Paul MacCormack

Thanks so much for reading Noah!

Thanks so very much for the words of wisdom and the kindness Paul. And thanks so much for reading. Paul

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 grace and wisdom in such moments is the variable that separates the good supers from the truly great ones. It’s the thing that allows our teams to trust that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Over the course of a career honing the ability to respond instead of reacting irrationally allows us to create a career that matters. Outside the ropes of the golf courses we manage, we have our lives as plain, old human beings. We can plan, we can exercise, and we can eat well and meditate and we can try to reduce our stress and get enough sleep... and still difficulties arise. In the immortal words of wrestler Hulk Hogan, we can even say our prayers and eat our vitamins… but life still offers no guarantees. What happens when we run into the inevitable, major disruptions that accompany this life? How do we choose to respond to loss, grief, or illness? Do we react irrationally or are we able to step back and take a larger view of the situation? How we respond to major disruptions has a large impact on how much we suffer overall. The question is do we react and add to the suffering? Or do we employ mindfulness and respond with a broader perspective? Over the last few months, my life has taken one such turn. Back in mid-December of 2024, I took a seizure. It wasn’t a new phenomenon for me (I have had them in various forms a few times over the past 30 years), but unfortunately I was never properly diagnosed with epilepsy until recently and therefore my illness wasn’t managed very well by some of my doctors. To say that the return of new and former types of seizure activity has been a major disruption in my life and that of my family would be an understatement. I would like to share some of the things that I have noticed and thought about over the past number of months: Having epilepsy sucks. I won’t sugar coat it. Making your way through the day wondering if you are going to have a seizure is not much fun. But over time I have learned to better listen to my body and its cues for rest. While it’s been crappy a lot of the time, it has also been vitally important to be mindful of the times that I feel good. This awareness has allowed me to tune into the symptoms in a deeper way and it also shows me that nothing is permanent. This moment to moment awareness is incredibly important with chronic illness because our minds can make the suffering static and relentless if we aren’t careful... when in truth there are times of less suffering and times of more. This also helps us navigate the negativity bias built into our brains. If we are mindful and can see breaks in our suffering then we can train ourselves to give some extra weight to the good, rather than just being velcro for the hardships. My life has slowed to a crawl. For someone who is used to having a great deal of energy to devote to my work life, this has been difficult. My creative spark and drive to do things has all but evaporated. It’s been a big adjustment. But I also know that it’s all temporary. It is a moment that too shall pass and I will adjust to my new seizure medications and emerge with a new perspective on life… and that’s just fine. I have fully embraced that power of rest. Admittedly, I haven’t had a great relationship with rest during my life, but in this case I really didn’t have much choice. It has been literally foisted upon me. Learning to continue breathing during the times when I am less able to show up for my life has been a major adjustment. It’s been a wonderful lesson in learning to “let go” and it’s given my body and mind the necessary space for healing. I have paused long enough to take a look at my life outside of the workplace and realize that I am indeed loved. This may not sound like much, but it’s something that many of us humans who have been devoted to our “hustle and grind” culture rarely do. The love and support I have received from my family and friends have been overwhelming. The outpouring of support has left me fully appreciating how blessed I am, and it has also allowed me to more deeply recognize and extend empathy and compassion to all those going through illness without such support systems. Reflection. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve had lots of time for rest and reflection over the past few months. This in and of itself has been a blessing. I have endeavoured to channel my quiet time into meditation and inner work and it has proven to be very fruitful. I have reached levels of inner honesty that I wouldn’t have been able to access without this pause. (But full disclosure, I have also watched a great deal of Netflix). Major disruptions in life have a way of stripping us down to the bare metal. Illness is particularly adept at tearing away the armouring and all the masks we wear on a daily basis. The inner vulnerability can be overwhelming by times. If you are someone who is used to keeping stuff inside and not sharing emotions well (read between the lines here) this vulnerability can feel very uncomfortable. But while it’s definitely been trying by times, I have instead chosen to work with this vulnerability in a more honest and welcoming way than I ever have before in my years of mindfulness practice. And — spoiler alert — it truly makes everything easier. Early on in this journey I made a decision. I made a conscious internal decision to the best of my current ability to accept and allow what was happening instead of fighting it. I know that in many cases people who face illness chose to adopt the stance of a warrior, and subsequently choose to “battle” their disease. I offer no judgement in that regard and I’m sure that in many cases the warrior mentality has given people the courage and strength to persevere. But I am choosing an alternate path. I am choosing to accept and learn as much as I can from the condition. When our bodies are in a state of “dis-ease” there is knowledge to be gained… wisdom that will inform how I live my life on many levels as I move forward. It’s not to say that I am simply rolling over and taking what comes, instead I am simply choosing the path of non resistance. And it’s by choosing to take this path that I am attempting to better allow myself to be with what happens instead of denying it or pushing it away. Curiosity helps tremendously with this as well. And finally I am choosing to not take this all too personally. So much suffering can arise from the simple question…”why me?” It’s really none of my business. While it’s something that I can influence via lifestyle choices, ultimately I don’t have much control over the why and how I ended up with epilepsy and I’m ok with that. It’s something that will hopefully be managed with medication and how I choose to live my life, but it will always be with me. I cannot control the storms that may arise, but I can hopefully steer the ship with an increased measure of skill and grace as I move forward. So thanks for taking the time to read this post. It was an important one for me. Thank you to Peter and TurfNet for continuing to give me a platform to share personal stories like this one. I hope it serves as a narrative that can help you or someone you love navigate a difficult life situation. Take care & be well.

