So who graduates from UMass in 1971 with a BS in Plant and Soil Science, takes an assistant job at a very private/secretive 500 acre facility on the NY/CT border, gets promoted to superintendent three months later, grows in a new back nine... and then stays for 51 years? We'll tell you who: Mike Maffei, CGCS, recently retired golf course superintendent at Morefar in Brewster, NY.
Google "Morefar" and you won't come up with much. "A lot of newcomers to Brewster don't even know it's there," q
Cyclone Gabrielle is considered the worst recorded storm in New Zealand's history. Gabrielle brought constant 40mph winds and another 10 inches of rain to wet soils and dropped over 500 trees at our course. This storm shut down North Island for a week, making commuting for the staff impossible. All of North Island was in the middle of it.
Some of the estimated 500 trees that fell during Cyclone Gabrielle.
Trees sitting in water drop
In this short film, Rockbottum CC gets mired glute-deep in the high-tech swamp of modern golf metrics, but manages to escape using Skeletal Golf Theory.
Our latest All Star of Turf is Michael Morris, CGCS, 36-year Director of Buildings and Grounds at Crystal Downs Country Club in Frankfort, Michigan. A native of Frankfort, Mike is one of the few golf course property managers who has spent his entire career at one course, in his hometown. He is also a rarity in obtaining a BA and MS in English and film studies at Michigan State before realizing that life on the golf course spoke to him more than a future in academia.
He is known internation
For the first time in nearly three years we are almost finished a full, in-person conference season. From the GCSAA Show, the BTME, the Carolinas and all shows in between, we have made the transition back to meeting face to face and by all accounts it’s been well received. After two plus seasons of virtual and hybrid education, everyone appears to be genuinely happy to be back at our respective events, shaking actual hands.
For me personally, it’s been a quiet return to travel and speaking.
Our grounds management efforts, no matter the purpose or location, require funding to carry out the goals we are expected to perform. Some fortunate grounds managers amongst us may have ample budgets that readily support these expectations. My personal experience, and that of many peers I have heard from, reflects a different financial reality. Usually, we are expected to make dollars stretch, or simply forgo some of the grounds improvements we propose. Here at the University of Kansas, I am, fo
In this episode, RW gets tangled up in AI when he tries to use Chat-GBB to write the radio show and that failure results in a spirited rant aimed at those we entrusted with getting out the water conservation message.
Just as the way forward is revealed, Count Noomskool of the World Globalar Golf Forum arrives and waves huge sums of money at Momma, in order to subjugate Rockbottum CC's verboten individualist attitude.
In this first "It's not just about the grass" segment of TurfNet All Stars of Turf, we recognize Scott Dodson, CGCS, and John Taylor. Both career superintendents, they are perhaps better known as the founders of the Golf Course Hockey Challenge, an annual 2-day/4-game tournament that has attracted as many as 16 teams of hockey playing superintendents, assistants and suppliers over a 25+ year run.
Dodson has been at the Park Country Club in Williamsville (Buffalo) NY for 30 years. Taylor is
Tournament week here at Tara Iti. The Kayne Cup is a 40-hole member-member tournament. It has four different formats. Two nine holes better ball, Chatmin 9 hole, nine-hole scramble, and a four-hole shoot-out. This is the first Kayne Cup since 2018 since COVID.
My favorite part of working on a golf course is seeing a beautiful sunrise. If you look close enough, you can see the Waxing Crescent moon.
Starting the week was the 2023 women's Kayne Cup that started on Sunday-Tues
Jordon Bowling found his calling into turfgrass management a little later than most, at 22 with a six-month old son to boot. His brother-in-law, Chad Kuzawa, was an NC State turf grad making the rounds of some clubs in the southeast and convinced Jordon to visit from his home in Michigan and shadow him for a couple of days. That set things in motion.
He enrolled in the turf management program at Wayne Community College in NC and worked at Wedgewood GC, then Country Club of Virginia, Carolin
Chad Allen, finishing up his first year as golf course superintendent at the Club at Chatham Hills near Indianapolis, IN, has a unique background and training as a substance abuse and addiction counselor prior to shifting to turf management. A recent attendee of both Green Start and the Syngenta Business Institute programs, Chad employs a "bottom up" management style that centers on listening to and engaging his staff in the processes of managing the golf course.
A fascinating conversation
A new Rockbottum film has surfaced: "Khaki Pants on Parade."
