In the last days of primitive golf maintenance, only a few Retro-Holdouts remained standing . . .
(Our thanks to Monty Python, Carol Burnett, Armstrong & Miller, Fawlty Towers and PLM of TurfNet.)
Josh Smith took an unconventional route to Orinda Country Club in Orinda, California, where he has been superintendent for the past decade.
A competitive golfer at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, the Oregon native worked as an aspiring golf course architect before finally getting into golf course maintenance.
It was while working at the California Golf Club of San Francisco when he attended the two-year program at Rutgers University, which provided him with the skills neede
Recently I commented on a TurfNet Forum post under the heading “Robotic Mower Readiness Score”. My response expressing resistance to autonomous mowers (AM) was a knee-jerk reaction to a larger topic I feel strongly about. I expressed a positive but secondary response to the AM matrix assessment the original forum post was based on. In hindsight, my larger topic response lacked deep analysis of this issue. Regardless, and despite my propensity to shoot from my often less-than-fully-informed hip,
Justin Sims, CGCS, has been director of grounds and facilities at The Alotian Club in Roland, Arkansas for 13 years. He prepped for a position as a head superintendent at some of the country's premier facilities, including The Olympic Club in San Francisco under Pat Finlen and Augusta National Golf Club under Marsh Benson and Brad Owen.
While he climbed the career ladder, he learned the value of working varied climates where he had the opportunity to manage both warm- and cool-season turf.
Earlier this week, as I watched a load of timber for some new bridges being built on our property be unloaded, I knew the season had arrived. That time of year which many in the Northeastern US and Eastern Canada are intimately familiar with, the time of year when the snow recedes, the sun is strong, and clay roads turn into greasy jungles of muck.
Growing up in Prince Edward Island, Canada, this time of year is hallmarked by taking a drive through the countryside and seeing numerous vehicl
If you're missing key personnel, dogs, cats or elderly golfers, try two applications of Dra-Gone. (Applied at 8 times the label rate.) If that doesn't work, a single app of Barrett .50 should suffice.
In this episode of Rockbottum CC, (the longest running webisode in the history of the net) Momma learns an important maintenance adjustment for autonomous mowers and Buddy has a problem with a couple of governments.
I do not know of many teams or departments in any organization not feeling the pinch of shrinking budgets. This seems especially true for our grounds management operations. My operation receives a budget that allows us to serve our organization adequately, but not completely. We are in a constant state of making do, altering priorities, and putting out fires. I liken it to the game Tetris. Our work drops on us and we try to make it fit as fast as possible thereby continuing the game. But, if our
Recently we explored the idea of seasonality (The Season) and the idea that we as a species (and a part of nature) follow similar rhythms of the natural world over the course of both a single season and a year as a whole. When we remember to tune into the rhythms of a particular season of our lives we tend to find greater ease as we are more likely to be in flow and less likely to be swimming against the current.
One particular season that often times gets ignored or overlooked in our moder
Winter weather is an essential part of most grounds operations, and no matter where in the country you work, dealing with winter weather is challenging. Here at University of Kansas we have just recovered from a bona fide blizzard which dumped 14” on our campus. The storm started Saturday, January 4th and moved out the next day. Since then, we have had consistent temps below freezing except for 2 days at 33F. Admittedly most of our winter weather is not this significant but there are common impa
Alcohol is a poison that has used modern advertising to positively associate itself with sports, romance, business and even fitness. We are encouraged to drink and cheer on our favorite athletes, to yell at screens, to use beer as a post-workout supplement and we are told that romance is enhanced by bubbly alcohol . . . when the opposite is true. Successful business meeting planners rely heavily on the 90 proof lubricant.
Alcohol is commonly self-prescribed for timidity, fear, unhappiness
If you follow TurfNet and golf course management in any way, you will surely hear dog stories. Dogs are frequently companions for superintendents, adorn shop wall calendars, and even get “hired” to chase geese. One of our editors even wrote a dog tribute recently that has over 11K views!
