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
Thanks to modern wearable technology, it's possible for the average technoid to quickly identify and nullify harmful stress triggers.
Just cleverly mate an advanced wristwatch with your hand computer and reap the benefits! For more info, watch the following short film.
It’s early Thursday morning as I write this, not yet 48 hours after our vet came to the house, sat on the floor with us and dispatched our much-loved Frosty to the Rainbow Bridge. It was exactly eight years after his Gotcha Day, a day when both his and our lives changed dramatically for the better.
Early on, even on Gotcha Day, Frosty established himself as my wingman. This was on the drive home after picking him up from the transport, December 3, 2016.
I am due to record
There are subtle clues that surface when one is nearing a career shift or even retirement phase. These clues, often manifested by certain actions or statements normally suppressed during peak career, can become visible during what Rockbottum CC scholars call "Too Much Time In The Saddle". Here are a few examples*, along with a short training film, circa 2016.
Fester N. Boyle, Green Chairman, approaches while you are hastily repairing a giant irrigation break and says, "Willy, you're almos
This episode of Rockbottum Radio is a hybridized Podcast/Radio Show starring Mark Hoban, the Jedi Master of golf turf. He forced his way into our studio and demanded we tell the truth about his USGA Metrics Ball methods and results. We managed to trick him into going to lunch early so we could complete the show and slip in a bonus Story Time.
Presented by DryJect.
Randy mentions the film, Chasing Rivermont, with Mark Hoban. We embedded it below:
This year's Halloween film is Can We Stop . . . "THEM?"
Last year's film, "In The Back Of The Night" was deemed too scary for normal golf folk, so we toned it down to just mildly terrifying this year.
NOTE: Ludell, as presented here, is not real. He is AI, which is part of the message of the film.
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 a
Are you sure you're working in the right job? Take the Official Rockbottum CC Aptitude Test and find out exactly where you belong in the golf industry.
Scenario #1 You are repairing an irrigation break in the middle of the fairway on a crowded Friday afternoon in the heat of August. Several greens are burning. Golfers repeatedly demand that you move, as you are in great danger. Do you:
A. Move to the left rough and cower behind a tree.
B. Fearlessly remain in the center of
In this episode, old Boof hijacks the radio show and skillfully forces RW to answer questions he has long avoided, like Dad's most guarded turf secret. Storytime features one of Momma's favorite stories, specially adapted to the season we find ourselves in now.
Ryan Young, intern at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland, finishes up his conversation with Brian McDonagh, Head Greenkeeper at Lahinch. Topics include working with the weather, EU regulations, managing green speed for the clientele and weather conditions, and what has kept Brian at the top of his game for 25 years.
"Stressure" That's what happens when you combine job stress with August. In order to counter stressure, we look forward to autumn, early winter and family time during the upcoming holidays.
Here at The Rock, we have a tradition that involves looking back in order to survive the last few weeks of summer: We reach into the vault and share video artifacts from way back. Not only will this stabilize your brainwaves, but folks brand new to golf can learn what to expect during a typical da
A short time ago, I was catching up with a superintendent friend at an association event. It’s still peak season for us northern turfers, and I could see the fatigue in his eyes. We spoke about the demands of the job, the hours, and the exhausting, never-ending and unobtainable pursuit of perfection.
“I’m tired,” he confessed.
“Then do something else.”
“I don’t know what else I would do,” he shrugged.
I’ve heard the same thing from so many other superintendents over the years. Peop
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, an
Ryan Young, intern at Lahinch Golf Club, chats with Head Greenkeeper Brian McDonagh about his 25 year tenure — including an unexpected twist that led to it — and the challenges of maintaining the world famous Irish links course.
Have you noticed an increase in rainfall amounts? Here at Rockbottum CC, we are convinced it's due to cloud-seeding carried out by companies like SOAR or Seeding Operations Atmospheric Research. Just like steroids have side effects, when a storm gets all artificially jacked up, stuff happens: Heavy rain, more wind damage and . . . lightning.
That's why we at Rockbottum CC are leading the way in the area of Lightning Detection.
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
Utility locates are a common and essential part of any groundskeepers’ work. Contacting the locate entity for whatever state you are in is standard before any digging on site. While I understand and wholeheartedly support the rationale for utility location, the actual results have a significant impact on my operation. This impact is rarely acknowledged by the locate entity or my own stakeholders. For every locate request the usual result is a yard full of flags. The purpose of the flags is fine
Things get a little touchy at Rockbottum Country Club as all sorts of factors converge to create a divisive, unstable golf course environment. Economic pressures mount, new regulations choke the workflow and another screenager joins the crew, driving Momma to the point of madness. Okay, maybe it's just a short putt.
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
Need help improving your social media presence? Learn Rockbottum Country Club's technique for concealing secret subliminal messages in every post, thereby forcing instant compliance and loyalty upon your audience. (Just like CNN)
