Turfnet Radio

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 Needles has become the epitome of resort golf in the highly competitive North Carolina Sandhills region.   In this episode of All Stars of Turf, Fruchte discusses what it takes to enjoy such a lengthy career at the same property that included being the four-time host superintendent of the U.S. Women's Open, including this year's event. Fruchte also talks about what it was like working for Bell, an LPGA legend and pioneer in instruction and introducing the game to thousands of women.   Fruchte also opens up about the challenges of post-pandemic golf that includes record rates of play and historic labor challenges.

In this episode of Rockbottum Radio, Rockbottum CC's latest hire prefers to work from home, inflation takes a toll on course operations, and RW shifts his customer emphasis from thrifty golfers to the elite class.  A run-in with royalty leads RW to wonder how we got here.

Frank speaks with Professor Chase Straw at Texas A & M about precision irrigation management by understanding soils, distribution issues, and digital irrigation management using remote sensing and soil moisture sensing. Dr. Shaw discusses a range of topics that confront the golf turf industry and how the right data used with a well-designed irrigation system by an experienced and progressive superintendent is path forward. Stick around to the very end when Frank provides a personal perspective on water use in the golf industry.

In this episode Frank Speaks with Paul Roche, irrigation industry veteran and now president of Golf Water of Wake Forest, NC. Frank has known Paul since the mid-1990’s during Paul’s time with a Rochester-based irrigation distributor and eventually as co-author of the definitive irrigation textbook Golf Course Irrigation: Environmental Design and Management Practices. Frank and Paul discuss a variety of topics related to the most effective irrigation design, operation, and maintenance. A lively discussion ensues around run times, distribution and the best use of the latest technology that leads to water use efficiency. “Are we using the technology in our irrigation systems like driving a Ferrari in first gear?”

In this episode of Renovation Report, Brad Klein talks with golf course superintendent Nick Peinovich of Eau Claire Golf and Country Club in Wisconsin, about a recent renovation of the course near Minnesota's Twin Cities that was designed by Tom Vardon, the lesser-known brother of British golf great Harry Vardon. Peinovich discusses how a member audit of the golf course just a few months after he was promoted from assistant to head superintendent progressed from a discussion to a bunker renovation to a full-blown restoration by architect Kevin Norby without closing Eau Claire for play.

Anthony Pioppi chats dream career moves and all things Seth Raynor with Alex Beson-Crone, the superintendent at Blue Mound G&CC in Wauwatosa, WI.  Alex grew up in the Milwaukee area and worked up to the assistant postition at Erin Hills, but his life-long dream job was Blue Mound. When the superintendent position opened up there, he made the jump to the Seth Raynor-designed course. His team has been making improvements over the last few years including rebuilding bunkers and massive tree removal while focusing on firm and fast agronomics. The USGA Mid-Am is at Erin Hills next year and Blue Mound is the site for stroke play, so the layout will be on display on TV.

In this episode of Frankly Speaking, our “water guy” Mike Huck, President of Irrigation and Turf Services, chats with Frank about the past, present and future of water. The conversation ranges from “all water is local” and the classic movie “Chinatown” to the obstacles and opportunities for conservation. Will there be a “free market” for water and where will golf fall out in the allocations? To be sure this is not simply a conversation for golf west of the Mississippi River, but as drought impacts various areas all over the country, these conversations will be relevant.

In this episode of Rockbottum Radio, RW pulls a highly classified but long-buried StoryTime out of the vault. It's the kind of story where everyone involved is no longer around to object.

In this special episode of Frankly Speaking, Frank is joined by four top turfgrass diagnosticians from across the USA. Our Northeast correspondent Rich Buckley from Rutgers University, From the ACC we have Lee Butler at NC State, from the Midwest I chat with Kurt Hockenmeyer from UW Madison, and Emily Braithwaite from Oregon State University in the PNW. These experts provide insights into Spring diseases, insects and nematode issues. Discussion from Pythium root rot and summer patch to Spring dead spot and Ascochyta leaf spot. It’s a plethora of pests and stresses!

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 Blaine, MN. Once Ryan settled in there he was followed by former Hazeltine interns Mitch Ronning and Peter Braun to form the core of the MNUFC groundskeeping team. We at TurfNet got to know Peter when he was the 2014 TurfNet Intern in Ireland, working at the Mount Juliet Resort. TurfNet salutes Ryan, Mitch and Peter as Rising Stars of Turf for both their excellent past work in golf course maintenance but also their future in sports turf. This chat with Peter McCormick gives a fascinating glimpse into the career transition from a major golf event for Ryan, the culture shift from golf to sports turf, and the experienc

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 All Stars of Turf, Kepple talks about the keys to career longevity and some of the changes that have occurred at East Lake during its time as the the final stop on the Tour schedule. Chief among those changes have been a conversion from bentgrass putting surfaces to ultradwarf Bermudagrass following a brutally hot summer leading up to the 2007 tournament and the infamous reversing of the nines on the Donald Ross design in advance of the 2016 event, as well as an upcoming restoration project by architect Andrew Green. Although East Lake occupies an important place in the game's history, it also plays an important role o

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 sin

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.