Superintendent Series: Ryan Tuxhorn of Somerset Hills Country Club

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Toro. Top notch custom fit technology helps tour pros feather and iron to a tight front pin. Now, using the technology on Toro's Noon Greens Master Flex series walk Greens mower, superintendents can dial in that same exceptional precise level of operator performance on even the most contour Greens. The Greens Master bail feathering feature lets the operator slow down or speed up by putting more or less pressure on the bail and stay hands on even through the tightest terms. The melding of the operator and machine continues with a telescoping handle that ensures perfect harmony between mower and operator. Taller short, and the handle's rubber mounts have just enough cushion to prevent any hand movements from influencing the cut For putting surfaces so pure they'll make a tour pro tip their cap. Trust the Toro Greens Master. Follow at Toro, go off on Twitter, and reach out to your local Toro distributor to schedule a demo. Today's podcast is with Somerset Hills Superintendent Ryan tucks Horn. Ryan has been at summrset for over a dozen years. He is a one of regarded as one of the best in the industry. And uh, you know, I learned some stuff about Ryan and some things he does in the winter there. It was a really fun conversation. We talked a lot about his background getting a start at Marion. So I hope you guys enjoy it. And without further ado, here is Ryan Tushrn.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: I miss a green for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in.

00:01:40
Speaker 1: A brid egg Frida egg the dreaded Frida egg Frida, egg Frida egg brigg Frida egg bride egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Yeah, what was that like kind of fresh out of college working at Marion Golf Club that you know, I feel like a lot of people listening to this wouldn't be really You just wake up and you're working at one of the best golf courses, but then you're working with a bunch of bunch of guys around the same age. You know what was it like an extension of college in a way?

00:02:28
Speaker 2: Uh? Yes, I was. I took I was clueless, like coming out of school. I mean I I my senior year. We had Paul Laschell senior in for a turf club meeting and afterwards I talked to him and I said, hey, I worked at a small private course in Wilkes Barre Wami like country Club, which is actually another tilling House course for two summers. And then I went and talked to him. I said, hey, I want to just get a crew job on a high end course. See what it's like. And I rode it off a bunch of courses and he said, did you look at Marion Golf Club? And I said, I never heard of it. And that's how cool I was. And he's a good friend of mine. Matt Shafer should be getting that job. If he does, you should look into it. And I was like, okay, I happen to be going to school with Steve McDonald who knew an assistant at Marion, Jake strab helped me get an interview, got a job, showed up to the first showed up by first day with a pair of jeans and a hood sweatshirt on. They told me to wear khakis the following day, and I just got the shit kicked out of me for I was you talk to Scott. Scott and I were both kind of like the black sheep there. We were threatened to be fired a couple of times, but we just kept coming back for more. And but yeah, I mean long days and then sometimes long nights, and then you get up the next day, you do it again. You say you're gonna take it easy that night, and then all of a sudden, you're out there again, gallivating around. But it was really a strong like we're all competing with each other, but never we were always we always had each other's backs. So there's a lot of team camaraderie there, learning off each other. A lot of mistakes were made. Matt, Matt gave us a ridiculous I look, he gave us a ridiculous amount of freedom for the fact that we're at a top ten golf course in the country.

00:04:05
Speaker 3: What do you mean by he gave you freedom?

00:04:07
Speaker 1: What does that mean for an assistant superintendent or you know, someone that's on a crew, maybe not an assistant yet.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: I mean, the best way I can put it is, I got to work for a number of superintendent's while I was there. As I worked my way u through the rankings, and I always say that Matt kind of drew the outline of what he wanted, and that that was, you know, championship conditions dry, dry as can possibly be, and you work hard, but like every superintendent kind of colored in the lines a little differently. And then even from what I understand, I'm the only three maths time, the only individual will go from an intern and work in every single position and then leave for a superintendent position. So even when I was an East Court superintendent, the amount of spray sheets I would do on my own that he wouldn't even double check. And we're going out there doing sprays all over the place, and and I mean, really it came down to it, I didn't know what I was doing. I went up there, I read labels, I did some research, you know, but a lot of times he just didn't even he didn't even check. And uh, even we were prepping for I think a Philly open the one time, and I had the crew in on an evening double cutting greens and the greens were fried, they were they were baked. He came in and I always I always got in trouble with him for being too dry, and he came in and he says, you know, these greens are pretty dry. You feel confident with this. I said, it's going to rain. He says, you know, if it doesn't rain, I might fire you. I said, okay, I'm aware. It rained. We were all right. So and he just kind of let you make your own decisions. He kind of lets you hang yourself to a certain point. But then he'd catch you and then he'd point out where he made wrong decisions, where he made right decisions. More and more so wrong decisions and right decisions. But I I he was tough to work for. But once I left, I look back at that time and I've a number of times and I've actually thanked him for how difficult he was to work for and understanding he was just preparing us for. You know, it's not an easy industry.

00:06:11
Speaker 3: So in a.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: Way, his hands off nature was the best thing to prepare you to be in charge of a golf course.

00:06:21
Speaker 2: Oh, without without a doubt. I mean I got to Somerset Hills, and I mean I was I was already confident. But obviously there's a lot you know, you're nervous, you're anxious, and early on I had a number of kayak members say, you know, because I got I got Summerset Hills when I was twenty eight and I looked like I was about sixteen years old, and I had a few members say, you know, you're a better manager than you should be. At this point, I'm like, Okay, that's cool, but it sucks. We got a lot of work to do. Let's go so with that without a doubt him letting us do our own And then like the last step of the way for me was superintown the West Course, which is a mile down the road. You have your own maintenance shop, you have your own crew, you have your own budget, and now all of a sudden you have like this much smaller budget, but you still have very high expectations. And I mean, the best thing you could get from Matt was, you know, not hearing from him, or he'd drop you. All of a sudden, you'd see him on the course and you'd give out the call on the radio like eagles landed, the eagles landed. And then if he didn't stop to talk to you, everything was good. Just just keep going, keep go back to the ease course. We're good over here. So if the members were happy and you weren't over budget on the West course, he left you alone.

