How Do You Do That Golf Course Maintenance?

It'll definitely be tough (maybe even impossible) to get the greens into the "ideal" condition, and I am not familiar with the course or what it's comprised of (grass-wise, drainage-wise, maintenance schedule), but depending on how the crew has managed their preparation of the course up until now, there might not be too terribly much of an impact (of course, that's comparative).If they have excellent drainage and a well constructed subsurface medium, the greens could still potentially roll at the same speed. If the greens have been readily top-dressed, aerated, rolled, and kept as dry as possible leading up to the tournament, they might be ready to rock n roll come tournament time. And I am sure they have already sprayed a growth regulator on the greens, as well as reducing fertilization to keep the greens from getting out of control. Is definitely an interesting situation though. If you're gonna watch it, id love to know your take on how the greens looked and played

Was just browsing turfnet.com, and saw that there's 2 courses in Rockville looking for Assistant Superintendents hahaha 

One of the most A-hole ish posts I've ever read on here.       

 I tend to think he is just being ignorant or that he has a personal vendetta against a particular golf course(s) or people that work there for whatever reason.... i could go on and on and on about everything that we do and why we do it and how, but it would take too long... to have the title at any golf course of Superintendent (or asst super) takes a ton of experience, patience, and knowledge..soooo many things u gotta plan and look for, not to mention having different plans of action if something comes up (tournament, mother nature, etc)... very in depth, time consuming job sometimes, but hey, I love what I do and just like I responded to him, it honestly doesnt affect me one little bit... say what ya want, cause at the end of the day, I'm doin what makes me happy thanks for the comment bro, have a good one

Golf Course Superintendent is a great job, especially at a good course.    I'd love to have that job myself.    I worked at a golf course as a grass cutter for a summer after high school.    

Good stuff bro! As with any other "boss" ( in this case, superintendent), theres always that "give and take" aspect to it. I have never been a superintendent but i was an asst super for a bit and have been around them long enough to know that there are benefits to being a superintendent that makes it sooooo much more worth it, and then there's that flipside that the SI has to deal with that no other boss at any other job would have to necessarily deal with.

It's actually really, I guess sorta weird/ironic as to how I ended up in the profession I am... so after my sophmore year of college, I needed to get a summer job to make some extra money, and my mom actually had given me the idea of applying at this golf course that's about 15 minutes from my house here in NC... one of my buddies in college was workin at a country club as one of the cart boys, and all i remembered was him comin back to the dorms after work with a big wad of cash that he got from tips... i was like, yeahhhh thats what ima do so i filled out the application online (as i went to college in FL) before the semester was over, but i dont ever remember there being  a specific "job title" for me to apply for... about a month or 2 later, the superintendent calls me up and in for an interview...he hired me on just as a seasonal crew member, and i had nooooo clue as to what I was doing.... had never done or even thought about that type of work before; hell, in college I majored in Physical Education haha... so I start off doin your basic "lower-level" jobs (weed-eatin, fly-mowin, pullin edges, stuff like that)... as the summer progressed I started to learn a little bit more, and started to like it more and more; and this is before I even mowed 1 damn thing! haha sort of a long story short (its prob already been long enough, sorry lol), over the next few summers id come home and go back to work there, and my responsibility and work-load started increasing... I ended up minoring in Horticulture, as well interned at a course near Wilmington, NC... interesting tidbit about that job ---> if you have ever been to a Wal-Mart that has a gas station, on the sides of the roof overlooking the gas pumps will say Murphy USA... the company's name that owned the course i interned at is called Murphy Family Ventures.. and it's the same company that's on the side of the wal-mart gas station roofs... The Murphy's house is actually located at the golf course too... had to do some landscaping for Mrs. Murphy around the house one time; good lord have mercy the house was ridiculously big lol

anyways, I graduated from college in december of the year i interned over the summer. I was lookin all over the place for a job, and my boss from the course here at my house calls me up 1 mornin and offers me a job (essentially the same type of work I had been doin, just a little bit of a raise now that i wasnt gonna be just seasonal), so obviously i was extremely grateful and stoked to go back there and work... did that for about a year and a half, or up until last june, when I accepted the asst super job up in MD... it was a great experience, i learned an absolute ton... but i did miss NC a lot, and the cost of living was way higher than it is for me here in NC now... so when my boss here in NC offered me the Spray Technician job here back in February, I accepted, and back here I am in NC again hahaha

The course I am working at now is called Old North State Club here in NC, if u wanna go to the website and check it out... we had been ranked #2 course in NC behind Pinehurst #2 Course for a whillllle, but I am not sure where we are at now, but still think we are in the Top 5... it was just weird and ironic how I started working golf course maintenance with the sole intention of making as much money for college as I could, and as it turned out, it ended up being my profession 

good grief, I just scrolled up and saw how much I just typed, my bad man hahaha

Finally looks like winter is past us, at least here in central NC... its been so cold that there are still places on the course that are not out of dormancy yet 

The great news is that, as with this week year in and year out, we host the Men's ACC Golf Championship at my golf course... we have been tryin to get the course in as prime time condition as possible... the practice rounds start tomorrow.... this week has always been a love/hate type thing for me every year... absolutely love the atmosphere of the ACC tournament being held here each year; gives me a sense of pride and honor... but along with that comes much more responsibility, esp the weeks leading up to it and ESPECIALLLLLLY the week of. We are doin our best; just hope everything holds up like I think it should.

