Transcript
So if anybody else wants to speak and that wasn’t trying to cut you off, Aaron just, oh, you’re fine, man. Letting everybody else know that, uh, if they, uh, are interested, bring it on. And hopefully, uh, Seth will be here at some point because this was really his idea. Not that I, oh boy, not that I mind doing. ’em but I’ve, uh, I’ve been really bad here lately. Just life’s got me bogged down, I guess, and going through some things and having made this a priority, but it’s something I do really enjoy doing and talking to and hearing everybody else’s story, at least let’s, uh, let’s us know we’re not. Whoa. What was that? I don’t know. It sounded like something fell in the background there. You heard that? Yeah, I heard it. It was a big boom was dog. I hell, going on, hold on, go for, uh, Chris or Jake, Kyle. Any of y’all wanna get on here. Tell us what you’re working on or what you’re doing or what’s happening struggles in your life, whatever it may be. We’ll, uh, we’ll bring you right on. Hey Chris, how you doing today? There you go. Now I can talk. There you go. I’m sitting out on the deck, watching my boys. Be boys Yeah, but I, uh, started my week with four working utility carts and I’m down to one. Oh, wow. Old, old, old Cushman. Of course going out to, uh, check the course one last time, because that’s what I do. Mm-hmm and, uh, lost power thought. I ran outta gas, found out after getting it towed in well going, having the cart girl, take me in and get me gas, go all the way back out then start. Wow. And then realizing, getting a bag boy. Oh, it didn’t because obviously wait in the day, no one was there except me from the grounds and, uh, get it in there. Diagnose it, find out there was no power going to the, uh, fuel pump. Oh wow. so I got that. That happened Friday night so that that’s got sitting in my, uh, sitting on my bench Saturday morning crew had a carry all. They went out and rode. It blew off the goose crap off the green. And, uh, I came back to do bunkers and they said it won’t go. And then I had another cart today. I was running it cause my cart was halfway out in the middle of a shotgun member. Guest muffler lets loose. And it sounded like a fricking Harley halfway back in his shop. And I had to stop every three seconds cuz everybody was putting and looking, wow. whatever Ryans at fours. Yeah. And on the top of it, I went to check the greens on Saturday for moisture, and I saw a hotspot on fairway and I said, oh, valve blew ride out. And of course, it’s right on the main line of the golf course that shuts down a third of the course. Wow. So. Went home, clean myself up, grabbed my daughter. Who’s on the ground screw and we spent six hours fixing the irrigation yesterday afternoon. It’s crazy. so, yeah, we’re I can’t wait for winter. yeah. It’s it’s time to, uh, slow down and hopefully catch up and get back on the other end of things. We had a 10 inch main line blowout close to the pop house. It was a Pierce fit and a metal tee and it sprung a leak. We had a big turf bubble and it was on a, like a Friday afternoon and it took us almost over a week to get it all put back together, all the stuff we had to dig up. And of course it rained every day and I don’t, it was a nightmare. And we were trying to do airification at the same time and it was not easy. Yeah. I had, uh, eight mainline fixed. They’re all those Pierce leaks. Yeah. Yeah. Those fittings something else. I don’t know, uh, why they put those in what’s going on with you, Jack. How you doing today? Hey, I’m pretty good. Getting ready to air fight tomorrow and Tuesday. All right. Well, you you’re good. Now you won’t be Wednesday. Well, it’s supposed to rain too, so we gotta keep an eye on stuff. Yeah, that’s uh, that’s what I was kind of just talking about our, we were closed for three days for airification and it rained every single day. And not just rain. We had lightning too. So, you know, everybody has to come in, wait for the lightning alarm to clear before they can go back out. And I don’t, it was miserable. It’s been, uh, toughest summer. I can remember in a long time. Yeah, no kidding. Are y’all bent grass greens there? Yes we are. Yeah. What kind of be, or, and are you close to Myrtle? No I’m in, uh, Thomasville, which is next to Greenboro in, Winston-Salem in North Carolina. Okay. All right. Is there still a good bit of bent grass up there? Uh, a lot of people are switching over to or bent or, uh, Bermuda mm-hmm yeah, I think all the courses around me around Atlanta is pretty much went to Bermuda. Yeah. We’re we’re a small crew of five during the winter. It’s uh, it’s a lot of maintenance in the wintertime when it gets cold. Right. You got all the air fires set up and ready to go. Yes, sir. All right. You talked to, uh, Chad, any lately? Uh, it’s been a couple weeks, man. Yeah. Yep. I know what he said that him and, uh, Michael Sheldon was coming down for east lake and I really hope I get to run over there and see. I’ve just been so busy. I don’t know