TurfNet RADIO

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.

In this episode, we reveal how to get nitrogen, along with a short demonstration of the perfect job interview and included is an extremely in-depth segment of Unfiltered News.  Storytime is a conflagration of Homeowners hit by Balls and if you stay to the very end, you will be rewarded with information that might save your turf from thinning like my hair.

Frank Speaks at length with Professor William (Billy) Crow from the University of Florida about all things nematodes. How they work as a species? Where we find them? How to sample them? How do you know if you have a nematode problem? And what are the long-term effects of nematicide use?

Billy speaks Frankly about nematicide use in warm season turf and the challenges we face as an industry with managing plant parasitic nematodes and sustaining the many beneficial nematodes and arthropods vital to the soil food web. Billy’s efforts to improve sampling and diagnosis of plant parasitic nematodes has made the UF Nematode Lab an important resource for the turfgrass industry.

In this episode of Renovation Report, Brad Klein talks with golf course architect Nathan Crace of Watermark Golf in Magee, Mississippi, about how his diverse experience in the golf business has helped shape his career.

A native of Indiana and a graduate of Mississippi State University, Crace talks about his background that includes working construction for his father, club management and working with college golf teams across Mississippi have influenced his work as an architect and how he considers economics and sustainability when designing and renovating some of the top layouts around the Southeast.

Tyler Bloom, former golf course superintendent and current workforce development, recruiting and training specialist and entrepreneur, offers his insight into how the golf course industry, chapters, clubs and superintendents can best navigate the current shortage of assistant superintendent candidates.

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.

Frank Rossi speaks with Professor Jim Brosnan of the University of Tennessee on the rising concerns of herbicide resistant annual bluegrass and the national project attempting to understand this elusive plant.

Frank and Jim revive Resistance Radio and go deep on the nature of herbicide resistance and the multiple strategies plants develop to elude routine herbicide applications. Jim wonders why weed control is not approached like diseases and insects managed in turf.

The conversation expands to include other difficult-to-control weeds such as goosegrass, nutsedge and crabgrass. This is one of those episodes we will listen to in 10 years and wonder why we didn’t pay attention this critical issue sooner. As Jim so aptly quotes a leading researcher, “the answer to herbicide resistance is not going to come from a jug”.

Jess Atmore, golf course superintendent at Arbutus Ridge Golf Club in Cobble Hill, British Columbia, grew up on a golf course but took a non-traditional route to becoming a superintendent. With a recent need to fill an assistant position, he took another non-traditional route to hiring one. In another departure from the norm, he also manages his staff like a hockey team.

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.

Jaime Matthews spent 13 years as an assistant superintendent before burnout and family responsibilities dictated a change. He has been with Bartlett Tree Experts for two years now and loves the change... but still keeps his eye on the turf industry. "We use a lot of the same products but I now look up instead of down at the turf."