00:07:36
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I think that would be counterintuitive to what most people think. Is that at Barrion in the in the staff rankings, the if you're the head superintendent of the West course, that's a higher position than being the head superintendent of the East course, which is obviously the famous course.

00:07:53
Speaker 2: It it wasn't always like that. It kind of became like a write of passage where you kind of prove yourself on the course and then you kind of like.

00:08:04
Speaker 3: Your own spot.

00:08:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you get to go hang out. It's like closer to being your own job instead of like every day where even though he he he lets you, he gave you freedom, but you're still reporting to him every day. He's still out in the golf course every day, nitpicking things and judging you. Where the West Course it was, you're still being nitpicked and judged. It was just a little different.

00:08:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's kind of like it's almost like you're going off to college when you go to the West Course, Like you get your like you move out from your parents' house, but they're still pretty close.

00:08:38
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's it's kind of like that in between phase where if you can you can function on your own or not, or you're gonna go off to college and flunk out in three months and come back.

00:08:47
Speaker 1: You talked about how there was a moment like that he would, you know, kind of catch you. What what could he could he go into detail of a moment where you know you were going down the wrong path, and thankfully he was there.

00:09:01
Speaker 3: Do you have any examples off the top of your head.

00:09:05
Speaker 2: I mean, his big thing was being humble, So just any chance, any time he felt that you were feeling a little too good about yourself, he was always there to knock you down a peg or two pegs. To the point where like when I actually started getting over the hump and doing better because I made a ton of mistakes, but I've always been really good at learning from my mistakes, I would actually start to get compliments and I would just shun him. I'd be like, I don't want to hear your compliments, just just get away from me. And it was afterwards I found out that whenever, because I felt that whenever I got compliments, I was setting myself up for something bad to happen. And I basically what I learned was i'd get some compliments, I started feeling good about myself, and he would detect it and just he would shut it down and he would make a he would make a point like he was sometimes in the winter time, he would go down in Florida for a couple of weeks where he had a house, and you know, you might get a lot of work done while he's gone, and he'd come back and you're all proud of how much work he got done while he's gone, and he would make a point of finding something that you didn't do or or finding something you didn't do to the level of quality that you expected, and then he he would let you know about it, and you kind of want to have some choice words for him, but you know you can't that. I think that's the biggest thing is he wanted all this to be humble and to be appreciative of you know, where we were and the work we do.

00:10:27
Speaker 1: So you talked earlier about how you had a tendency to get a little too dry, so your course might run a little too hot. You know, I think that's kind of an outlier in the spectrum of the superintendent world at large, because as a superintendent generally, if you keep grass alive, that that's what your job is. But what you know, what's your kind of philosophy on how a golf course should be maintained?

00:11:00
Speaker 2: Well, In the first off, I'm going to just go politically correct and say I think it depends on the golf course and also depends on the membership, because the superintendent's to me, a superintendent's job is to provide the golf course that the membership wants while keeping plant health in mind. Fortunately for me, when Summers the Hills was looking for somebody, they wanted somebody to bring to come in and dry the place out. And to me, firm and fast is broken into like three categories. There's there's firm and fast, but everything has to be greed. There's firm and fast. We'll tolerate some brown, but like let's keep it in check. And then there's the whole like down and brown, let's sleet things rock. And I the membership wanted to take things, wanted drier conditions, They wanted championship conditions, and for me, I want things as dry as possible. My whole agonomic plan completely revolves around putting down the least amount of water as possible, whether it be through fertility or wedding agents or a proper irrigation system, or just training the grass. And that's I want the place dry. I really don't like I think when you played we've just gotten happen in Terrained a couple of days before. I wasn't too happy about that.

00:12:07
Speaker 1: Still bounced. Can we go back to what you said about training the grass.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, just acclimating the grass to being in conditions of being dry. And if the grass can't acclimate, then it shouldn't be there. I mean in twenty ten at Summerset, we had a really dry stretch and I baked out the fairways way way too far to where I mean, balls are hitting and there's tufts of dust coming up and everyone's like this is spectacular, But is everything okay? And I'm like it's my second year. I'm like, yeah, I think so, I don't sure. And then we end up getting like a five inch rain event and the next day go out and you can smell dead grass, Like literally, you left the shop and you can smell dead grass. This is like in early July.

00:12:52
Speaker 3: Is that smell like it rot?

00:12:56
Speaker 1: Is that the worst smell that you could smell as the superintendent.

00:13:00
Speaker 2: Well, it depends is it grass that you don't care about or is it grass to care about. But come to fall, we got new bent grass and all those voids, and I tell you, those fairies were so much better the following year. So it's another thing. I A pet peeve of mine is peeper people in their moisture meters and in their magic numbers of what they water to. Like that's just so.

00:13:21
Speaker 1: Hard for the lay person who might not know. A moisture meter is the little the thing you see sometimes superintendents or ground screw members walking around punching into the green right. It's like got a little pole on the bottom of it, and it looks almost like a like a gardening tool, like if you are going to do like some manual edging right correct And.

00:13:44
Speaker 2: It basically it gives you back a number that tells you what your moisture lever is on the greens and a lot of and it's become it's become a tool that does all the thinking I feel, you know, instead of just being like a tool in the toolbox, like you get a hammer, screwdriver and they all kind of have what they do and you know, you hear people say, oh, our numbers are fourteen. Run we watered to a fourteen and all this and that, and we use moisture meters. Don't get me wrong, but they're just they're a tool in the toolbox because every day is different during the time of you know, clouds, humidity, time of year, so your number is gonna be different no matter what. And then even if somehow you do figure out what your number is, wouldn't you want to push your grass to learn to be at thirteen and then learn to be a twelve to just keep things as dry as possible. So I don't know where else going with this, but training grass I saw I personally saw a first hand at Marion, you know, drying things out and just tea like like I said, everything revolves as summerset is about putting out as little water as possible. And our faaraways went from burners to now where I barely have to water them, and more times than not, I only water them because I get carts. If I didn't have carts and I didn't have to deal with cart marks going through Wiltairy, I would really just let them go.

