Introduction to Turfgrass Management, Golf Course Design and Construction , Turfgrass management and Irrigation, & Golf Course Management
“There is a split between students that like to play golf and students interested in horticulture, but I think that sometimes there’s a blend of both. I think that it is important to be able to play golf, to understand the rules and the concerns of the players.”
“Most students are surprised by how much math there is. There’s math that has to go with how much product is needed for a certain area. There’s math to calibrate sprayers and spreaders to help apply those products correctly. There’s math to determine how much water is needed for a certain area.”
“I want my students to be able to answer four questions: I want them to be able to tell somebody what type of grass they should plant, what type of fertilizer they should use, how to control the weed, and how to fix a bare spot. And a bare spot is always an interesting question at a cocktail party or something like that – we should all be able to come up with a reason for a bare spot that someone else didn’t come up with.”
“I don’t really play golf. I’m not really a self-starter when it comes to golf. I get plenty of invitations from old students to come play their golf courses, because they’re so proud and want me to see how they’ve learned, and that they’ve upped their game, and [are] much more appreciative than they were in class sometimes.”
“There are all different types of golf courses, for all different types of budgets, for all different types of players. A person needs to decide if they’re going to be interested in a cool-season putting green, like creeping bent-grass, or a warm-season putting green, like Bermuda grass. And then there’s different golf courses that they could enter – they could be on a resort course, a country club course, or a municipal course – and [students] should begin getting their experience in the course they want to end up at.”
“What a difference a day can make. How much change you can bring to an area, and how the plants respond to the management you give it. A lot of people say that plants grow in search of water and nutrients, but plants respond. They respond to the management we give them, they respond to the mowing, they respond to the water, they respond to the light. So any way somebody can say a plant is searching for something, a person could say it’s responding to something.”
