Bruce Martin, the plant pathologist who helped thousands of golf course superintendents identify and rectify their turfgrass disease problems, died October 16. He was 71.
Martin worked for more than 30 years at Clemson University’s Pee Dee Research & Education Center in Florence, South Carolina. Golf course superintendents around the Carolinas revered his ability to help them save their turf, but his impact spread far beyond the borders of the Carolinas. He worked with turf pros in nearly every state and traveled to Australia, Argentina, Brazil, England and Spain to help solve agronomic problems.
“You could run a sample up there and he’d pretty much tell you what the deal was as soon as he got it,” Randy Allen, the former longtime superintendent at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club and a Carolinas GCSA past president, told The Myrtle Beach Sun News in 2017. “He gave you the information you needed to get them back in shape sooner.
“It didn’t really matter if it was going to take three months to get it fixed, because you’re probably going to be out of a job by then anyway. He would help you out and get them fixed as soon as possible. The information he could relay to you was just amazing.”
And Martin’s work wasn’t limited to mere identification. In 2001, he collaborated with Dr. Larry Stowell to diagnose and name rapid blight (Labyrinthula terrestris), a cool-season turf disease typically caused by irrigation water high in salt content.
“That one was tough, but we figured out how to control it before we figured out what the organism was,” he said at the time. “We just started trying things and we got lucky and found an experimental fungicide and a couple other things that worked decent.”
Martin started his professional career at a research station in Connecticut, then headed to South Carolina after his wife, Dr. Cynthia Green, a talented cotton geneticist, landed a position in 1987 at Pee Dee. He worked about a year and a half at Horry Georgetown Technical College, where he teamed with agronomy department head Ed Zahler to establish the turfgrass diagnostics lab. He then followed Green to Clemson, where he worked at first in tobacco and field crops.
He applied for numerous state research grants to focus on turfgrass, finally landing full funding after a few years.
“Clemson knew the turf industry wanted more attention,” he said in 2017. “Golf courses were being built right and left down here in the ’80s.”
Martin worked at Clemson for 31 years, eventually becoming a plant pathology professor and developing into a trusted authority on turfgrass disease and nematode management.
Martin was inducted into the Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame just last month. Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association executive director Tracy Conner described him as one “the architects of Myrtle Beach golf’s success.” Conner said Martin and fellow 2025 inductee Max Morgan — the first inductees in the 38-member Hall of Fame to focus on agronomy and plant science — were “both pioneers in golf course agronomy.
“Their expertise, leadership and mentorship have helped shape the Grand Strand’s golf identity and their legacies will live on through the countless superintendents, agronomists and courses they influenced.”
Samuel Bruce Martin was born January 9, 1954, in Conway, Arkansas, the second of three children of Sam and Wynell (Jones) Martin. His father worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and his mother worked for Amboy Elementary School and later the Chancery Court of Pulaski County. His parents seldom played golf, nor did he and his siblings, Deborah and Robert. He did swim competitively as a child, setting numerous area records.
He attended Hendrix College, located in his hometown, initially planning to study medicine before shifting to plants after two years. He graduated in 1976 with a degree in biology.
He applied after graduation to work as a forest and pathology technician at the University of Arkansas. He was turned down for that position and painted houses for a summer — “tumbleweeding through life,” he said, earning enough to keep himself “in beer and not much more” — before being offered a graduate studies spot at the school. He accepted and went on to earn a master’s in plant pathology. He subsequently earned a doctorate in the same subject from North Carolina State University, where he met his wife, Cynthia, and studied under Dr. Leon Lucas.
“I visited a lot of golf courses with Leon,” Martin told Turfnet in 2018. “You don't realize when you’re that young that what you are diagnosing makes a big difference to the superintendent, but it does. Leon helped me understand that.”
Martin retired from his Clemson post in June 2018 and remained active in the industry, working at a slower but no less accurate pace.
In a 2018 tribute to Martin published upon his retirement, Steve Kammerer, the former Southeast Region director for the USGA Green Section and now operational manager and turf performance specialist for Kammerer Golf, praised Martin’s ability as a researcher, a communicator and a leader.
“Dr. Martin always made time for people,” Kammerer wrote. “Despite the urgency or volume of problems he may have been dealing with, he always answered or returned every phone call. [He] has mentored many people, from students to industry representatives and USGA agronomists. He encourages everyone to never stop learning and to share what they know.
“He was not only willing to share his expertise, he was a great listener and always made time for mentoring.”
Martin’s numerous professional accolades include the 2014 Col. John Morley Award, presented by the GCSAA for outstanding contribution to the advancement of the golf course superintendent position; the Carolinas GCSA Distinguished Service Award; the Clemson Alumni Award for Distinguished Public Service; and the North Carolina Turfgrass Council Outstanding Service Award. The American Phytopathological Society named him Outstanding Plant Pathologist in 2005.
Joel Ratcliff, the former superintendent at International World Tour Golf Links, described Martin as “the best at what he does.”
“When Arnold Palmer calls Bruce,” Ratcliff said, “you know he’s the guy to call.”
“If there was a hall of fame for turfgrass pathologists,” the former longtime USGA Green Section agronomist Pat O’Brien added, “he’d be in it.”
Martin preferred to diagnose turfgrass rather than play on it, though he was occasionally urged by Dr. John Pitner, the former director at Pee Dee, to take golf lessons. Even then, he estimated his handicap to be about 25 and joked that he would need to play from the forward tees.
After decades working in the industry, Martin passed along some timeless advice to superintendents and other turf pros in a 2018 interview with Golf Course Industry.
“They got to have a good, solid agronomic background, understand that they’re dealing with nature, and they have to be good communicators — to their own staff and to the folks that are paying their salaries,” he said. “I think they have to be a little bit humble and understand that everybody gets their clock cleaned sooner or later.
“And reach out for help when they need it.”
Matt LaWell is Golf Course Industry’s senior editor.