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 vehicles parked on the edges of main roads. Most folks who live in the houses at the end of long, unpaved lanes are not willing to drive their vehicles up the slippery ruts of mud that unpaved laneways inevitably become. The temptation is strong, but they know through experience that giving in only will make the driveway worse in the long run. But the ground’s still frozen Beneath all this mud; And winter, even on its way out Will take with it anything That opens too soon. An excerpt from “The Mud Season”, by James A Pearson This season can have many names, False Spring or Late Winter, but how we choose to deal with it remains the same. You have to be able to remember that if you think that you might get stuck… you will. You have to remember that just because you got somewhere in the morning when the ground was still mostly frozen, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to get back that way later in the day. One has to exercise patience above all else. One learns the value of restraint and the power of simply choosing to do nothing at all. I admit fully that this can be a difficult concept to grasp. Superintendents are well aware of the raw excitement that comes with the brightness of a fresh spring day; the early glimpses of new blooms, the return of the songbirds, and the sound of snow melting into swollen streams. It can almost make us delirious with possibility, and the overwhelming energy of what lies ahead for the upcoming season. It brings us out of hibernation and eager to sharpen the reels, dust off the cup cutter and get busy. But like refraining from the attempt to navigate the muddy laneway too soon, often times the best offense is patience. It can feel like we are struggling to keep the lid on the season to come, but there are many times in a superintendent’s career the best course of action is to do nothing at all. Our senses and the very cells of our bodies are screaming at us to do something…anything really, but in the end, the best thing we can do is to leave it be and wait until the time is truly right. How many times in your life does this axiom hold true? How many conversations would have been better if you said nothing and put your intention on listening instead? How many times have you intervened in a situation to try and fix things…only to end up making it all a little worse? How many times has your need to do something replaced the wisdom of stepping back and allowing things to play out on their own? It’s a hard one for many, but especially for Superintendents. We are fixers of things. We are the people who folks come to when things need to get done. It’s an inherent part of our identity as course managers and greenkeepers. It can almost feel immoral for us not to intervene. But if we can learn to sit with this feeling, and like nature allow things to play out without our intervention, we may learn far more in the long run. When we choose this path, it doesn’t mean we don’t care. It doesn’t mean that we are being apathetic and not doing our jobs. It simply means we are choosing a more natural route, one that allows thing to unfold as they will on their own. It means attuning to and respecting the rhythms in nature. When we watch nature in the spring time (or during any change in season) it has its own schedule. It has its own rhythm. It all gets done, but in its own time, and in its own pace. It is not forced, it is not pushed and it retains a measure of efficiency within all its myriad and intertwined actions. So next time you are heading out in the beginning of the season to do something, maybe pause and ask yourself, “Is this really necessary? Or am I just doing this to quell the feelings of unease and uncertainty within myself?” It can be really hard to do nothing. It takes a lot of practice to be patient. It also takes a healthy dose of overdoing it and failing in the process. Learning from it all helps us see how a lighter touch is sometimes the best medicine. This is how we learn to grow our wisdom alongside growing grass. In the long run, exercising the muscles of restraint will inevitably make you not only a better superintendent, but a wiser human as well. Thanks for reading.

