In bloom

Some golf course maintenance teams might be hobbled after the departure of a veteran assistant superintendent. Not the talented team at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio.

Even before assistant superintendent Sam Montgomery headed to Kinsale Golf & Fitness Club in nearby Powell, where he is now director of agronomy, a trio of talented successors had developed a plan. Drake Cleghorn, Seamus Foley and Connor Quigley turned challenge into opportunity.

“There was a pretty big void to fill and we’ve all kind of stepped into that role,” says Quigley, a former University of Dayton golfer now in his fifth season at Muirfield Village and his third as an assistant under director of grounds operation Chad Mark. “Not only do we manage the staff on a daily basis and the operation as a whole under Chad’s direction, but we also all play a key role in managing our IPM operation. I think that’s been probably the biggest story of the season for us.”

“It was comforting that Sam had it handled so we honed in on the staff and the day-to-day operations,” adds Cleghorn, who is in his sixth year at the club and his fifth as an assistant. “But with his departure, it was kind of a reality check. We had to see the bigger picture.”

The trio are the latest in a line of interns hired on as assistants in training and promoted to assistant superintendents. They will likely be the next MVGC assistants to move on and run their own agronomic show at other courses — a milestone marked with framed pin flags mailed back to the club and hung on the walls of the Legacy conference room inside the maintenance facility. There are 16 now.

“That’s Chad’s keen eye on seeing talent,” Cleghorn says. “We always preach here: Find good individuals and we can teach them agronomics.”

“The biggest thing is learning how to manage people, learning how people kind of tick,” says Foley, who volunteered at the Memorial in 2017 while interning at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Mark hired him before he graduated from Penn State in 2018 and promoted him from AIT in 2020. “We have some tenured staff that we can tell to go on a job and we know it’s going to get done. And we have some newer staff who need some training. That’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned from Chad — knowing how to manage people, and learning how to adjust.”

Adjusting quickly, too. After adding those spray technician duties in April, they have focused more on products and applications. One of their favorites is SePRO’s Cutless MEC plant growth regulator.

“It’s a staple throughout the growing season,” Quigley says. “We spray it on all tees, fairways and greens according to our growing degree days. It’s great with other type-a growth regulators.” The team has used it to suppress Poa annua — a goal of a 2020 renovation — without losing color.

They also use it throughout the build to the Memorial each spring. “We’re trying to work texture and really starting to push turf to where we’re cutting greens three or four times a day,” Cleghorn says. “We had seen a little bit of collar decline, and I think that Cutless MEC gives us the flexibility if we’re going for a little more growth and a little less regulation without seeing a negative effect.”

The team also turns to SePRO to control the club’s numerous water features — 14 of 18 holes are highlighted by some aquatic element — including Aquashade aquatic plant growth control.

“We’ve struggled with algae in our ponds, especially during the summertime,” Quigley says. “A lot of that is because our ponds probably need to be a little bit deeper, but until we deal with that, Aquashade has done a great job of blocking all that light from reaching down to the bottom to prevent that algae from blooming.”

Cleghorn, Foley and Quigley are blooming — and they want to make sure the assistants behind them do, too. “Part of our job is building the assistants in training under us to take on our roles once we leave, to set Chad and Muirfield Village up for success,” Foley says. “Learning from Chad has set us up for success for that next role.”