While we were trying to shoot a pleasant little film entitled "Downrange with RW", one of my extra personalities got loose and hijacked the whole thing. Momma could have stopped it, but she enjoys a good tirade . . . especially when it targets that Khaki Pants Crowd. Must be the time of year.
Jim Surico, senior assistant superintendent at North Jersey Country Club in Wayne, NJ, is admittedly a "glass half full" kind of guy. As such, when asked to name something he doesn't like to do on the golf course, he came up blank. "Ooh, I don't know, tough question... There really isn't anything I don't like to do, even dealing with members..."
Now THERE is a guy who is going to have a successful career as a superintendent.
Surico talks us through his career from Rutgers University to
This week I am taking you on a journey to Te Arai Links... the newly opened south course, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and the currently under-construction north course, designed by Tom Doak. Brian Palmer (superintendent at Tara Iti) set up an intern swap with CJ Kreuscher, Director of Agronomy for Te Arai Links, where I went to Te Arai, and Austin Eggers, previously from Sand Hills, came to Tara Iti for a week.
Similar to Tara Iti, both courses at Te Arai are next to the ocean
Recently, Fester N. Boyle, our Club President, and our Head Pro Hugh Jass Bedendorfer, withdrew Rockbottum CC from USGA membership and joined the PGHA, or "Progressive Golf Handicap Association." The PGHA has designed friendlier, more progressive golf rules to help equitably grow the game, as opposed to the hidebound, stuffy old USGA/RAA rules. They have also included rules to help guide the Golf Course Superintendent toward a more inclusive and safe golf course environment.
Fester and Hu
It’s hard to believe, but The Mindful Superintendent blog turned 10 years old this past week. Way back on Dec. 30th, 2012, with the support of TurfNet and my wife and editor, Jill, the Mindful Super began this journey (New Beginnings). It’s definitely been a heck of a ride thus far.
As I look back on what the last decade of personal reflection and writing has brought into my life, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I’m so thankful for all the ups and downs, ins and outs, the good and the bad.
Hard to believe that I have now been at the University of Kansas for a full calendar year. Regardless of anyone’s tenure at their current job, every one of us was new at some point. We can all relate, albeit to different extents, to the dynamics accompanying completing one year at a job. It is a significant milestone. The title of this blog addresses this significance in two ways. First is the passage of one years’ time. Groundskeeping is affected by the annual seasons, requiring us to experienc
Jared Viarengo of Applebrook Golf Club in Malvern, Pennsylvania, bucked a trend early in his career by also becoming general manager at the club in eastern Pennsylvania. Since then, Viarengo's role has expanded as the club's director of grounds and director of club operations.
In this broadcast, Viarengo discusses how his career started in the field of psychology and how he eventually returned his roots on the golf course, where he had worked during summers since high school.
He also
It’s been a spell since we last connected via this blog; August 19th to be exact. We were exploring the idea of Mindful Resilience and what it takes to build this capacity within ourselves. It is an interesting topic to dive into at the best of times, and even more so in the worst. Little did I know then how many of these concepts would take center stage in my life of late.
On September 24th Hurricane Fiona arrived on the shores of Prince Edward Island. As an island on the eastern coast of
Instead of a sea of red as at Adare Manor, Tara Iti is an ocean of green. I have worked with John Deere equipment at Merion, Bob O' Link, and a few pieces at Vineyard Golf Club, so I am well familiar with how to operate these John Deere units. In this blog, I will introduce the mechanics and show you the shed and break room.
Starting with the maintenance section, the mechanic Josh Murdock keeps everything in working order. Josh has an occasional assistant Greg Tailby who is a greenkeeper bu
There are 32 greens totaling 6.4 acres at Tara Iti, all comprised of fine fescue grasses. As mentioned in my previous blogs, working with all fine fescue is new to me. The fescue greens provide excellent playing conditions for the membership and guests. Even after aerification, Brian likes to say, "It won't win any beauty competition, but it sure plays well.”
Texture of fescue greens after overseeding.
The greens are sculpted from the native dune sand from around the prope
In this short film — originally produced six years ago — Rockbottum CC predicted "The Reset", long before Klaus and his cronies went public with their version. In Part One of Skeletal Golf Theory 101, we took a hard look at the "business" of golf. We did not rely on data, just anecdotal analysis gathered over 50+ years in all facets of the industry.
As our economy reacts to the latest spending spree carried out by politicians, perhaps it's time to study SGT 101.
You just never know.
