And next?

``I'd like to do another golf course. Why at my age (73)? I hope I never have to retire. If that's what I can do, why shouldn't I do it. When are you too old?.''

Enough said?