how much time I’ll get to go hang out with them, but I’ll definitely try to make it by for at least an hour or something. Yeah, that’d be cool. Yeah. No, it’s so much fun at east lake working there and hanging out with the guys and gals and they have really good food too. So it’s, it’s hard to be. It’s a good time. Yeah. I was wanting to help Jean up at UHS field last week for week before, but I realized. The week we had, I’d had taken a day off possible to freaked. So, yeah. Yeah. Especially with a, a group like that. And that’s the other thing I’ve been down one person pretty much all summer. And that’s, uh, made the nightmare worse than what it was. Oh yeah. Yep. But I’ll so I’ll have two starting tomorrow. And both of ’em. Oh, good. Or, yeah. So the one guy he left me back in may, I guess, I think it was sometime in may he left. Um, and anyway, I talked him into coming back, so he starts back tomorrow and, uh, sure him is excited because he is worked with me for, I don’t at least two years prior. So I mean, he knows, he knows what’s going on and that’s gonna be a, a big help for us. Good. Glad to hear that. but it’s gotta be a struggle with five people. I would think doing anything much. Well, you know, it’s not so bad in the winter, but in the summer. And we we’ve got about five part-timers in the summer, but it seems like every week somebody else was taking a week off going to the beach or, and one guy took two weeks off. It’s like, what do you mean two weeks in the summer? Come on, come on. Yep. Yep. Yeah. That’s crazy. Yeah. Most of the people we have are high school or college. Yeah. And since school just started back, I don’t, we had this is the craziest thing. Um, and as you know, I guess, younger generations, whatever, but we had 42 people on staff at one time, just for agronomy for an 18 whole course. And none of them would work 40 hours a. So, you know, used to, we could get everything done we needed to do with 25, but now we gotta have 42 to, you know, turn the same amount of hours. It’s just it’s nuts. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it’s tough to manage too, because you could forget who’s on, I actually took the restaurant schedule and started using their spreadsheet for like shift, you know, like the bartenders on from. you got another bartender coming in from 10 to 12 or whatever, you know, mm-hmm, started thinking that concept. And, uh, I went down a fairway moer, had a guy Mo fairways in the morning and another guy would come in at 11 and then mow the back nine, you know, be and same thing. They didn’t, nobody wants to work 40 hours. Right. And, uh, that’s crazy. Crazy. And, and what I got is a bunch of what we call volunteers, but it’s members that work for their membership. So they come and do a single task, like roll greens or divot, or just mow greens on Saturday and in return they get a free membership. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Ette saves on the payroll. Yeah, yeah. Yep. So, but even still you gotta manage that as well, you know? Yeah. You look at my job board. I got 16 to 20 guys, but at any given point I got like four physically working mm-hmm so. Yeah, it’s nice. Uh, we would have good numbers Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but every other day it was hard to get everything done that we needed to get done. Yeah. I have it fat on the big MOS, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Most of my 40 hour crew guys get half day on Thursday. So they don’t hit overtime on the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s tough. Hey, Ken, just seeing you on here, listening. If you want to talk, just hit the request button and we’ll make you a speaker too. Hopefully we’ll have some more people get on here because I don’t know what all to say. I just wanted to I just wanted to catch up with everybody and see how everybody’s doing and it’s, uh, I can’t remember last space we had was probably in end of June or something. I don’t think I had one in July. So it, it is been a while, but we all get busy and we all got stuff going on at work, personal life. Everything else, hard to keep track of it sometimes. Yeah, it is. Yeah. My day today, I was playing drums at church in the middle of playing the last song. I look over at my phone and it’s the pro we got our, supposed to be on. Apparently he took off and forgot to cut the cup on number four, which was technically a pin that was, uh, became illegal. Cuz we dried out and we were mowing a little tighter and uh, they couldn’t hold a ball on it. Oh wow. So I got done playing drums left the middle of church service went out there and my. Cups. Wow. I had a little discussion with my assistant about making sure his cell phone was next to his hip. Yeah, yeah. Yep. For sure. Yeah. Those are good joys. Yeah. No, it never ends it’s uh, yeah, a struggle for all of us to, to keep up. There’s our boy, Seth, we’ve been badmouthing. You called this space and you, you ain’t even here, but you I’m giving you a hard