Teaching Construction and Renovation

A selfish call for advice

As the Director of the Penn State Golf Course Turfgrass Management Program (the 2-Year Program), I am charged with teaching a lot of classes. In fact, I teach a total of eight classes ranging from communications to construction and renovation. It’s kind of ironic that I teach construction, because it’s definitely not my wheelhouse. I often rely on the idea of hands-on work as well as the use of outside speakers who have experience in specific projects.

We constantly tweak the class to stay current, but I thought that I would take advantage of my column here to talk about some of the things we do, some of the things I would love to do and some of the things that you (as leaders in the industry) think should be done.

I would start out by saying that I think we are fortunate to have a class dedicated to construction and renovation. Students are exposed to a variety of lectures, they must do an agronomic assessment of a real golf course and they do some hands-on construction projects. I’m not sure what other university students are exposed to, but I would already argue that we are unique in what we offer.
 

What we currently do

Over the course of eight weeks in the 2-year program’s construction class, students are exposed to a series of lectures from golf course superintendents and industry experts who have a unique experience around a particular topic. This year, we have a golf course superintendent who recently renovated bunkers to discuss the thought process that led to their decision of a certain construction method. We have a course manager who just rebuilt their maintenance facility talking about that experience, including the difficulties surrounding the permitting. A series of lectures throughout the semester may provide insight into these areas as well as greens construction, architectural design, selection of turfgrass species, importance of tree management programs for renovation and several others.

In addition to the lectures on specific topics by key industry representatives, we also perform a mock USGA agronomic assessment of one of the Penn State Golf Courses. Students meet with the general manager and golf course superintendent to find out what their long-term goals are for the course. In groups, the students then take a set of holes and perform a full assessment based on the goals of the golf course. Soil tests are taken and sent off to the Penn State soils lab for analyses, data on speeds, firmness, soil moisture and others are collected, and a full assessment of all areas (bunkers, greens, tees, rough, etc.) is performed.

In addition to the group course assessment, each student is given a greens complex that requires a renovation. They must visit the course and determine a plan to complete the renovation. Students must come up with a list of materials needed including the costs and also determine the time and labor that will be involved.

The final component is an actual hands-on project. In the past, we have rebuilt bunkers, renovated greens or installed irrigation. This year, we will be building a small mock USGA green prior to heading to Centre Hills Country Club to actually expand and recontour their ninth green and rebuild a portion of the greenside bunker.
 

What we would like to do

In an ideal world, students would be given even more opportunity to see and complete a large-scale renovation. Unfortunately, time is always a hindrance when all of the above must completed in a mere eight weeks. Ideas that have been thrown out include a long-term project that the students oversee over the entire 18-month program, sending students to golf courses that have construction projects planned during their internship or even bringing the students back for a “work week” in which they spend working on planned projects.
 

What should we do

This is an open-ended question that I’m sure opens me up to a lot of responses, many of which we will likely not be able to actually do. Having said that, I have been proud that our program is always interested in staying on top of our game and also on top of the latest trends within the industry. As someone who’s not a construction and renovation “expert,” I figured I would use my article here to reach out to you as the leaders.

If you have an idea that you think the students could benefit from when it comes to construction experience, then share your ideas.

John E. Kaminski, Ph.D. is an associate professor, Turfgrass Science, and director of the Golf Course Turfgrass Management Program at Penn State University. You can reach him at kaminski@psu.edu.