Jill Seymour

Even by the standards of her profession, Jill Seymour has been busy of late. Seymour is the superintendent at the Charleston Springs South Course, a public, county-owned facility in Millstone, New Jersey. She’s been in that position since January 2018.

This past September, she was part of the team of volunteers that supported the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. Appearing on the Wonderful Women of Golf podcast with host Rick Woelfel, Seymour talked about how she became part of the crew.

“Honestly, it wasn’t really on my radar,” she says, “and then I got an invitation to come up there and join them I think a year ago. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The crew Seymour was part of during Ryder Cup Week had an international flavor.

“Andrew [Wilson, the director of agronomy at Bethpage] was fortunate enough to have some former assistants there,” she says, “and people from all over the world: Scotland, Ireland, Europe. Besides his previous assistants who were there, there were some new, fresh faces who came over from Europe. We had five additional females who came over. We had a couple girls from Finland, we had a couple girls from France and one girl from South Africa.

“So, that was just super cool, to get to know them and talk about different agronomic practices they might do. They were asking us about the weird things we were doing at the Ryder Cup that were completely normal for us. It was definitely a very cool, interesting experience.”

Despite working long hours during the week, the team had a chance to network and exchange ideas.

“Even when you’re on a bunker crew in the morning, you don’t have to worry about the hum of the equipment,” Seymour says. “You get to work together and talk about things. Different weather situations that are going on in different parts of the country, how we do things. Walking up and down the fairways and doing divots in the afternoon you’re communicating, getting to know each other and different practices.”

Seymour has always been an advocate for the GCSAA’s First Green program. Soon after the Ryder Cup, she hosted a First Green event at First Tee Jersey Shore’s facility in Lakewood, New Jersey, in conjunction with First Tee and the Girl Scouts.

“It was a great collaborative effort,” Seymour says. “Logistically, it was a little bit more of a challenge than the First Green events I’ve held at my golf course. Obviously, I didn’t have access to the equipment and finding volunteers [on a Saturday afternoon] was a little more challenging, but it really turned out great.”

Seymour didn’t get into the industry until she was 26 years old and had spent time in a different profession. Today, she embraces opportunities to share with students the career options that are available in turf.

“They can see it when I talk about it,” she says. “I totally geek out about all this turf stuff.

“Even if you don’t want to grow grass for a living, there are so many different avenues within our industry. You can go left, right, straight, back. There are so many different ways that we can go — and stay — in our awesome turf industry.”

After spending more than two decades in turf, Seymour is most impressed by the industry’s ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship.

“There was always this stigma back in the day that golf courses were killing the environment,” she says. “And I think it’s very misunderstood. We are so conscious about everything we do. Everything down to watering, buying chemicals. You don’t want to overwater or waste water and you don’t want to put the wrong chemicals down. So, I think what’s impressed me is how very aware we are of what we’re doing to the golf course — which is, in fact, impacting the environment.”