I had just watched and read Adam Garr's latest blog post/video (Rise Above) a week or so ago, in which he lamented the demise of Turf Twitter into a "cesspool of contrarians and armchair quarterbacks". Frankly, I had not seen much of that in turf-related social media content, maybe because I typically don't read the comments. I have found across the board that's where the trolls reside, the vitriol festers, the arguments start, where the grenade-launchers hide in the weeds... and I have no interest in reading that.

As I do every morning, I opened up Twitter/X to scout for content for our Turf Blog and Social Aggregator e-zine. In my feed was a video from a very good superintendent at a top club in the northeast, whom I know and consider a friend. The video showed five guys in formation using walk spreaders to topdress a green. Hey, that's cool, I thought to myself, wondering if all but the last guy in line had to empty his shoes at the end of each pass.

I noticed that there was a comment and for some reason I clicked on it. I was greeted by this, posted in lower-case text-speak by a superintendent from a state adjacent to that of the video poster:

My teeth almost dropped out of my mouth. Am I really seeing this? One golf course superintendent to another? Lazy f%#k? I was absolutely incredulous. Gobsmacked.

Am I really seeing this? One golf course superintendent to another? Lazy f%#k?

One of the things that I have always enjoyed about the golf turf industry is that we have traditionally conducted business and ourselves true to the traditions of the game: honesty, respect, proper decorum. We have historically taken the high road, particularly regarding respect for our peers. We help rather than denigrate each other. As our mothers probably told us, if we don't have something good to say, we don't say anything.

Once I gathered myself, I did reply nicely to the guy with the obvious chip on his shoulder, suggesting that he take a few deep breaths and then read/watch Adam's blog/video, in which he extols positive interactions and rising above the loud voices of the turf trolls and contrarians.. In hindsight, I might have also suggested that the bitter, disgruntled one consider a career change, as he is obviously unhappy in his.

There are a few lines in my favorite treatise, Desiderata, written almost a hundred years ago by Max Ehrmann, that are apropos to this topic:

"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself... Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time..."

My late friend Jerry Coldiron, CGCS, once described being a golf course superintendent as an "often lonely and sometimes cruel profession". And he was both an optimist and a realist. Jerry passed away in 2017, before the pandemic, so never experienced the depths of loneliness (realized or not) that have plagued our society — and indeed the superintendent profession — since.

Superintendents need each other, and salespeople (and the media) too. The golf turf industry has been self-policing — self-purging of the assholes, if you will — over the years. We have to staunchly resist allowing interpersonal communication to devolve into profane personal attacks. Those doing it need to be called out on it. 

The high road is the backbone of the golf course industry. Let's not do this low road stuff, or tolerate it from others. If we lose the decorum, the respect, the manners... we have lost a lot, and it's impossible to get back.