00:15:02
Speaker 1: So so carts lead to more inputs on a golf course.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's it's if you have grass that's swilting on your fairways and a cart drives through it, you are going to see those two tire marks for days. So a lot of times we'll run just a little bit of if it's if we're really hot and dry, we'll run a little bit of water after lunch, just to kind of take the sting out of the grass. So we don't have that where if it was just walkers, I could kind of take things to another level. But then you know the whole like law of diminishing return. You know, we keep them Obviously, our fairways are cut really tight, so no matter what, they're fast, even when they're on the wetter side. So if we keep them really dry, but just short of getting cart marks, you know, there's still plenty firm people are still hitting their balls and they're running through fairways, So that little bit extra we get, it's it's just not worth it.

00:15:57
Speaker 3: It would be a big deal, though.

00:15:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you probably haven't maintained a course in California where you had like water restrictions. Carts would make a big deal right on your water usage.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt. I mean, if we I'm kind of priming the golf course for a drought year where we have restrictions. You know. That's like, that's my goal, is like teaching the getting it ready for all of a sudden that day where they're like, you can't water your fairways and I'm gonna be like, you know what, my fare is gonna be fine, But I'll tell you right now, there's not gonna be any carts going out.

00:16:28
Speaker 1: That's a I mean, I think that's a logical thing to think about, right, That's that seems like a prudent thing. Is like you never know when there might be a water restriction place, so like why not have your grass ready to.

00:16:41
Speaker 3: Go for that?

00:16:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then.

00:16:43
Speaker 3: The impact on carts in the rough is much different, right.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: Well, I mean yeah, but the same thing. We don't really go out of our way to irrigate the majority of the rough, so when we do get into drive periods, I'd rather not have the carts in the rough. But I encourage everyone to drive on the fairways. So I mean, most of the car traffic is on the fairways, and we kind of we try not to use too much signage on the golf course because we want to keep it simple out there. We don't want to clutter it up with stuff. So in some of the areas where we do get carts in the rough, we do make a point of getting some water there during those periods.

00:17:18
Speaker 1: So you you didn't know what Marrion Golf Club was? No, so you get you get Severset Hills. Did you know what Severset Hills was? Before you got there? You didn't play golf?

00:17:32
Speaker 2: No, golf. Golf is terrible. It's a horrible sport.

00:17:35
Speaker 3: You still don't play.

00:17:37
Speaker 2: I mean, I go out there and ask me a golf club once in a while, but I wouldn't call it playing golf. I went to Marion Golf Club. I'd never heard of it. And then when Somerset was opening up, I had a salesman call me up and tell me about it. I had never heard of it, even though I grew up in this area. And then, uh, actually when I bat is back when we had next tells, you know, you had your yeah, your next yeah, Your next tell was.

00:18:03
Speaker 3: A huge advance in superintendent industry.

00:18:07
Speaker 2: Oh it's huge. But like if Matt called you over the radio typically goes all right, But if you called you on the next tell it usually wasn't good. But I next telled him and I said, hey, I heard, uh of course, but I was at the point where I was looking to move on and I had I was sending the resume out, and I said, of course called Somerset Hills Country Club just opened up. What do you think. He's like, Uh, you can look into it, but I don't think you got a shot in hell. But sure, so it's actually there's more of a story to it than that. The next day he met up with me and and and gave me some names to get my resume out too, and it just it worked out. But no, I hadn't heard of Somerset Hills Country Club.

00:18:48
Speaker 3: How did do you do? You?

00:18:49
Speaker 1: You know, I went there for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I just was like, you know, blowed away with the architecture or somebody that wasn't a big golfer, did you How do you, you know, maintain a golf course without like, you know, playing it that much?

00:19:04
Speaker 3: Like with the idea of architecture. Was that just learned? And marian.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: I think it was learned. It it was learned to Marion. I get feedback from people. I discuss conditions and I kind of joke around, like when Summer St. Hills is playing the way I wanted to play, Like mentally, I can go out there and I know exactly where you should put the ball, how you should play a hole. I just can't physically do it. And then I like when I got to Somerset, my my first assistant who I had for years, Joe Soosha uh. He was a really good golfer, So he would go out and play and he always would kind of come back in with some feedback from the course. So I'm just I'm always listening. You know, when you came out of Marion, you were taught to punish golfers like they should not, like they should finish their round and just shouldn't ever play again, Like it's it's meant it's meant to be punishment. And it took it took a few years to under stand that it's okay for them to go out and have fun, it's okay for them to make a few birdies, and that that helped a lot. Now with that being said, I want the course, like when we have events, I want the course to hold up.

00:20:13
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you said that because Curtis James, the current superintended at Old Elm, who you know you worked with we talked about earlier. He said on this pod. Also, like, you know, I worked at a lot of places, whether it was Wingfoot or Marion, where hard golf and punishing golfers. And now I'm kind of on a quest to make it more fun.

00:20:35
Speaker 3: You know.

00:20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still want to be difficult, but the biggest thing is I want to be fair. You know, we have a the green department has a really good relationship with the golf shop at Summerson Hills and it always has and so I talked to those guys a lot, and I just remember the one time they came in from a local tournament. I won't say the name of the course, but they came in and just said, oh, the place was immaculate. It was in fantastic dish, is firm and fast. And then they went off on about ten minutes about how horrible the pin locations were. And I was like, here's someone that put out a great product, and you have these really good golfers come play your golf course, and all you have to talk about is the pin locations. So that's not what I want. I want the golf course to just represent itself. Like we had a Superintent event last week, and obviously we had the greens tuned up this and that, and we put the pins in the most basic locations that they could be, which I mean you played Summerset. I mean there are no easy locations, but we put them in our easiest locations because I don't want people walking off the golf course talking about tricked out pins or tricked out conditions. It should just be here's your obstacle and see if you can score on it.

00:21:42
Speaker 1: Well, especially like with that, because you're coming to a golf course that you know. One of the things with great golf courses is the more you play it, the more you know and understand it, and you know places you can't go. But you had a bunch of people probably playing it for the first time, coming out and they don't know where the bad places are. And that's that could be a frustrating thing, is when you know it sounds like your golf shop went through that a little bit. Is like when a golf course is really set up hard for a bunch of people that have never seen it before, they don't know where to miss, and they don't know that you can't miss. You can't hit it thirty feet above the flag to the left, and you know you're probably not gonna be able to keep it on the green, and that could be a really frustrating experience for people, even when it's in perfect shape and then it comes back on the superintendent.

