Is etiquette dead?
At times, it might seem that way. An increased number of ball marks, divots, cart traffic, unraked bunkers, and golfers behaving badly in the last four years have pushed superintendents—and, at times, their sanity—to the tipping point.
Poor etiquette on the golf course is nothing new. For as long as golf has existed, there have been people who don’t abide by the rules. The infractions are just more amplified now, as superintendents take to social media for the “airin
We spend so much time focusing on turf health during the summer, it’s easy to forget that we must take care of ourselves in the process.
With much of the country experiencing record heat this summer, it’s important to keep your body hydrated and your electrolytes replenished when you’re working under the sun all day. In the United States alone, each year more than a half million people are hospitalized for dehydration. Of those, nearly 10,000 of them will never walk out of that hospital al
When the golf season really gets cranking, sometimes we lose touch with our center — the things we hold most dear, and those things that keep us balanced and grounded.
Let’s face it, the further we get into peak season, the more time we end up spending on the golf course, and away from our centers. We become off-balanced the more the course calls to us louder than our family, friends, and passions.
In this episode of Trailing Thoughts, I drives into the heart of New York City on a pict
So much of a turf manager’s job happens beneath our feet. Dry spots, insect damage, diseased and trafficked turf—we spend a lot of our day looking down. Looking for the next problem.
If we spend too much time looking for problems, we run the risk of getting mired in the negative. The job starts to feel like “work.” It begins draining us of our energy. We forget what drew us here in the first place.
We must remind ourselves to LOOK UP. Find something that takes you back to that moment
The internet has become an ugly place over the years. Take Turf Twitter, for example. What once was a bastion of idea sharing and supporting one another has turned into a cesspool of contrarians and armchair quarterbacks.
In this episode of Trailing Thoughts, I reflect on the current state of social media as I summit Emory Peak, the highest point in Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA. Along the way I offer advice based on my own experiences on social media, encouraging positive interaction
The bloodiest single day in American soil didn’t happen on 9/11 and it wasn’t at the bombing at Pearl Harbor. It occurred across a rolling piece of farmland in northern Maryland, known today as Antietam National Battlefield.
Perhaps the most iconic location at Antietam is Burnside’s Bridge. For more than three hours, General Ambrose Burnside repeatedly sent his men to attack a fortified position across a narrow bridge against a much smaller force. His stubbornness to reconsider his tactics
What makes a team a winning team?
As demonstrated by the 2023–24 Detroit Lions, building a winner begins with the complete buy-in from the team’s high performers. The team’s core shares the same work ethic, attitude and goals of the organization. While this Lions team came up a little short of their goal, they remain poised to be successful for years to come as long as they remember the core strengths that got them there.
The best teams in golf course maintenance are built like a succe
Our lives, much like a river carving through a canyon, are never on a set path. If you aren’t happy with the direction your life is going, you can always change the flow of your river.
A year ago, I found myself mired in a job that I found to be morally at odds with my personal values and unfulfilling on a professional level. I traveled to Big Bend National Park in Texas, hoping to unplug from turf for a while and reflect on my career and my life path.
In Santa Elena Canyon I watched t
