Our podcast month opened with probably one of the better amateur golfers to ever appear on Superintendent Radio Network. Chester VandenBerg covers Michigan and Ohio as a territory manager for Corteva Agriscience. He also turned in a medalist finish at the 2022 U.S. Mid-Amateur Qualifier at Travis Pointe Country Club, has a quartet of FSGA wins, and even notched a hole in one at Torrey Pines South. He discussed clover on Episode 7 of Talking Turf Weeds. “However you want to define clover, a weed is any plant out of place,” he says. “Some people see clover as a grazing crop for animals. Others see it as a flower for bees. And then others, who may want a clean, lush lawn, see it as a weed. And it’s difficult to manage if you don’t have the right protocols or strategy in place.”
Morgan Taylor knew next to nothing about golf when she started her studies at Auburn University. Originally a pre-med major, she shifted her focus to agronomy and soils, learning the science behind turf under Dr. Elizabeth Guertal. After interning at Peninsula Golf and Racquet Club in Gulf Shores, Alabama, she started her professional career there as an assistant-in-training with superintendent Jamey Davis. “He took me under his wing and kind of let me mess things up and get things right at the same time,” she tells Rick Woelfel on Episode 27 of Wonderful Women of Golf. “I didn’t even know what a fairway was or what was a pin location. I was so new to everything. I learned a lot and really enjoyed it.” She’s not new anymore: Taylor is now an assistant superintendent at Magnolia Grove Golf Club in Mobile, Alabama.
When he was in high school, Seth Sheldon wanted to work as a landscape architect. A chance meeting with the general manager of his local club landed him on the maintenance team — even after he slept through his alarm and showed up two hours late for his first day (teenagers!) — and changed his career trajectory. Another chance meeting with the perfect woman who would become his wife landed him in Michigan, and the drive to provide for his family pushed him to switch from maintenance to equipment management. “I could give that a shot,” he tells Trent Manning on Episode 103 of Reel Turf Techs. “If things don’t work out, I could still go the superintendent route.” They worked out: Sheldon is currently the equipment manager at Oakland Hills Country Club.
Raise your hand if you have never needed to deal with dollar spot. Anybody? Anybody? No? OK. Dr. Derek Settle of the Chicago District Golf Association and BASF senior technical specialist Kyle Miller joined Guy Cipriano on Episode 19 of Disease Discussion to dive in and analyze dollar spot control programs. An overarching takeaway from their studies and the episode? Dollar spot moves really fast. “One thing you can say about dollar spot,” Settle says, “is that it’s unique in how rapidly it can develop when conditions occur.”
Few golf course architects are as busy as Kipp Schulties and few golf course construction markets are as busy as South Florida. Schulties describes the business and logistics behind pulling off projects in that hotspot on Episode 87 of Tartan Talks with Cipriano. “Every club that I work at — and they are primarily all private clubs — they are all full, they all have a waiting list and they all have initiation fees now going through the roof,” he says. “They are making a ton of money and because they are making a ton of money, they are all trying to do projects and there just aren’t enough contractors and resources to go around to support the desired amount of work.”
The month wrapped up with a pair of guests on Episode 47 of Beyond the Page: Golf course architect Todd Clark and Dr. Carson Robertson, now a chiropractor outside Phoenix. Clark discussed how he designed Barn Hollow at Hawk’s View — a delightful 18-hole par-3 about an hour southwest of Milwaukee where rounds have boomed in recent years. “The tricky part of doing an 18-hole par 3 is how do you keep coming up with different ideas?” Clark asks. “How do you get variety? How do you get it to route? How do you make it exciting so you want to keep coming back and playing it?”
Robertson, meanwhile, reminisces about his three seasons helping Jeff and Maria Whitcraft grow in and maintain Judith Shadows in Lewistown, Montana, during the 1990s. “Because I was the only one with any mowing experience, I helped groom the front, helped build the back, started mowing the back,” he says, just scratching the surface of his stories. “There was very limited grass, hardly a tree to be found. It was a wheat field a few years before. We used to carry guns on the back of the mower to shoot the gophers running by.”
