It’s my second year working in the maintenance department at a golf course and I have seen enough to know we likely have quite a few guys in the Nest that are also doing the daily grind.
I would love to hear some stories or even just updates about what you’re working on or the project going on behind the scenes at your courses ! If this already has a thread then please point me in that direction !
@sundaybag Don’t feel obligated but I know that you either know the thread I’m looking for or could be the right guy to jump start this into a community of sharing some different knowledge.
Our course just did our aeration and top dressing in a 24 hour period, spent 15 hours laying sand in 2 days and 23.5 total hours worked. I know in my area there isn’t a large NLU fandom in my area but I know the boys and girls out there are feeling my exact grind.
We had to repair the back of one of our greens and this was my first solo grow in without supervision.
The next project is an entire nursery green that just popped. Will have pictures tomorrow !
My home course hosts a college tournament every October. Unfortunately, due to this, last fall they had to wait until after the tournament to do a major green drainage project. The project was needed due to the fact that when It rained, the greens drained so bad that the cups would be full of water. We were all told that they would be playable immediately. Unfortunately, it took until the middle of the summer for the lines to even be halfway gone. After our fall airation, they are finally almost all gone. They completely ruined my confidence putting for about 6 months unfortunately. Now the course is definitely better off for it though!
Now, if they would just cut back some damn trees……
This is GOOD stuff
One of my favorite jobs I’ve ever had was working for a nice course in college. I left when I transferred but it was awesome to start early enough to work full time with online and afternoon classes and be around the course all day. It was AZ and we had an early start I had time for the rest of my life. Some days I wish I was 10 years younger and still able to scrape by mowing greens and being happy just getting by lol. Life was much less stressful then.
Will say one thing for now. If you hate spring/fall aeration as a player/member, volunteer your services for the labor side of it. Will it help? Maybe, but you’ll also learn to hate it in a different way
Someone got in shit for that, or worse I would have to bet. We did a few projects last fall and even in fairways we tried to be as anal as we could with levelling. Hopefully next season it’s in better condition than ever and you can roll your rock with confidence.
Yeah it really is a younger man’s game if you’re doing the real labour on course, but doing it gives that true respect and perspective of how we get to play this game and the ridiculous amount of labour that goes into it.
I’ve had sand in places a don’t need or want sand for 3 straight days now, those fools don’t know what they don’t know.
For sure. Also one of those jobs where the pay doesn’t reward the expectation in most cases. Takes advantage of a good individuals passion for doing it
Yeah. They even did a deep tyne this spring and it didn’t save all of them. They finally got it by hand seeding every seam they had left. Crossing my fingers that tree trimming is this fall’s project!
Yeah it’s something I’m going to be pretty upfront with to owners that I interview with, the budget has to account for paying staff a wage that fits the labour of the job. I’ll spend my career at a single course if the owner respects the staff and pays the accordingly.
Fall/Winter is tree time so I would bet you’re in for good news come spring !
We had every single ash tree on property killed off in the last few years so we have 200 trees to down each winter for the foreseeable future.
Sand and cores
everywhere
I was lucky we only did a solid punch and not hollow so we only had to manage to get a tonne or so of sand into each green.
We started punching at 2pm and laid sand until 630, went 6-5 the next day as well and had 20 greens punched and filled in 26 hours. Griiiinding
