TurfNet Podcasts

In this episode of Me Maintenance, Peter McCormick chats with Stuart Butler, host of HWOM the Podcast and newly minted Head Greenkeeper at Westgate and Birchington Golf Club on the southeast coast of England.

Leaving a 20-odd year stint as a senior greenkeeper at Royal St. Georges Golf Club and with it the type of work/life balance that many in the industry crave, Stu took over a job that until recently he thought he'd never want. Just six weeks in, Stu says it’s the best decision he has ever made in his professional career.

"I will certainly have less time with my family and more pressure but I’m loving work again. It’s a test but in a good way."

For more than 30 years, David Fruchte has been superintendent at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina, the site of this year's U.S. Women's Open, which once was owned by LPGA legend Peggy Kirk Bell. A graduate of the turfgrass program at Purdue, Fruchte learned the trade from the legendary David Stone at the Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Since 1990, Pine Needles has become the epitome of resort golf in the highly competitive North Carolina Sandhills region.

 

In this episode of All Stars of Turf, Fruchte discusses what it takes to enjoy such a lengthy career at the same property that included being the four-time host superintendent of the U.S. Women's Open, including this year's event. Fruchte also talks about what it was like working for Bell, an LPGA legend and pioneer in instruction and introducing the game to thousands of women.

 

Fruchte also opens up about the challenges of post-pandemic golf that includes record rates of play and historic labor challenges.

The big question on the turf industry's mind after the epic 2016 Ryder Cup Matches at Hazeltine National Golf Club (Chaska, MN) was, "Where's (senior assistant superintendent) Ryan Moy gonna go?" Turns out the answer was one just about nobody expected: Head Groundskeeper for the Minnesota United Football Club at the still under-construction Allianz Field in St. Paul and their training grounds in Blaine, MN.

Once Ryan settled in there he was followed by former Hazeltine interns Mitch Ronning and Peter Braun to form the core of the MNUFC groundskeeping team. We at TurfNet got to know Peter when he was the 2014 TurfNet Intern in Ireland, working at the Mount Juliet Resort.

TurfNet salutes Ryan, Mitch and Peter as Rising Stars of Turf for both their excellent past work in golf course maintenance but also their future in sports turf. This chat with Peter McCormick gives a fascinating glimpse into the career transition from a major golf event for Ryan, the culture shift from golf to sports turf, and the experiences they've had during their years with MNUFC at Allianz Field.

Presented by Earthworks and DryJect.

For parts of four decades, Ralph Kepple has been the caretaker for the historic home course of the late Bobby Jones. A graduate of Ohio State, Kepple was named superintendent at East Lake Golf Club in 1992 and since 2018 has been the club’s director of agronomy. During that time, East Lake has been synonymous with the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship for 21 years.

In this episode of All Stars of Turf, Kepple talks about the keys to career longevity and some of the changes that have occurred at East Lake during its time as the the final stop on the Tour schedule. Chief among those changes have been a conversion from bentgrass putting surfaces to ultradwarf Bermudagrass following a brutally hot summer leading up to the 2007 tournament and the infamous reversing of the nines on the Donald Ross design in advance of the 2016 event, as well as an upcoming restoration project by architect Andrew Green.

Although East Lake occupies an important place in the game's history, it also plays an important role off the golf course through the work of the East Lake Foundation, the goal of which is to help revitalize one of Atlanta’s historic neighborhoods.

In this episode of Me Maintenance, Peter McCormick chats with Steve Cook, CGCS MG, Director of Grounds at Medinah Country Club in Chicagoland, about his life-changing experience climbing Ama Dablam, a 22,000' Himalayan peak in Nepal in 2016. Integral to the project was a fund-raising effort for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, for which Steve raised $35,000.

From the three years of mental preparation and physical training to the month-long trek and ascent itself, Steve recounts his motivations, personal desires, triumphs and satisfactions, mistakes made and lessons learned along with his changed worldview and perspective about life and the golf industry.

A fascinating conversation  withan individual who is always climbing higher in life.

For more than 15 years, Mark Hoban has built a career of promoting a sustainable and minimalist approach of managing golf course turf at Rivermont Golf Club in Johns Creek, Georgia. At age 67, he insists he is only getting started.

Hoban, who prepped under Palmer Maples at the nearby Standard Club, uses biologicals, homemade compost tea and other organic nutrients to promote healthy turf and soils that require very little fungicides and are naturally resistant to disease pressure. 

Through the use of several species of native grasses he has eliminated 30 acres of irrigated turf. Those native areas attract wildlife and he manages bees with the recent addition of an on-site apiary.

Hoban first became interested in sustainability while working for Maples and has further developed his practices largely through research conducted in the agricultural industry.

Hoban's work was brought into the public eye in 2014 through Randy Wilson's video series "Chasing Rivermont" that appeared on TurfNetTV. His work has since won acclaim at the state and national level, and Hoban says none of what he has accomplished would have been possible without the support of Rivermont owner Chris Cupit.

Tyler Guy, golf course superintendent at Signal Mountain Golf & Country Club near Chattanooga, TN, joins Peter McCormick to add his take on "Work/Life Balance" to the ongoing "Assistant Situation" conversation.  After speaking in generalities for about half an hour, Tyler went on a tear so we cut right to that.

The Assistant Situation conversation continues with "three old bald guys", Kevin Ross, Rick Tegtmeier and (almost bald) Peter McCormick. Both career superintendents and industry veterans, Kevin and Rick discuss points made in previous roundtables and add their own from their experience climbing the career ladder and managing staffs and budgets.

Peter McCormick goes 1:1 with Jordan Kitchen, golf course superintendent at Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Ancaster, Ontario.

The second in a series of roundtable discussions on "the Assistant Situation": a dearth of applicants for open assistant superintendent positions, a lack of upward mobility for existing assistants, and a life/work/compensation imbalance within the industry.