In this episode of Rising Stars of Turf, the spotlight is on Moe Robinson, arguably one of the most recognizable personalities in golf turf management today. Originally from Ontario and now residing in British Columbia, Moe recently tied the knot with Paul Robertson, longtime golf course superintendent at Victoria Golf Club. They are planning a larger ceremony -- to be officiated by Dave Wilber -- in the fall in back in Ontario with family and friends.
She reflects on her journey as an ear
In this episode of Rising Stars of Turf, Pete Bachman, superintendent at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California, discusses how day-to-day operations at one of the country's most famous tracks do not differ much different than when the PGA Tour comes to town.
He also talks about the challenges associated with motivating his team and keeping morale up at an operation where expectations and pressure to be the best are high every day and not just for the tour pros.
Finally, Ba
In this episode, I reveal the most important strategy for hiring new staff members. I learned this from watching my Dad as he managed employees on 17 golf courses over several decades. According to family lore, I got Dad fired at least twice, but I refuse to take responsibility.
If Dad had conducted more thorough background checks and called for references, he could have avoided losing those jobs.
I recently read a fascinating book by author, speaker, high performance coach and podcaster Michael Gervais. The name of the book is First Rule of Mastery - Stop Worrying What People Think of You. It was based off an article the Gervais had written for the Harvard Business Review years earlier (How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You). The book is a thought provoking, deep look at the effects of other people’s opinions and how we are so unconsciously controlled by them.
Th
In this episode, Ludell returns to Rockbottum after learning how Big Corporate Golf intends to reduce operating costs. But, like most entities currently shifting toward AI and robots, BCG is completely unaware of The AI Paradox.
It seems every landscape site has a “thing” it is known for. Intentional by the Grounds team or not, this "thing" is usually something our patrons identify and bond with. It can be the play of the course, the design of the gardens, the maintenance regime or something else. Flower bulbs are a thing that many of our operations undertake. Bulbs have relatively low resource entry point, are proven performers with little preparation, and have broad appeal. But when even homeowners employ a gardening
Scott Bordner, director of agronomy at the Union League of Philadelphia, discusses the organization's roots as a patriotic entity founded to support President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, and its transformation to a three-course club.
He also talks about the trajectory of his career that includes working as an assistant under Matt Shaffer at Merion Golf Club and a long tenure as superintendent at historic Chicago Golf Club.
Finally, Bordner talks about his efforts to help solv
Every now and again things don’t really work out as planned. Despite all our scheduling and agronomic programs, our focus on “plant defenses”, or our finely tuned, season long predictions…things still may fall apart. It could be as a result of a weather related event, a major shift in club politics, a supply chain meltdown or even a global pandemic. No matter the cause, we are left to scramble and scrape our way back into some semblance of control.
It’s said that our ability to respond with
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