Let me say right away, I love dogs. Not all of them, mind you, but most. I had dogs growing up and my family has enjoyed our dog Drover for 13 years now. Dogs and their owners are frequent visitors to any
It can be funny how an idea gets stuck in your mind. This post has been bouncing around in my noodle for quite some time, and until now I wasn’t quite sure how to present it. That’s not uncommon for me, a post can take up to a month or so to calibrate in my consciousness. It moves to the forefront, recedes a bit and then finally when I feel that I have enough fuel, I sit down and out it pours.
For a while now I have been coming back to the number 10,000. This number first stumbled into my
Thanks to modern wearable technology, it's possible for the average technoid to quickly identify and nullify harmful stress triggers.
Just cleverly mate an advanced wristwatch with your hand computer and reap the benefits! For more info, watch the following short film.
The latest TurfNet All Star of Turf is Bill Kreuser, Ph.D., of TurfGrade LLC of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Kreuser has a wide range of experience in the turf industry. He is a former golf course superintendent and professor at the University of Nebraska, and along with Doug Soldat, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin, is the founder of TurfGrade LLC.
TurfGrade is a multi-platform entity that offers science-based information to turfgrass managers in golf, sports turf, lawn care and sod produc
It’s early Thursday morning as I write this, not yet 48 hours after our vet came to the house, sat on the floor with us and dispatched our much-loved Frosty to the Rainbow Bridge. It was exactly eight years after his Gotcha Day, a day when both his and our lives changed dramatically for the better.
Early on, even on Gotcha Day, Frosty established himself as my wingman. This was on the drive home after picking him up from the transport, December 3, 2016.
I am due to record
There are subtle clues that surface when one is nearing a career shift or even retirement phase. These clues, often manifested by certain actions or statements normally suppressed during peak career, can become visible during what Rockbottum CC scholars call "Too Much Time In The Saddle". Here are a few examples*, along with a short training film, circa 2016.
Fester N. Boyle, Green Chairman, approaches while you are hastily repairing a giant irrigation break and says, "Willy, you're almos
Listen in as Carson Letot, Ph.D., joins TurfNet's John Reitman to discuss his less-than-traditional route from an intern on a golf course to becoming a school teacher to finally being named program coordinator of the USGA Greenkeeper Apprenticeship Program.
A former TurfNet intern in Ireland, Letot fills us in on how the one-year GAP program works as it helps prepare non-traditional students in the North Carolina Sandhills area for careers in golf turf maintenance. He also addresses how he
This episode of Rockbottum Radio is a hybridized Podcast/Radio Show starring Mark Hoban, the Jedi Master of golf turf. He forced his way into our studio and demanded we tell the truth about his USGA Metrics Ball methods and results. We managed to trick him into going to lunch early so we could complete the show and slip in a bonus Story Time.
Presented by DryJect.
Randy mentions the film, Chasing Rivermont, with Mark Hoban. We embedded it below:
Scott Lambert's career in golf began like that of many superintendents — working on a golf course as a summer job.
His career shifted onto the fast track after nearly 10 years prepping under William Shirley at Peachtree Golf Club in Brookhaven, Georgia, Lambert ventured 10 miles up the road to Atlanta Country Club, a 1965 William C. Byrd design, where he has been head superintendent since 2019.
Although he has been a head superintendent for a short period, Lambert's leadership and prof
This year's Halloween film is Can We Stop . . . "THEM?"
Last year's film, "In The Back Of The Night" was deemed too scary for normal golf folk, so we toned it down to just mildly terrifying this year.
NOTE: Ludell, as presented here, is not real. He is AI, which is part of the message of the film.
David Webner is winding up a 42 year career in golf turf management, the last almost-25 of which have been as the golf course superintendent at Westwood Country Club in Rocky River, Ohio, on the west side of Cleveland. Peter McCormick caught up with David and got some fascinating insight into what makes him tick.
Starting out as a night waterman and skunk-hunter at a local 18-hole, low budget Mom & Pop, David quickly learned by doing... a work ethic he kept with him throughout his caree