Paul, That analogy makes complete sense to me. When the natural seasonality of anything is compromised, it has to affect the internal workings. Thanks for reading! paul

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 modern western culture is winter (or the off season). Our culture glorifies the grind, continuously pushing us to work past what is reasonable, often times sacrificing our well being in the process. The idea of wintering is to actually reclaim this down time; to tune into the rhythm of the season and focus on rest as beautifully said in Wintering, the poem, by James A. Pearson. The groundbreaking book Wintering by Katherine May might also come to mind. Think of the idea of wintering in terms of turfgrass. Much like many plants, trees, insects and animals, turfgrass (both warm & cool season) goes into dormancy during periods of stress. When conditions are not conducive to growth, these species embrace the darkness and descend into a time of rest and hibernation. They conserve energy, slow down their physiological processes and fully embrace seasonality. Take a moment and ask yourself… when was the last time I truly slowed down, on purpose, for a prolonged period of time? If you reflect on your own life and approach to work can you see an ebb and flow to the seasons? Do you take more than a week or two for vacation in the run of a year? What might your life look like if you embraced this idea of reduced effort and output for a whole season? James A. Pearson, (speaking of trees) in his poem Wintering “Every year they let go of exactly what everyone says is most beautiful about them to save their own lives.” As turfgrass systems go through this period of dormancy, they conserve themselves. They don’t try to force the issue and waste precious energy chasing continuous growth. Imagine if turfgrass never shut down, and instead attempted to grow no matter the conditions; in times of drought, in times of excess heat or cold, or even in times of excess moisture. If they never took their foot off the gas pedal and were always in a “growth mindset”, desperately trying to be better than the day before, they would eventually succumb to the excess output of energy. Instead, they listen to their biological processes and rest. They take the required time to heal from the rigours of the previous season. They give their internal physiology a chance to catch up and prepare themselves naturally for the season ahead. It’s funny how when we apply our hustle culture and grinding mentality to other species, it begins to seem counterintuitive. Remember that endless growth at all costs is embedded into our society via our current economic system and the workplace is where it all plays out. But to what end and at what cost? Obviously, as humans the idea of total hibernation is not realistic. But what if we embraced the slowness of the off season with more intention? How would we respond over the course of a whole year if we geared down and took our foot off the pedal for a spell? If we prioritized things like sleep, exercise, nutrition and our mental well being? Inevitably our busier season would be all the better for it. Our level of internal resilience would increase and we would be better prepared for the demands of the growing season. I know that some of you reading this post are uncomfortable already. The message from both our industry and the wider society is to keep pushing. The drive to succeed and continually improve is relentless. Believe me, I get it. I have lived from this place for most of my life and the effects have been challenging to say the least. But I also know the power of rest. I have directly experienced the miraculous feeling of intentionally carving out time for myself to reset my nervous system. I can still distinctly remember being on a week long, silent meditation retreat and taking a walk in the woods. At one point near the end of the walk, I stopped and placed my hand on a rock wall and wept. The main reason for the tears was simply because the entirety of my being realized how badly I needed this rest. This memory of finally recognizing my own vulnerability has stayed with me these years since. The off season is best regarded as a time for reduced effort and increased rest and reflection during which we can take more time to tend our own well being and that of our staff. By focusing on inner work, we can begin to get to know ourselves better. We can create the conditions for greater balance, by going more with the natural flow and applying heaps of self- compassion along the way. Ironically, by choosing to step back, tone our efforts down and create more space in our lives, we will begin to see that rest affords us the goodness we didn’t know we needed until we gave it an honest try. Thanks so much for reading.