00:22:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt. So that's why if we can at least have the pins for that easier. But that's something that took took some time to understand that, like, hey, it's okay for them to go out and have fun, but like there's definitely certain events where we want to make it more difficult, but at the same time fair How did how does uh?

00:22:55
Speaker 1: You know, obviously for people that haven't been of Sumrset Hills, you have a front nine that's it's very open, it's kind of in like what I imagine was at one point like a farm field, and then the back nine goes back into a wooded area where you know, it's much more kind of cut out of woods for you know, no more elegant description than that. How does your agronomy needs? Are they different? On the nines? You have to maintain them differently because like obviously one nine gets way more sunlight than the other nine, Like does one nine dry out faster than the other nine? Like is or do you just do you kind of use the same approach everywhere.

00:23:41
Speaker 2: For the most part, it's similar across the board. With that being said, without a doubt, a handful of greens in the back nine take longer to dry out, So my more skilled hand water typically goes to the back where it takes a little bit more finesse to get them dried out and get them more eavenly dried out. In the early years, we mean point of a mending the soils more on a bunch of the back nine greens to help them dry out quicker.

00:24:08
Speaker 3: So does that mean like you added a lot of sand.

00:24:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so more more drill and fill applications on on a handful of greens. So but now I mean now, I mean I'm in my thirteenth season now, so from lots of years of cultivation and doing everything that we've done, the biggest difference now is just it's just how we water, whether it be handwatering. You have to have someone that's not nervous on the back nine and won't just arbitrarily sling water. And then you know, when we do get things drier and on the occasion we run water at night, there's a lot of times if those back nine greens don't get any water at night.

00:24:46
Speaker 1: Since I, since I've been there, I can't stop thinking about the greens I got. I what a question I wanted to ask you was, what's your what's your favorite green out there?

00:24:56
Speaker 2: And why my favorite green is is? I mean, there's a there's a I mean five, just because of the big ridiculous hump that's in the back I mean any I always like to bring people up to the green and just see what the first thing that comes out of their mouth when when they see the hump. Eight just because it's so much trickier than it looks.

00:25:23
Speaker 1: That one's so cool with all the little the little like they're almost like Maxwell rolls in them like that.

00:25:30
Speaker 3: There's like six of them.

00:25:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then and then probably fourteen just because a bunch of the greens when they get really kind of dried out and fast, like where you're you can't be too creative with pin locations where fourteen it seems like it's such a big green and there's so many things going on that you always can have some variety with the pins. And even though like the whole green goes uphill, it almost plays downhill, the amount of people that hit from the fairway and roll off the back of that green to death is incredible.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is sneaky. It's it's one of those. It's because it's built up in the back. But then the whole slope of the whole property goes the other way.

00:26:10
Speaker 2: I mean, it definitely goes. It's just it's weird. I can't explain it. I mean, because you're coming from uphill, then you get on the beginning of the green, and the whole green goes uphill.

00:26:18
Speaker 1: But you know what people probably think, because that green's faster than the other ones, they probably think it's your fault.

00:26:26
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm not there double cutting that one every day and not cutting the other ones that goes that goes back to my fair golf and not tricking things out a little spiel.

00:26:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, it's an amazing place. What did you say about your maintenance isle?

00:26:42
Speaker 1: What was the word that you use that you liked the aesthetic that you're going for.

00:26:47
Speaker 2: Us, there's No, there's no actually was like something rough. Oh oh, manicured ruggedness.

00:26:55
Speaker 1: Manicured ruggedness. That it fits like the place as well. Like that, I would say that it's a rugged property.

00:27:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a lot of fescue. Architecturally, I mean it's not consistent. We got a lot of different things going on with you know, the bunker styles, and each hole is kind of different. So, uh, it's not meant to be. Everything's just perfect. It's meant to it's meant to be a golf course. And I mean even like the rough, the rough has gotten amazing over the years. We don't really water that much and because of that, everything that's there is just happy and I very rarely have to put any seed down, and it's it's typically nice and lush, lush without without really doing a whole lot, doing a whole lot to it.

00:27:39
Speaker 1: Hey you got apple trees? What what what kind of apples are they?

00:27:44
Speaker 2: Oh we got red delicious, gold delicious, mac Intosh Macon. There might be some bray burn in there. There's probably a couple of others that was I think grandfathered in. I think that was there when the course is built, and then I know years ago prior to getting there. They made a point of re establishing the grid. I have an old picture in my office of what the grid used to be and it's it's important. I mean, we we treat the apple trees an apple. Also I am an apple farmer, correct I Also I also do maple syrup in the winter, and the whole all the trees in the front entrance or all sugar maples, and I and I tap those bad boys in the winter time and then sell to the membership.

00:28:25
Speaker 3: Yes, what does it does it like?

00:28:27
Speaker 1: Is it sold from the pro shop or the grounds the maintenance shop.

00:28:32
Speaker 2: It's sold out of the golf shop, and they they order online and then my, my, my head, my head professional puts in a nice little bag. And and but we do all the the tapping, the cooking down process, bottling, labeling, and then we we are farmland assessed. So we sell wood to the membership, and I also sell maple syrup to the membership, and it gives us a tax break. So eventually I think I'm gonna run out of trees to cut down, and I'm not gonna as much firewood, so I have to I need the maple syrup to augment.

00:29:02
Speaker 1: That that's wild. You're maple is so that's what you do all winters make maple syrup.

00:29:09
Speaker 2: Well, it's not all winter. I mean I'm out there cutting down trees and the weather allows. But typically like mid February, we tap the trees and that goes about mid March. But if the weather's not so great, you know, you might find me sitting over a pot. Makes the shop smell delicious.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: Did you know anything about making maple syrup before this job?

00:29:30
Speaker 2: No? What was it?

00:29:32
Speaker 1: What were the like early bottles? Did you have like bad maple syrup?