There are miiiiiiighty fine lookin girls that come to watch the tournament as well (im sure most are girlfriends, sisters, etc.. not like it matters to me none ) hahahahaha

Nice to see someone who takes pride in what they do. That is a quality which is grossly lacking in the workforce today 

Cool idea man! I had never seen this thread until a day ago 

Keep up the good work. Like I said in my US Open thread, I'm gonna take you up on that offer one of these days buddy. 

Oh wow, wasn't really expecting any comments in here for when I got back from work today; just figured everybody would just let this thread die back again 

The ACC Tournament Practice Round was today... weather was FANTASTIC for it!! If anybody has any questions about the tournament, or anything we do within golf course maintenance, please feel free to ask 

Hugh, what I find "ironic" about the journey I have taken to be where I am doing what I love to do, is that when I first started working golf course maintenance (going on 9 years this year), I was simply looking for a way to make money to go back to college with. Hell, when I first applied, I had thought I was applying for one of the cart-boy positions long story short, the longer I worked out there in the blazing heat of summer, doing the "lower end" type of work starting out, waking up at 5am each morning (which is saying something cause in college, an early bedtime for me was 3am lol), it started to grow on me... and, to me personally, I thought that if I was okay with all of those things, and I enjoyed doing what I was doing, then I might wanna pursue it... and here I am today Thank you very much again for your comment bro; it really means a lot to me.

ad1260, Thanks for the comment bro! Hahaha no worries about not seeing the thread; from the time of my last post until my comment last night, I had debated on whether or not to comment any more or post links to more videos that we have made, just cause I didnt wanna clutter up the forum with a thread nobody read or cared about. The whole "How Do You Do That Golf Course Maintenance" idea just sorta sprouted outta nothin... the video of me demonstrating how to mow greens was our first video; and I remember at that time, I had no intention of necessarily making more... we were close to getting done with mowing that morning, had a little extra time, had wanted to make a video doing something to see how big of a hit it would be, and BOOM, thats how it started haha

Just like I said in your thread, you're more than welcome to come over here to play whenever ya want; obviously just gimme a little notice in advance haha The ACC Tournament Practice Round was today, and so tournament play will officially start tomorrow and run through Sunday. As soon as I submit this post, I'm gonna add ya as a friend on here so you can get ahold of me easier if you need to. Hope you are doing well bro 

StevenC, whats going on man?? I hope you have been doing well  Thanks for posting. I'm about ohhhhh, 1.5 hours give or take a little bit from Pinehurst. We had an Irrigation Tech about 5 years ago that had left being the IT at Pinehurst to be our IT. But he had a few younger children, and so they stayed down there to live, and would commute back and forth each day  finally got to be too much for him and he went back to Pinehurst... no idea why I felt like I had to mention that, but oh well hahahaha

I'll be honest with ya Steven, I am not completely sure how the conditions are there, currently. I mean, there is a reason why they have been the #1 golf course in NC for so many years. Shoot, I remember back when my golf course was ranked #2 behind them; it essentially was just as good of a feeling to be #2 behind Pinehurst as it would have been to be #1, just because thats how nice Pinehurst is and that nobody will overthrow them barring some huge accident lol I would most definitely imagine that the greens will be slick as glass and hard as a rock (one thing that could affect the conditions is just how their course was able to handle this years winter conditions)... I can tell you that, currently at my golf course, our greens are freakin slickkkkkkkk and hard as a freakin rock; and hell, we're only preparing for a tournament that's being played by a bunch of college kids hahaha... so, I'd think Pinehurt's conditions there will be much better than ours. Thanks again for your comment and questions. Please feel free to ask any questions you have; I love talking turfgrass and/or golf course maintenance 

Not sure if anybody is a fan of ACC Golf (or a specific team), but just in case, ima try and get ahold of my boss and find out the URL address to folow the tournament online... i remember last year, we would all rendezvous back at the shop once we were doing with our morning jobs and follow the tournament from that website. If I remember correctly, FSU had been woopin up all weekend... finally, on Sunday, all they needed to do to secure the win was make at least par on #18 (which is a Par 5 hole); and on top of that the team member that was in position to do that was their #1 golfer. We still talk about it at the shop sometimes, because we are still not sure how it happened; but the dude winds up like 4 putting and ended up triple bogeying the hole, costing them the ACC Tournament felt bad for the guy tho haha

Anywhoo, I'll post any info I find out for ya'll. 

I am not sure if anybody is reading this or who cares (no worries either way ), but if you go to the link that I posted in my comment above, it will take you to the official ACC Golf Championship webpage... from there, if you scroll down about halfway, you can stream live coverage of the tournament. The LIVE coverage for today starts at 2pm et, but you can watch some or all of yesterdays coverage. Just in case anybody wants to check out my golf course, or wants to watch the guys from the ACC play in their conference tournament 

I found some time right now free, so that's why I am posting. After a little bit I gotta go out and stay behind the last group of golfers and mist off the greens to cool them off and keep them from dryin up. If you so happen to watch the live coverage this afternoon, and it gets to the last group of golfers, I should be somewhere right behind them getting ready to water the greens. If I get a good opportunity, I'll try to "video-bomb" the live coverage to say what uppppp to the camera; so be looking for that 

As of this morning, there were only THREE teams out of the whole conference who were above par as a whole....

And, out of the 60 total individual golfers playing in the tournament, only 13 of them are above par 

And right about now would be when the sense of satisfaction creeps over me 

I'll shut up now hahaha Hope everybody's having a good weekend