Thanks so much for reading Paul.

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 consciousness back a number of years ago when I read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. Gladwell looked at the studies of various researchers who basically concluded that in order to become an expert at something, one needed to spend approximately 10,000 hours practicing. Now in the years following the books’ release some folks have questioned Gladwell's theory, but he has stuck to the premise that dedicated practice for roughly 10,000 hours definitely helped one achieve mastery over their craft. It wasn’t that you didn’t need to be innately talented or catch a few breaks along the way; it’s just that talent alone wasn’t the most important variable. The second time I stumbled the number came from my study of Taoism and basic mindfulness practice. There is a quote within Taoist text that basically states: "When you open your heart, you get life’s ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows” ~ Chuang Tzu The idea behind this quote is that it is only when we open to the fullness of life, in its totality, that we truly experience everything life has to offer. Nothing is held back or denied and we move to a place where we begin to develop a new relationship with all aspects of this life. As these ideas bounced around my head this past summer, I began to think about our jobs as golf course superintendents. One could definitely make the argument that it would take at least 10,000 hours of high quality practice to become a master greenkeeper. Surrounded by quality mentors, absorbing copious amounts of knowledge and practicing the craft with intention can bring us to a level of mastery that would rival an Olympic athlete. One could also postulate that we definitely have our fair share of joys and sorrows within the sphere of greenkeeping. Working with a living, breathing entity brings with it so many moments of joy and awe. On the flip side, working with an organic entity can also bring with it a fair share of difficult moments. Finding a level of balance and acceptance goes a long way to becoming a master of the craft. As I reflected on these ideas, I realised that there was also another idea at play here. It’s the 10,000 details. The sheer volume of things that occur behind the scenes every day that create the playing surfaces that so many of our clients enjoy. These things can range from interactions with our turf teams to how many minutes of water to set for the night. It can be evaluating the health of a tree to making sure that we are up to date on our cultural practices. It could be the countless early mornings getting the course ready for play or the hours of research you did to ensure the next project is a success. The list is endless and exhaustive. And it’s one that we probably don’t reflect on nearly enough. It can be so easy to just move from one day to the next and never pick our heads up. To simply be bogged down by the sheer volume of the never ending list. It’s only when we step back and view the 10,000 details from a wider perspective, it shows you just how much knowledge and wisdom you possess. So as this year slowly draws to a close, maybe it’s time for us all to pause and reflect on the 10,000 details. Reflect on all we do and all we accomplish in the run of a season. Pause and thank your team for all they have done to create the conditions for the experiences all our golfers enjoy. And offer yourself a small spoonful of gratitude. We are never ones to beat our own drum too loudly or trumpet our successes to the world, but it never hurts to step back and see all that you do sometimes. Take care and thanks for reading.