00:29:36
Speaker 2: No, we didn't have bad mantle syrup, but we do. It is better now. It is better now because you got you gotta be careful with sugar sand. You don't you don't want sugar sand's that's that's like my arch nemesis when it comes to the maple syrup conglomerate.

00:29:50
Speaker 3: So you did.

00:29:51
Speaker 1: Sixty bottles last year? Do you have a goal about this year? Do you do you like want to do one hundred and twenty?

00:29:57
Speaker 2: Like?

00:29:57
Speaker 1: Is there what's your kind of capacity? Do you know what your capacity is? Like? Is this something an enterprise? I mean I imagined that you could sell it online, and golfers would buy it from all.

00:30:08
Speaker 3: Over the place.

00:30:09
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to overdo it. It's kind of like fun, but I would. I mean, because it also depends on the year. Like different years you get different SAT production and so like with things generally, getting warmer doesn't really work in my favor. So it kind of depends on our production. But I mean, I would say, you know, sixty bottles is a good point, but I mean, could we go get up to a hundred bottles? I mean, why not?

00:30:35
Speaker 1: I imagine you know, you might have a guy eventually on your staff that, like you're in the summer, You're like, God, that guy is dragging ass. He's but I'll tell you what, he's really good to make it.

00:30:47
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00:30:51
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00:31:34
Speaker 3: Now back to Ryan Tushorn.

00:31:37
Speaker 1: Now that you've been there for fourteen years, Yes, how's like what you're working on as it changed? Like what were the early years like middle years? And I'm sure the years are going faster. I have a theory that it becomes smaller parts of your life, but that's a different thing. But I'm sure the years are going faster. But like, how is what you've been focused on as a superintendent. Obviously you know you've got like your core things that you're doing, But what are the what have you been doing over the years that's changed?

00:32:08
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the early years, the I inherited a golf course that was just it was in really bad shape in a number of different fashions, Like I had heard horror stories coming in. So the first three four years it was literally just greens teas and fairways, greens season fairways. I don't I'm not too worried about much else. I mean, we started getting into the architectural work, working with I think probably Brian's Slonic with Renaissance golf and doing like some as my former green share would say, small like low cost, big impact work when it came to ferry lines and starting to rent at ats and green expansions, but it was just greens, teas and fairways. I started establishing more fescue because the bulk of the fescue that was there wasn't it wasn't grown out when I was there, or it wasn't there. So we started doing that, but we didn't put too much work into it. And then I think it's like my third or fourth season, my green Chairs like are you gonna do somebod these fescues? You know, it kind of fissed me off of I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do something with the fescues. So we just kind of made our way out, you know. We started kind of started the center of the golf course and then worked our way out into the rough and the fescues and a lot of projects, a lot of projects to kind of bring back the course to play the way it was meant to play, and now it's I mean, knock on wood within reason, greens Tea's fairways, rough kind of take care of themselves to find fescue kind of has my attention all the time because you can have a really good agronomic plan and it'll help make everything better. But then once you get to the fescue, you can't have a good agonomic plan. You have to have a shitty agonomic plan to grow thinner fescue, and then that leads to all these other issues, and that it's a challenge that I both hate and love at the same time, so that.

00:33:58
Speaker 1: That's the thing that you you have to focus on the most.

00:34:02
Speaker 2: Really, for me, when I'm driving around, most of my attention goes to the fine escu areas these days.

00:34:09
Speaker 1: Yes, does it cost a lot to maintain fine rescue versus like, you know, if it's say it was just you're irrigated rough without you know, I know it's probably not irrigated very much. But say it was just rough versus rescue, is it labor and time much more intensive? Because I feel like that's always people have to say, oh, that's a low maintenance.

00:34:31
Speaker 2: Area, but I've never actually run the numbers and tracked the labor. I mean, you know, chemical wise, you know, with herbicides and pre emergence and all this and that. I mean, the fescues probably get more, but the rough you're cutting it every single week and you are applying materials to it. I always say, like, if there's fine fescue areas and there's native areas, you know, so like we're we're we have what I like to call findfest fire. Is like we make a very conscientious sepport to have almost one hundred percent find fescue as weed free as possible, you know, bark without the bite, like you hit your ball and they you should find it. But it's a more difficult shock compared to some places that have native areas that are meant to be low maintenance areas and meant to not like it's out of play, it's not really meant to be touched. So cost wise, it's definitely we don't do it for a cost savings. I'll tell you that.

00:35:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that makes sense too. Denoting like your fine fescue areas is really part of your your playing experience. It's part of the playing you know, the golf course as opposed to like I think that's probably where a lot of confusion comes, like native versus I like the way you kind of delineated the two because they are different. Because you go into some native and you're like, this is a jungle and it's two yards off the fairway, and that's maybe an issue. But if it's you know, if you're you mapped one forty five yards right and you can't find it, that's not you know, it's too bad.

00:36:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The fescue for us, I mean it does a couple of things. One on the front line, as you said, where it's more open, it kind of separates whle the holes from each other. You kind of you get those borders where the fine fesci turns out gold color, and it kind of delineates the holes from each other, Like when you come down the front entrance and like you can see there's ten, there's four, and they're kind of they have the fine fescu kind of separates them. And then on top of that, just from a golf court, I mean, our biggest defense is are greens, but we in general have pretty big wide fairways. We don't have a ton of rough, but the fescue also acts as a as a defense, but it's not meant to Some areas of fescue obviously are a little on the on the thick side, which we're constantly working on, but they're meant to be. Steve McDonald wants told me, good, fine, fesc you should be a half stroke penalty, And I think that's a good way to look at it.

00:36:54
Speaker 1: With your master plaid that you guys are working off of. You know, how how far would you say? How about more do you have left on it? And do you ever think you'll be done with the master plan the restoration work?

00:37:09
Speaker 2: Well, first off, we never did a master.

00:37:11
Speaker 3: Never, no master plan, okay, no, the I think.

00:37:14
Speaker 2: Brian Slonik has the master plan in his head, but there's never actually been and I think I and I think I know what his master plan looks like because we've been working together long enough. He's a fellow Detroit Lion fan, by the way, which.

