Courtesy of Trent Manning
Trent Manning considers being an equipment manager a quiet line of work. Beyond coverage from industry-specific publications, those in his position aren’t known to the average golfer. Manning wants to change that.
Manning has been in the groundskeeping business since he was allowed to work. In 1995, at age 16, he began his first job as a groundskeeper at the Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta, and he was promoted to equipment manager in 1999. He skipped out of Ansley for eight years to work elsewhere in the turf management industry, but eventually returned in 2010 when he was rehired as Ansley’s equipment manager.
In short, he’s a seasoned veteran of the golf industry. He also knows that due to the lack of coverage on the position, equipment technicians can feel isolated on their own course. There is a lack of horizontal communication between course technicians, and many don’t have a place to share their experiences in the golf industry.
Instead of biding his time and hoping turf maintenance would become a more communicative field, Manning elected to kickstart the communication himself. His goal was to provide a media outlet for maintenance crews to realize the problems on their courses aren’t isolated. In fact, there’s a swath of technicians ready and willing to help them.
In early 2021, Manning recorded the first batch of episodes for Reel Turf Techs, a podcast dedicated to highlighting the work and sharing stories of equipment managers and turf technicians from around the golf industry. He had been planning to launch the podcast for the better part of 2020, but he wanted to learn how to properly create a podcast before he recorded one. If he was going to begin a show for the equipment manager community, he wanted to do it right.
“I didn't know anything about how you podcast, so I started that the year prior and tried to get my ducks in a row,” he says. “I’m not the end all be all, but at least I could get my head above water before I launched the podcast, and just learning all the podcast stuff.”
Before the podcast even had its introductory episode uploaded to streaming platforms, Manning recorded a backlog of episodes that could’ve held the show over until May. But that was according to his first schedule. Before the first episode aired, he planned on releasing an episode every other Wednesday,
The reception from listeners was overwhelmingly positive. Manning joked that the demand for more episodes caused him to speed up release dates. “Originally my plan was every other week,” he says. “And after I released four or five (episodes) the audience was really enthusiastic. They were pushing me to do a once a week.”
Reel Turf Techs isn’t the first time a turf technician has started a podcast strictly for turf technicians, but so far, Manning’s show is the most consistently uploaded. Despite being the host, Manning doesn’t consider Reel Turf Techs his podcast. Nor does he want to. He hosts it, although he wants the podcast to be about the guests and their stories, not him.
“The questions that I ask, I put together a survey and I sent it out to 75 equipment managers, and these were the questions that they wanted to hear,” Manning says. “So that's the questions I've asked (the guests). So, I really am just the host. I'll be the brains behind the operation, but this is an equipment manager community that's pushing the podcast.”
Manning figured the podcast has the potential positively affect the industry. A Twitter account created for the podcast has already amassed over 300 followers. Equipment managers are humble about the work they do, but they are always willing to help each other.
“From my experience with equipment managers they're open books. Anything they can help you with, they will. That's been my experience,” Manning says. “And that's part of the idea behind the podcast, we all just want to help each other. You can get any little tip or trick or whatever out of the podcast and help you your facility. That's why we're doing it.”
Jack Gleckler is an Ohio University senior participating in the Golf Course Industry summer internship program.