Thanks so much for reading Paul. Hope you find the necessary space and perspective to move forward. Paul

Sometimes in this life we have no choice in the matter. Events occur which upend our lives in such a monumental way that we have no choice but to change direction and begin anew. It could be a climate disaster that destroys your home and surrounding community. It could be the tragic loss of someone you love dearly or an accident that leaves you or someone you love personally injured and forced to relearn the basics of what it means to live on a day to day basis. No matter what the tragedy, you are confronted with the singular choice of having to rebuild your life and start again. Then there are the less dramatic events that still force you to start over. Things like job loss, having to move from your community or even the end of a relationship. These events may seem less dramatic in the grand scheme of things, but they still call into question what you thought was stable and push you to find a way forward. When you come up against things like this in your life, they demonstrate in real time that nothing in this life is stable. Nothing is guaranteed. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but the refrain remains the same…it all comes and goes. It can be helpful early on to practice acceptance. In doing so you confront the reality of impermanence and learn to accept that change is simply part of your life. If you live a life that works against this reality, then you suffer. If you learn to accept that change and impermanence are the way of the universe, then you begin to relax and lean into life with greater ease. Another thing that you can do is practice letting go. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing practice. You don’t have to wake up tomorrow morning and radically change everything about your life. Instead, it can be helpful to begin to notice the smaller ways you can just let things be. Notice the ways you try to constantly steer the ship and control things around you. Notice the tension this causes within your mind and body. When you can learn to loosen your grip on the smaller things, you are in better shape to respond more skillfully when the inevitable larger life stresses occur. So how do you navigate such shifts in your life? When in doubt, begin and end with kindness to self and others. Begin internally and work your way outward. Whether it’s your family, friends or larger community, a little bit of kindness can go a long way. Anyone could be suffering at any given time. When you rush to judgement or form an opinion too quickly, you cut yourself off from possibility. Leading with kindness creates space to more readily find your own start over point. Noticing these micro shifts in your life begins to show you that, in reality, you are constantly starting over. It can all feel static when you are living your day to day life, but if you step back and observe it from a short distance away, you begin to see that you actually are constantly changing and beginning again. Take your career for example: You are not the person who started out mowing greens on the weekends or trimming for hours on end. You are not the person who took a chance and went to college for a turf degree. You are not the person who interned, learned how to repair an irrigation leak or ran a crew on the weekend for the first time. You are not the new super who hired your first employee or inversely let the first one go. Rather, you are the sum of all those experiences. They have all led you to whatever stage of your career you currently find yourself. They have shaped you, but they don’t define you. At each of these stages, you had to start over. You had to let go of a small piece of who you thought you were and choose to start again. Each day is such an opportunity. Though you might not always be aware of it, you are constantly presented with the opportunity to start again, no matter where you are on the ladder. With mindful awareness you can remember that in fact, each moment, each breath holds this gem of an opportunity. No matter how bad things seem or how unsettling a scenario appears, you are there, with your breath as your companion. Breath training and mindful awareness can ensure you remain more even keeled. If you find yourself in the very difficult aftermath of a tragedy or simply struggling to find a truer version of yourself, remember this simple tool you can use at any moment. Breathe. That’s it. Just breathe. Pause, take a few deep breaths and allow yourself to settle in. Oftentimes the answers to the big questions are hiding in plain sight, and you just need to train yourself to pause long enough for them to be revealed. For many, the idea of starting over can be terrifying. You can question everything and are scared to death of what comes next. If you have opened to the idea that you don’t actually have to have the right answer, you don’t have to try and control your way out of the situation and you can relax and trust that things will work out then you find that you have more internal space. You are more open to what’s to come because you know that it’s the way life works. So in a funny kind of way you do get to choose. Every single time you are confronted with these events that feel thrust upon you, whether large or small, you get to choose how you respond to them. You may go off course more than once, and you may even desperately fall back into your old worn out habits. That’s ok… because in the next moment, you have the same choice. To pause, take a breath and start over again. Hard as it might sound, it really is this simple. Thanks for reading, Paul

That's great to hear Dave. I too wish that I had prioritized sleep more so as a younger super. I try to make it non negotiable now...or I pay the price. Thanks for reading paul