00:37:31
Speaker 1: Helps pedal away with your master plan in your heads and your misery quick.

00:37:41
Speaker 2: So first day I met him, we walked the golf course. I'm just going to keep this short, and we had a great day. And as he's leaving. I had a Detroit Lion license plate and he stops in his tracks. He looks back at me and this is like I said the year after they went to sixteen, and he looks at me with a smile, like you a Detroit Lion fan. I said, listen, man, we had a good day. Let's not go ruining it now. He's like, oh, oh, I'm Traverse City, Michigan. I'm a lines fan. I'm with you. And you know we've had We've had some business where he comes into work and were like purposely timing around the weekend so we can go watch the game.

00:38:12
Speaker 3: It's like it's like the step Brothers moment where.

00:38:18
Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, first visit, we got there. No, it's I don't want to make it long winded, but like he came in and it's like I remember our first walk. He started talking about expanding this ferry and expanding that fairway and we're on number two and I said, hey, are you gonna help me pay for all this? I said, you know, mowing, chemicals, fertility, et cetera. And he says, well, what do you propose? And like I said, we're on number two. The dam hole and it used to have about an extra fifty yards a fairway, and I'm like right here, I'm like, what is the point of this ferry right here? And he looked at me and said, well, that's for the bunters. I said, the bunters. He's like, yeah, the bunters. And I said, what do we really need it? And he's like And that's where we just went into mitigation and expanding, taking from the fronts of fairways that really aren't play and bringing out the edges that had narrowed over the I mean, all the fairways at Mary Based Not Sorry Mary Not as Summerson Hills basically became like just runways. They were straight. They lost a lot of that character. So we started going in and expanding all Basically, every every single fairway at Summersets received some kind of fairway expansion slash mitigation, and we did the majority of it without actually increasing acreage. When we got to the end and we started getting into some bigger ones like on seven and eighteen, that's we started leading to and seventeen. We started getting some increases in acreage then, but that's kind of what got things going, and you know, that got the membership excited and then we decided, hey, let's take on some tea complexes. Let's let's let's get some He did.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: Some stuff, You showed him some good stuff, and then you tell the membership, hey, why don't you open up the pocket books we built.

00:40:01
Speaker 2: We built some confidence. They like what they're seeing, what they're seeing, and give that, give them credit. They then just want more. And then so then we decided to do some t comp and we did all the work in house with Brian. I haven't used a contractor for really just about anything. Even now at our in house bunker restoration, we're just we're doing it in house. And we got some tea complexes done, and that built more confidence in the membership, but also build confidence in myself that hey, you know, we can do this. I remember the very first tea that Brian did and he gives me a call and he's like, hey, number three is too rough grade. You guys can come in now. And I walked. I came over and he he was gonna be using a bulldozer and I'm like, how good can you given a bulldozer? I didn't know. And I get to number three and I'm like, you call this rough grade? This is this is pretty good. He's like, oh, you know, but it's funny like the early teas when he didn't have somehing, he didn't have confidence in this. We hadn't done it before. He left those teas in like really good condition. Once we started getting better what we're doing, he didn't start leaving him in the best condition. He's like, yeah, it's good, you can take it from there. So I like, I know, I just Brian comes in, he makes a big mess and then we have to clean up after him.

00:41:08
Speaker 3: Well, you're you're effectively his editor now.

00:41:11
Speaker 1: Like I I used to write, I would write really well and go through the things I wrote. If my wife was editing, who knows nothing about golf, like I would do you know, four or five passes and I'd give it to her. But now that Garrett who does some pods out here just to me, I know he's going to fix everything, and he just gets to the first stress.

00:41:38
Speaker 2: But also going back to like the whole I remember the first visit we actually I had gotten pricing to redo all the bunkers because the bunkers were in really bad shape. I don't know if you've gotten any of the bunkers that we hadn't done yet, and I.

00:41:50
Speaker 1: Hadn't had him many good I was in the one. I was in the one that you know. Independently, my buddy sent me a text about your video of you rolling that approach into the third bunker.

00:42:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, that you put it, and he said that's so awesome.

00:42:07
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, I've experienced that.

00:42:10
Speaker 3: That was an awful place to be.

00:42:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not where you want to be. But I remember we told Brian like, hey, we're looking at doing a full bunker restoration. This is before he had done any work with that, I had done any work with him, and he were like, what do you think? And he's just like it's not a good idea. He just completely shut us down. And we're like why. He's like, your greens and fairways and teas need attention, Like bunkers is like more of a finishing touch, you know, because if you think about it, you can go out and play a golf course and not doing a single bunker. And so for the master plan, it was, you know, we get out to do all these fairway expansions, like let's make sure we get our hands on every single fairway. Then we started doing some te's. We started with the worst teas and adding some length to some holes, and not just to arbitrary add length, but to get the whole plane back to what it should be playing, you know, get putting a four iron in someone's handstead of seven iron, and and that just kind of built momentum. And then all of a sudden, the memberships like, oh, what teams are doing next year? Oh, we're going to do these three or four te's next year, you know. And then we got through all the teas except for one and ten, which are being done now along with the practice tea. And then all of a sudden, I got to the point where it's like, well, now it's time to do bunkers, and that same thing. It's I have a certain amount of money each year in capital, and I get as many bunkers done as I can. I work with Brian to kind of figure out what we're doing. We classified them into like three categories, because what I learned with Brian is like, we want to maintain that old look. You know, you don't have to you don't have to do a project and make it obvious that you did a project, like you can do a project, make the golf course better and not have it be obvious that hey, look what they did there.

00:43:43
Speaker 1: Like my deal, the best work is the ones that the stuff that you don't notice. Good restoration work. Probably it's like a good ref in sports, like great refs you don't notice exactly.

