TurfNet Podcasts

In this first "It's not just about growing grass" segment of TurfNet All Stars of Turf, we recognize Scott Dodson, CGCS, and John Taylor. Both career superintendents but perhaps better known as the founders of the Golf Course Hockey Challenge, an annual 2-day/4-game tournament that attracted as many as 16 teams of hockey playing superintendents, assistants and suppliers over a 25+ year run. Dodson...

Jordon Bowling found his calling into turfgrass management a little later than most, at 22 with a six-month old son to boot. His brother-in-law, Chad Kuzawa, was an NC State turf grad making the rounds of some clubs in the southeast and convinced Jordon to visit from his home in Michigan and shadow him for a couple of days. That set things in motion. He enrolled in the turf management program at W...

Chad Allen, finishing up his first year as golf course superintendent at the Club at Chatham Hills near Indianapolis, IN, has a unique background and training as a substance abuse and addiction counselor prior to shifting to turf management. A recent attendee of both Green Start and the Syngenta Business Institute, Chad employs a "bottom up" management style that centers on listening to and engagi...

Jared Viarengo of Applebrook Golf Club in Malvern, Pennsylvania, bucked a trend early in his career by also becoming general manager at the club in eastern Pennsylvania. Since then, Viarengo's role has expanded as the club's director of grounds and director of club operations.  In this broadcast, Viarengo discusses how his career started in the field of psychology and how he eventually return...

Our latest Rising Star of Turf is J. Richard Brown, newly minted golf course superintendent at Florence (SC) Country Club. Richard got the nod for the Florence job after ten years "apprenticeship" in the South Carolina golf market, starting with five years at various courses in Myrtle Beach before becoming the senior assistant at Orangeburg Country Club, where he remained for the ensuing five year...

Some career superintendents make their marks by hosting major tournaments or pushing the agronomic envelope, while others quietly go about their business of growing great grass while also navigating the potholes and pitfalls that invariably spring up over time. John Carlone, CGCS, has done that over 37 years as a golf course superintendent at two clubs in one of the toughest markets in the industr...

Sean Tully of the Meadow Club in Fairfax, California, has made a name for himself as a fan and ultimately an expert on classic-era golf course architecture, particularly Alister MacKenzie designs. The Meadow Club, where Tully is director of grounds maintenance, is in fact the first course in North America designed by MacKenzie and one of several in Northern California. Tully's expertise in the fie...

In this episode of Me Maintenance, Peter McCormick chats with Zach Bauer, golf course superintendent at the Valley Country Club in Centennial, Colorado, just southeast of Denver. Zach had gone into this year on the heels of myriad construction/renovation projects (both golf course and clubhouse) with depleted groundwater, very dry soils and dessicated turf. Coupled with the short staffing and incr...

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 re...

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 Ne...

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 B...

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...

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 a...

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...

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.

In response to a furor of sorts on Twitter after comments made by Steve Cook, CGCS MG, of Medinah Country Club, were posted, we decided to host a series of roundtable discussions to dig further into the topic. This is the full version of the discussion.

In response to a furor of sorts on Twitter after comments made by Steve Cook, CGCS MG, of Medinah Country Club, were posted, we decided to host a series of roundtable discussions to dig further into the topic. This is the condensed version of the discussion.  

To say Nate McKinniss is on the career fast track would be an understatement of almost immeasurable proportions. McKinniss, 27, is the golf course superintendent at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, where Job 1 is keeping the course what he called “Golden Bear ready.” That's a nod to Jack Nicklaus, who designed the course, has a home there and is the host of its biggest event, the PGA T...

Steve Cook has had a career laced with high profile tournaments, including two U.S. Amateurs, a Ryder Cup, and a PGA Championship while at Oakland Hills, and a BMW Championship in 2019 at Medinah Country Club. Yet to him, a career should be more about contribution than achievement. He has mentored and graduated many assistants onto their own successful superintendent careers, and takes great...

Mike Lecavalier has been the golf course superintendent at the Kanawaki Golf Club in Montreal, Quebec for 17 years. For 13 of those years, and quite a few prior, he had a serious alcohol problem. Almost four years ago he looked himself in the mirror and admitted to himself that he needed help, and turned to friends, then AA, and ultimately the gym and a personal trainer. Here is his story.

Peter McCormick visits with Paul B. Hurst, husband of Kristi, father of Nicholas, Madison and Molli, dogfather of Lyla, man of many hats, guitar-playing half of MidLife acoustic duo, instructor in the multi-part So, You Want to Be a Sales Guy video series, honoree of a 2021 TurfNet Jerry Coldiron Positivity Award, and arguably the Most Interesting Man in Turf. They ch...

In this special episode of Frankly Speaking, Frank Rossi chats with four influencers in the golf turf industry about how they manage their lives, health and careers through purposeful mindfulness. Frank's guests include Peter McCormick, founder of TurfNetDavid Kuypers, Syngenta CanadaPaul MacCormack, Fox Meadow Golf & Country ClubChris Tritabaugh, Hazeltine National Golf Club Spend an hou...