We all do it. We can’t live without it. We’ve been doing it since the day we were born and will continue to do so until our final breath. What I am talking about here is sleep. When you think about it, we spend slightly less than half of our lives practicing this craft. We each have our own idiosyncrasies and habits when it comes to what works best for us to hopefully achieve the proper amount of rest each day. It’s a part of our lives that is so completely undervalued and misunderstood, and yet we cannot live without it. As golf course superintendents and turf personnel, we are well acquainted with sleep… or consequently, the lack of it. It’s usually around the middle of our respective seasons that we begin to notice the cumulative effects of lack of sleep. We grind and grind, waking at ungodly hours and then push ourselves through the rest of the day. Unfortunately, this pattern does nothing but harm our overall health. Short of changing careers, there isn’t much we can do to avoid the early mornings, but there are things we can do to ensure this career choice doesn’t affect us negatively. I recently read a fascinating book on the subject of sleep called, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker. It was a sobering read for someone as chronically sleep deprived as me because in the book Walker clearly explained that all essential biological processes which support our overall well being are affected by the quality of our sleep. Things like our diet, emotional regulation, learning and decision making as well as the overall health and functioning of our internal organs are all supported by adequate sleep. Even the quality of our immune system and how quickly we heal from injury are impacted by how well we sleep. The dangers of poor sleep are also thoroughly outlined in this book. Ironically there aren’t many of today’s modern maladies that are not worsened by poor sleep habits. From cancer, to diabetes, to many psychiatric illnesses… the effects of poor sleep are linked to them all. Not to mention the wider societal implications of something as simple as decision making. Vital decisions are being made on a daily basis by many folks who are not at the top of their game simply because they aren’t sleeping properly. The other major issue that this book dealt with was how many accidents and fatalities are caused by fatigue and lack of sleep. The CDC shows that every hour in the US, someone is involved in a fatigue related accident. It’s odd how as a society we shame those who drive under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, yet many of us drive when excessively fatigued each and every day. Despite all of this our culture continues to glorify being busy all the time and we have normalized feeling exhausted as part of how the game is played. This hit very close to home this summer. A dear friend and colleague got a very upsetting call from his young adult son who was following him to work at the golf course for the weekend shift. Apparently he had fallen asleep, veered off the road, flipped the car multiple times and landed in the woods.Thankfully this young man walked away from the crash, but many are not so lucky. This sobering reminder of the dangers of driving while tired also hit me on an even more personal level. I drove the very same road on which this accident occurred countless times as a young man working my first assistant job. It was a grow- in gig and as I reflect back on it now, it’s only through some random chance that I didn’t fall prey to a similar accident all those years ago given that I too fell asleep driving that very same road but I quickly awoke before an accident occurred. So how are we, the turf community, to tackle this issue? The first step in finding a solution to any problem is to bring awareness and acceptance to the table. We first need to acknowledge that this is an issue. That’s a tough one, because ironically our industry does the opposite and tends to glorify the grind and the conditions that contribute to our poor sleep habits. It’s tough, believe me I know. I have worked my whole career in this industry and succumbed to the same harms as everyone else. Heck, I still fall prey to it and am feeling exhausted on a daily basis. For me, the most important step that I have taken recently is to actually prioritize my sleep. It has to get to the point where getting the requisite amount of sleep each day becomes non-negotiable in your own mind. This is both an internal and external process. You have to place your intention on the process and then create the external conditions which support it. This can be as simple as room darkening shades or a sleep mask or ear buds to help facilitate sleep while it is still bright outside or as drastic as sleeping in a room (or bed) of your own if you usually share a bedroom with a partner. Walker also presented some key things to focus on if you are interested in improving your sleep: Temperature control – our bodies need to drop 1-2 degrees internally to get a good nights’ sleep Darkness – we sleep better if the room we are in is in complete darkness Consistency – keeping a consistent schedule is very helpful Reducing stimulation – a wind down routine that is free from external stimulation (no screens) is key Physical exercise – regular exercise and a consistent stretching routine before bedtime go a long way to promoting quality sleep Quiet time – practices like meditation and reflection help to quiet our minds and help us to regulate our nervous systems which help us sleep more easily. The Nap – never underestimate the power of a solid nap. While we can’t control all the minutiae of our lives, we can do things which improve our health thereby improving our chances for longevity. Getting adequate sleep is one of the most important things we can do towards this end. The phrase “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” came up in the first chapter. Walker’s retort was, while that may be true, if we ignore our sleep the end may come a lot sooner than we wish. Sweet dreams! Thanks for reading, Paul

Absolutely Randy...except for staying awake all night to water part.