00:43:56
Speaker 2: Then. One of the best compliments I ever got that for me personally, I ever got Brian was on our eleventh hole, the the part four dog leg right near the near the pond. We that rock wall is there. We did that my second or third year. I had two guys down there all winter laying big rock. We were really proud of it. He came in for a visit. He went and walked the course. He came in and I said, and I said, hey, would you what did you think of a number eleven? And he's like, I love that hole. I was like, no, but what'd you think of the rock wall? And he said what rock wall? And I said, we freaking spent three months building a rock wall between the green Side Fairy and Teeside Fair. When he looked at me and said, well, it must be pretty good because I didn't notice it. And I was like, huh, you know, and that goes with our bunkers, you know, like we we haven't broken the three categories. And A in a grade is that nothing is happening to the exterior of the bunker. We're just going in and fixing the subgrade, putting in drainage, putting in liner, and putting our own custom sand back in. You know, a b grade is Brian comes in and he marks out a new edge line, and then it's but we're not blowing it up.

00:44:58
Speaker 1: It's just it's just you know, getting a more capturing the scale.

00:45:04
Speaker 2: Yes, or or with these architects, the way they look at things is just it's incredible. But just how by flaring up this corner here, how that line of bunker sand will then also reflect off the bunker sand at five Greenside, which then it's just incredible the different angles that they look at these things from. But then you know, we go in there, we do the new edge line, he comes and double checks it, maybe do some more, but then once again subgrade drainage, and then c is, yeah, we're gonna fully redo that. But out of one hundred and eleven bunkers, I think he only designated fifteen or sixty to them for a full redo.

00:45:40
Speaker 1: With Schaeffer at Marion. I heard whenever they did rock walls, he would ask a question, who's built a rock wall? And if somebody raised their hand that they'd built a rock wall, then he'd say, well, I want the guys that had never built a rock wall to build a rock wall.

00:45:56
Speaker 3: Is that true?

00:45:58
Speaker 2: I personally have never been exposed to that, so I can't validate that.

00:46:03
Speaker 1: It reminded me what the first I was with told me that story. It reminded me of of the Mackenzie line of like, how do you build a great green, hire the biggest fool in town and tell them to make it flat?

00:46:20
Speaker 2: It's it. Yeah, I can't tell you how much I've Like, I feel like I've evolved at Somerset and like understanding, Like I feel like I understand the golf course and that you know, we've gotten through a good bit of bunkers, and a lot of the bunkers that you didn't know that we did them. You wouldn't know. But they drained. Now they're not a bird bath for how long they don't get destroyed in a storm. And then even our sand we we sift, we all the sand we pull out, we sift it and then we mix it with the new sand because you can't buy dark sand, and it just all follows that goal of I always just say, like it's like a real like a true antiquer or someone that like want wants to restore a car from the sixties and they want to restore it with all the original parts and not just buy the parts. Like I feel like that's what we're what we're trying to do is kind of bring back what it was meant to be, but not have it the obvious that we did it. It just it just kind of clowsed.

00:47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a neat way to do it too, because I think you know, when you restore one hundred year old course, you don't want it to look brand new.

00:47:28
Speaker 3: You know you want it.

00:47:29
Speaker 1: You want it to you want it to play like it's new in a way. You know, you want it to function like it should in twenty twenty one, but you you want that aesthetic. You want it removes the sense of place. If you lose the the aesthetic of like if it doesn't look like a hundred year old course, then there's something maybe a little off right.

00:47:49
Speaker 2: I mean, no, without a doubt, I mean I remember in the early years we had a lot of disease issues with our with our fairways, and the USGA would recommend, you know, regrat like killing the fairies off, and you know, I considered it, and I'd have a conversation with membership, and the biggest drawback to it wasn't hey, we're gonna have to close the fairways for two months or this and that. It was they're gonna look new, you know, they're not. Like my assistant Steve Stewart worked went out to Oakmont for the Amateur and I was like, how are conditions out there? I hear Oakmont's usually pretty good? What are their fairwies like? He's like, they're they're tight like ours and they're similar rs. He's like, bent poa. They got rye and you know, you might not want the rye on the fairways. You don't want to stand out. At the same time, it just kind of gives it that old feel like I went to when I went and visited Scott Down Union League, you know where they're doing that full growing being on being a summer sale at time, it felt weird to walk on like perfectly uniform greens approaches and fairways like it just I mean, obviously it fits there, but for me, it just it felt it felt it felt odd.

00:48:55
Speaker 1: I can't remember where I was, but it was a really I had never heard this from it. I hit a shot on a course I was with a superintendent. My divot flew into the rough and I went to grab it and he goes, no, no, just let it go in there.

00:49:08
Speaker 3: I need different rests in there. Yeah.

00:49:13
Speaker 2: I mean, that's these perfectly uniform rough. It kind of takes away from what roff is supposed to mean when you hit your ball in the rough. Like I said, I'm not a very good golfer, but if you hit your ball in the rough, you walk up hoping that you have a good lie, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. And that's what the rough should be. It's just like a it's just like a bunker. You know, you don't. I'm sure you don't want to Fried Egg, but you.

00:49:36
Speaker 3: Know, you're just I like it. It's a good branding moment for me.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: But you're just you're hoping, you're hoping for a good lie. I mean, it's really teas, fairways and greens or really the only areas where you should get a really consistent uniform surface. But then like even at Somerset with the fairways, we have all kinds of little undulations and stuff. So you can hit your ball down the middle of the fairway and you might have it down lie, you might have an up to lie. So and that's what golf is.

00:50:04
Speaker 1: It's interesting the way you guys went about your your restoration over the years is I feel like, you know, obviously like bunkers were a big issue, and I feel like bunkers are almost always the impetus for these big renovations restorations that we see where it's a shutdown, and the reason it all starts as a bunker project seemingly well, we knew we needed a new bunkers and this is and you guys knew you needed new bunkers. But rather than you know, doing all the bunkers right off the bat, it was we're going to focus on everything else and then get to bunkers, which is a very you know, non typical pathway to getting to what you know, was one of the biggest pain points that you started with.

