This month on Superintendent Radio Network

Our podcasting month opened with the Season 2 finale of Talking Turf Weeds, an always informative (and sometimes humorous) discussion about all sorts of wanted and unwanted weeds. Corteva Agriscience turf and ornamental territory manager Phil Bruner and Midwest turf and ornamental territory manager Dr. Jared Hoyle returned to the podcast to talk with me about what you need to do to make sure the course is ready for whatever might pop up during fall and winter weather. “It’s definitely an integrated approach,” Hoyle said. “Whatever you do on the base level to grow healthy turfgrass, your herbicides will always work a lot better.” Bruner added that “healthy turf is always your first line of defense, and herbicides are certainly a part of that. Fall is a crucial time. If you put a plan in place, you really can make a big impact not just on what you’re dealing with right now but set yourself up for success in winter, spring and summer. This is where my year starts.”

Joselyn Kent is a walking miracle. Currently a co-assistant superintendent at Duke University Golf Course in Durham, North Carolina, Kent was born in Honduras with a club foot and abandoned by her parents before her third birthday. Homeless for much of her early life, she was rescued by an American missionary and later adopted by a family in Virginia. After a stint at The Home Depot, she launched her turf career after responding to an ad for a seasonal opening at The Palencia Club in St. Augustine, Florida, and continued it at TPC Sawgrass in nearby Ponte Vedra Beach. She started at DUGC late last year. Her ultimate goal, she told Rick Woelfel on Episode 28 of Wonderful Women of Golf, is to bring green spaces back to third-world countries: “I want to go into malnutritioned places in the world and give them a garden, or golf courses, or anything to better their future.”

Editor-in-chief Guy Cipriano shared the podcast airwaves for Episode 52 of Greens with Envy with a different Matt — I was on the road for a reporting trip — to recap a golf visit through central New York: Matt Pauli, who has worked in marketing for Standard Golf for most of the last decade. The pair discussed one of Robert Trent Jones’s earlier designs, a variety of Empire State parks, a lovely owner-operated 9-holer (that has been featured before on the podcast), a memorable day at Turning Stone Resort for a New York GCSA event, and more. “It was maybe an unorthodox golf trip,” said Pauli, who clearly does not understand how Cipriano plans golf trips, “but it was neat to see the different places, and it reiterated that our game is a wonderful game. You don’t need to be a millionaire. You just need some love and some care for the turf and you can make a golf course. That’s what we saw.”

Trent Manning also visited New York — at least over Zoom — for an engaging conversation with Chris Hyman, the equipment manager at Cobblestone Creek Country Club in Rochester. Before moving into the shop, Hyman worked stints as a caddie, a greenskeeper, an assistant superintendent and a superintendent, sold soft goods and turf equipment, a field aerator, a dealer mechanic, and a branch coordinator. (Whew! That’s a full résumé.) Some of the best advice he shared during Episode 107 of Reel Turf Techs? “Don’t overthink it,” he said. “Get out of your own head. If I could give any advice, I’m turning 50 next month, and if I went back to my 18-year-old self — who probably wouldn’t listen to me — I’d be like, ‘Dude, it’s not always about you. Look at the bigger picture. Slow down.’ I fight with it today!”

America’s Greenkeeper Matthew Wharton returned to Superintendent Radio Network for the first time in … [checks calendar] … [double-checks calendar] … more than a year! What’s new for our back-page columnist? What’s not new?! Wharton moved from North Carolina to Kentucky, from Carolina Golf Club to Idle Hour Country Club — though both courses are Donald Ross designs — has endured home renovations, and has settled into a new life in the land of thoroughbreds and whiskey. “How often in our careers do you get a chance to, I wouldn’t say start over, but start fresh, start anew, with all new challenges, a new climate, new growing conditions, new grass types?” he told me during Episode 48 of Beyond the Page. “So far, it has turned out to be everything I hoped it would be, and more.”

Two architects, two home regions, one focused discussion: Drew Rogers and Mike Gogel closed out the month with Cipriano on Episode 88 of Tartan Talks with a deep dive into greens renovation. Rogers, who works mostly in the Midwest and South Florida, and Gogel, who is based in Arizona and works in both warm- and cool-season environments, shared some of their methodology and philosophy. “Everywhere is a little different,” Gogel said. “I have done greens where we have gone into them and they had the original push-up greens and no drainage at all, and I have done greens where greens were built on top of greens and they didn’t even core out the old one. They just built on top of it.” Added Rogers: “We’re looking for as many hole locations that are as appropriate for the size of green that we are trying to build.” A must-listen for anybody interested in course architecture.