Thanks so much for the kind words Paul. I means a great deal. I love the mentality of acceptance when it comes to the weather and the game of golf. It really is just "part of the game that day" Take care Paul

If you ask anyone who works within the turf industry to give you a reason why they love working on a golf course, the answers may vary. Teamwork, dedication to the craft, the sense of pride in what a crew accomplishes, and attention to detail are common responses. But if you look across the spectrum of turf professionals, from Superintendents and Course Managers, to Assistant Superintendents and foremen/women, to Irrigation Technicians and yes, even Equipment technicians, one answer comes through more often than the rest… being outside in the early morning. When asked why greenkeeping is such a special craft, all of the above-mentioned folks invariably come back to the mornings. They get a faraway look in their eyes, and wax poetically about how special it is to be out on their respective courses just as the sun rises. It’s an ethereal thing, hard to pin down and even more difficult to explain. Something deep and serene touches many of us when we are out on a golf course early in the morning. There is a sense of solitude and inner peace as we watch a property shake the sleep from its eyes and wake to life. Listening to the birds and animals stirring, watching the dew glisten on the turf and wildflowers, and being quiet as the early morning fog burns off brings an almost spiritual quality the early hours. You embody a sense of presence most readily attuned to early in the morn. Being on a golf property while most of the rest of the world still sleeps has a special quality of quieting the mind’s usual chatter. There is an unspoken connection between all golf course workers which only reveals itself early in the morning. The stillness brings with it a sense of peace and ease, one that settles our nervous systems and allows a sense of clarity to emerge as the day begins. Ask any farmer, fisher or anyone who works in close connection to the earth and they will recognize the morning experience. There is something deep and ancient within us that becomes fully realized when we are quiet enough to listen to the land. When we are still enough to be fully present with the natural world, it opens us to a sense of connection with all. This is often times the part of the game that golfers don’t fully appreciate on a cerebral level, but deep down they know this connection to be true. Golf’s deep connection to the land extends back to the dawn of the game of itself. It’s a sport that has always been intertwined with the natural world and nature is an integral part of the game. The elements of wind, rain, and temperature each play a distinct role in how a course plays on any given day. The game itself hinges on the weather, and how well a player does on any given day is predicated on their ability to accept and play within the parameters that nature offers. The game has evolved in concert with nature. From the first bunkers being scraped out by burrowing animals looking for shelter, to the shifting nature of the dunes on the earliest links courses, the game in its purest form has always been in communion with the natural world. It’s also worth reflecting on this early natural connection with respect to the modern game and how we have come to manage our properties with all of the technology and inputs at our disposal. In the larger picture it bears considering, how well do we currently work in concert with nature? Are we bent on controlling all the elements and variables? Are we constantly seeking to almost remove the variance of nature from the equation? Are we willing to allow the rhythms of the natural world to dictate much of what we do or are we taking things too far and pushing our cultural practices and inputs beyond what is reasonable in order to satisfy unrealistic expectations? These are questions worth pondering as nature offers great beauty and sustenance to all living things. In order to honour these gifts we must pay closer attention to the rhythms the natural world moves to without any interference from us. So the next time you are out on the links as the sun rises, pause. Pause for a spell and breathe deeply. Feel the sense of presence and connection with both the natural world and all of your sisters and brothers who are all experiencing the same sunrise. Let this moment offer clarity and focus, and a sense that we are all in this together. Take care and thanks for reading.