00:50:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, I mean, I'm not a good golfer, but I can go out and play nine holes and not going a single bunker. You got to get the greens, teas and fairways right and get your mowing right. I mean I have the luxury of being on summerset hills where you know, they encourage me to provide you know, champion championship conditions whatever you want to call it, firm, fast conditions. But then I also had the architecture that then highlight like it kind of works as a synergy with how we present the golf course from a playability standpoint, but then also architectually how the golf course plays and when we're drop, when we're dry, there's not too many holes where if you're a good golfer, you're just go up to the tee and whack the driver and as long as it's on the fairway, you're good. You're playing, You're playing different angles and like you said before, you got to know what you're doing or else you can hit your ball in the fairway and still not be in a very good position.

00:51:42
Speaker 1: Especially with those greens. I wanted to talk to you about green speeds in the Northeast. I you know, on my recent John in the Northeast, on my many trips to the Northeast, I always walk away shaking my head about green speeds.

00:51:57
Speaker 3: Why do you.

00:51:57
Speaker 1: Guys need to Why does why does everybody the Northeast and I know it's it's reflective of of your members and and just general people in the Northeast. Why does it have to be so fast?

00:52:12
Speaker 2: Oh, this is the top. I mean, I can't win with green speeds, I'll tell you right now. So what I do is I aim for the masses. I'm shooting for like a B to B plush every every year with that, because I.

00:52:26
Speaker 1: Will say that yours were the slowest I encountered, which made me the happiest.

00:52:31
Speaker 2: Oh man, come on now, no, I'm saying this.

00:52:35
Speaker 1: I want them to be slow because I feel like that we're You're the Northeast has this wonderful collection of greens, wonderful collection of golf courses that are just that are just having the most compelling aspect of their designs stripped away by you know, the need to have faster greens in their neighbor.

00:52:59
Speaker 2: I agree, I mean it without a doubt. I mean, we have such cool greens, and when they get to a certain speed, changing pins is boring because you get into these stop positions. But it's so over my time at Summerset. Top three complaints I've had against me, and we're gonna We're gonna go in no particular now. Number one is pin placements. Number two is pin locations. Number three is location of the pins. It just like for me, it's it's they're most happy when they the greens are probably too fast because they go out there with their friends and they just they have a good time, you know. But where it's kind of we can't do a whole lot of pin locations. Uh, but like in August, so we don't do like a standard oeration anymore. We do what I call it two week green vacation, so we don't tear them up because they just don't need to. But I kind of just purposely give the greens a break. I slowed things down a little bit.

00:54:06
Speaker 1: When those two weeks. When are those two weeks, that's when I'm coming back.

00:54:12
Speaker 2: It's usually, like I said, we'll solid time greens and we'll do these other things. It's typically pour Mondays prior to Labor Day. So I think next year is like August ninth or something like that, and we purposely keep the greens a little bit softer, a little bit slower, and we have fun with pin locations. But the thing is, when the greens are a little slower, whether it be time of year or being wet or on purpose, I go out there and I have fun with pin locations, and I get asked if I got in the fight with my wife last night, like, what'd you do get in a fight with your wife last night? And I pinned on seven, I'm like, oh, is it fair? Well, it's fair, but I've never seen it there before. That should be awesome. Like if I played, if I played the golf course full of time, I would if I saw a pin that was fair in a location never seen before, I'd be like, there we go. That's what I'm talking about. But it's it's so it's so hard because you have you have you have people in the membership that know that those greens probably should be a ten, maybe an eleven, and you can have diversity with pins, but the bulk of the membership they enjoy it more when the greens are rocking and rolling. So I kind of aim for the masses during the year, we shoot for like an eleven to an eleven and a half, because that seems too the people that want the greens faster, it keeps them satisfied. People that want the greens slower are okay with that. Certain events we tune things up, you know, and then the fall if they typically just speed up on their own. So it's it's a constant discussion.

00:55:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it shouldn't be a discussion. It should be everybody in the Northeast that pushes for faster green speed should be ashamed of themselves.

00:55:51
Speaker 2: We do try to, like for different days and different events, we try to tweak it with what we whether it be a ladies event or a really good golf event or whatever whatever it may be. But it's just like we sometimes all of a sudden, they'll have an event where they want the greens at like a ten, and the next day they want him at like a thirteen. And it's like, it's not a sweitch, it's not a switch, you know what. One of those two days is going to be disappointed. They're either gonna be a little too slow for this event or a little too fast for this event.

00:56:20
Speaker 3: Once there fast, you can't slow him down.

00:56:25
Speaker 2: We had we had a member, I don't know remember a whole eleven, all right, So we had a member a member guest, and we went out of our way to make that approach as fast as possible. We shaved the bunker down just for the hell of it, and like if you hit a ball short at all on that green, it was coming off and it was rolling to the bunker. I sent the video of my pro and I said, what do you think. He's like, I don't think it's a good idea, but let's just go with it. But you're not allowed to sit there and watch. I said, all right, not a problem. Day one ended, He's like, you gotta do something, and it was a It was a freaking nightmare. So the next day we went out and like purposely like brushed the approach and didn't cut, just to slow it down a little bit. That's an approach. But I understand, I understand what you're saying.

00:57:05
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm gonna get you out of here.

00:57:08
Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited about your maple syrup season that's coming, and h I envy you. I wanted to I want to see how the how the syrups made. That's something that actually interests me. But thank you for coming on.

00:57:24
Speaker 2: If you go on my Twitter page, I got I got some info on there.

00:57:27
Speaker 1: All right, how do people find it? What's his Twitter account? Those our tucks horn, right.

00:57:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, our tuks worn. And then if you come back in August for our Green Vacation two week hiatus, maybe I'll save you a bottle.

00:57:40
Speaker 3: I know, I might. I might have to.

00:57:42
Speaker 1: I might have to just go out there in the middle of winter and get one.

00:57:48
Speaker 2: Hey man, we'll be there.

00:57:49
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So, uh, thanks for coming on and uh we'll talk to you again soon.

00:57:56
Speaker 2: All right, thank you.

00:58:07
Speaker 1: Today's podcast was edited by the great Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg. As always, I hope you guys have been enjoying the Superintendent series. Something that helps the podcast out a little is if you rate and review us on iTunes or Apple podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. Really, so, if you don't mind rate and review us, give us your feedback, and we'd love to hear from you, whether it's good or bad. I'm always open to criticism. So thank you guys for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the latest edition of the Superintendent series.