There are a number of great things about the Golf Course Superintendent life, but one special benefit is hidden and doesn't surface during the early phase of your career.
It just sneaks up on you over time.
Check out this film from Rockbottum Country Club to see if you've already found it.
Pruning is an essential horticultural task in all grounds management operations. We prune to control growth, promote flowering, improve aesthetics, and remove dead/dying plant parts, etc. Pruning on a small scale is relatively easy and will not usually be disruptive to the overall maintenance operation. But what happens when you are on a 1000+ acre campus and the magnitude of pruning exceeds the labor resources you can throw at it?
Poor plant selection and years of poor pruning
Nick Colombo continues his internship VLOG from Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore. Nick chats with Rod Mckeown, golf course superintendent, about the "12-stage" aerification, cleanup and amendment process used at Sentosa.
Because a great many TurfNet villagers have never seen "Techno-Phobia", we gave a wad of money to a techno-shaman to resurrect a dead hard drive containing the film. Dating back to 2006, Techno-Phobia is a collection of harsh predictions for the golf industry that have since come true.
We re-released it for several reasons, the first being our reply to golf industry writers--with no experience as superintendents--who doggedly preach the glorious future of tech while simultaneously attempti
Rockbottum CC is overrun with unrepentant coffee snobs. Momma, Willy, and Ludell drink only one brand of coffee and only through a stainless steel French Press.
Exactly what coffee Momma buys has been classified for years, but recent security leaks threaten to reveal our dark secret to the unwashed public, especially those consumers of instant, freeze -dried and that stuff that came in C-Rations.
To get ahead of the story, we released this short film, before Buddy could put his spin
In this short film, Willy of Rockbottum reveals the real reason you might not want to skip pulling cores this year.
Also, Rockbottum News will avoid controversy this summer and stick to kinder, gentler subjects like . . . those pro tour cupcakes, the ugly rumors that golfers are demanding the return of tee clutter, and the truth behind the uptick in golf course fightin' and brawlin' and harsh language.
The identity of the Greenkeeper has always been one of adaptation and evolution. From Old Tom Morris, to Bill Murray’s lovable Caddyshack character, Carl Spackler, to our present day incarnation, Superintendents and Course Managers have moved out of the back shed into the boardroom. Our roles within the structure of our clubs and courses have grown over the years and in many cases seen us become key players in the overall vision within our properties.
Within the framework of this evolution,
Nick Colombo joins us as our 2023 Greenkeeping, the Next Generation intern, this year in video format from Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore. Nick will be at Sentosa for six months under the auspices of The Ohio Program and Mike O'Keeffe.
A native of Columbus, Ohio, Nick is a recent graduate of Ohio State ATI in Wooster, OH, where he was president of the Turf Club. Prior to attending ATI, Nick worked on the renovation of Muirfield Village Golf Club and at Old Elm Club. Nick is an avid hockey f
Rock trouble on the golf course can be a real challenge. From granite outcroppings in the fairways to boulders in the wrong place, rock can be . . . hard. On several courses near Stone Mountain, Georgia, we battled turf-killing, reel-dinging, golf ball flinging, tine-breaking, PVC-rubbing rock for decades. The rock always won.
Even the giant excavators were impotent when facing big, hard rock. Oh, sure, we tried dynamite, but golf course neighbors had a tendency to complain and call the
In this episode of Rockbottum Country Club, (the longest running webisode on the whole dang internet) Momma updates Uncle Boof with a safe and effective booster.
In my last post, Just Enough, I explored the idea that the ethos of authentic links greenkeeping practices might be a path worth studying as we move forward in the age of climate change. As we examine our industry post pandemic, can we simplify and return to the roots of our craft? Can we honestly look at our industry as a whole and begin to ask the difficult questions that are in such dire need of answering?
As I was writing that last piece, I stumbled across a quote from a teacher of min
Local governments are managed by different types of relationships between elected representatives and appointed/hired staff. There are several types that basically take the place of executive/legislative branches and divide power amongst these various parties. One variation of this government is known as the “strong mayor” system where the mayor has almost total administrative authority with discretion to set priorities, establish budgets and decide most personnel decisions. While the city counc
A few days ago, I discovered people have been using digital filters to enhance their online appearance and dating marketability. This is pure deception, as some of these filters are capable of structural alteration, moving facial bones around like some kind of tikkity-tok plastic surgeon.
Online filters remind me of something that happened decades ago, during my first tour as an assistant superintendent. We were in an inflationary economic cycle and it was fiscally necessary to have a roo
On my way to BTME in England this past January, I was lucky to have a layover day in Dublin, Ireland. I was even more fortunate to have a good friend, TurfNet’s own, Jon Kiger, as a tour guide and facilitator of good times. We experienced a wee bit of history and culture (and yes a pint or two of Guinness) but the tour that has stayed with me most from that day was our stop at Portmarnock Golf Club.
Founded in 1894 and located on a peninsula just outside Dublin, it was everything a proper l
In this episode, Ludell is accused of embarrassing behavior at BIGGA, Boof tries to win a women's golf tournament and RW discusses modern tournament cup-changing methods.
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
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