time. You did say between seven and seven 30 and I, I picked seven. What’s happening. What’s going on, boys? Not much, not much, not much at all. And honestly, you hadn’t missed much. We’ve just been, uh, complaining about how bad this summer’s been. With irrigation breaks and weather. Ah, this summer’s been great. I’m glad it has been for you. It’s been busy, but it’s been good. We’ve had good weather. Well, that’s good too. A lot of, uh, I mean mostly dry, but yeah, it’s been been a decent year. I’d say not us far as, uh, I was across the street. Once your neighbors find out you’re a golf course mechanic, they always need your help. I was actually, uh, across the street fixing my neighbor’s lawnmower. What, what kind of mower was it? Uh, a Troy built with a Briggs engine. Okay. With a aluminum intake push ride that bent So I’ve never seen a, a push rod made of. Wow. Yeah. I don’t know that I’ve really seen it. S they got him on some Briggs and, uh, I’ve seen him on some cows, I believe where it’s only on the intake side. Yep. Hmm. So when I was a small engine mechanic out in Michigan there, long out of those bend, you worked at Wegars. Yeah. I worked out there at the Utica store. I was. Was up at St. Clair club up. Now it’s held to St. Clair golf club up there in St. Clair county. That place went under and I was looking for a job and went, worked for, uh, Ronnie and the boys. Gotcha. Oh, it was a good job. Good people. I deal with. I deal with wine guards too much. hopefully in a good way. What do they supply everything from lawn to snow? Yeah. They used to be the John Deere golf dealer a while back. Uh, gosh, I was there when they, so, and they used to transfer everything over to the Farmington store and anything that came through the Utica store sprayer. They gave it to me cuz they knew I worked on golf courses. You got the short stick? Yeah. When I took, when I, when I took over Oakland Hills, I was digging through the, uh, filing cabinet and found. Some, all the equipment quotes from wine guards for John Deere. It’s pretty funny, huh? Yeah. They’re good people there. It was good. It’s just at the time John Deere product wasn’t it was today. It was. And then you got Spartan, Spartan distributors king out there. I mean, yeah, fucking none out there. And Chris and the guys, I mean, heck I don’t know, is Don even still managing it and I don’t know if she still owns it, but good. Yeah, I’m not sure who, but yeah. Trey, you got your help back. I’m working on it. Um, I was just telling the others that, so I had a guy leave in may and I just talked to him into coming back and he’s supposed to start tomorrow. So that’s gonna be a big. Uh, I was about to get on airplane and come rescue. Yeah, I know. It’s I don’t know, man. It’s it’s it’s so, so tough. Yeah. When he left in may, there was another guy that was on the crew that had some golf course mechanic experience at another club when he came to us and he was interested in working in the shop, but I had two solid guys in there and didn’t really want to give him the opportunity. So anyway, The guy left in may. We brought him in and I mean, he was jam up and doing good. And then, uh, he went through some personal stuff and then he got in some trouble and then he got in some more trouble. And far as I know, as far as I know, he’s still in jail and he got, he got locked up. Uh, he was already on probation and then he got locked up. I don’t know it’s sometime 1st of July or something and, or middle of July, it’s been right at a month. He’s been in the pen, I guess. So I don’t know if he’s ever coming back or what’ll happen there a good guy, but he’s gotta get his stuff together too. Yeah. We had a guy who worked for us the last couple of summers young. And he took a job at full-time at another course, not far away. And then we offered him the opportunity to come back full time and he took it about three weeks ago and his first day he worked all day. And then the next day he called in to stick with COVID he was after a week and a half before he came back in. Yeah, no, its crazy. We were still looking forward to having you back full time and we works one day and laid it up with COVID. yep. It’s something else. How, uh, how’d your verification go, Trent? Um, pretty terrible, honestly. and the, the main reason it did and I was telling the others we had, so we wanted to do the, we got the wet jet air fire, and we wanted a wet jet. So you run it as three point hits. You gotta run onto de tractor and we wanna do it first because we didn’t want to, uh, core verify and make the greens really soft and then leave all these ruts. But we had a 10 inch main line blow out the weekend before we were supposed to start. And we were closed for three days to do the airification. It rained every single day and not just rained, but lightening. So we had lightning delays and have to come in for, you know, an hour, hour and a half before you could go back out. We ran two shifts. So we started at six and worked till 9, 9 30, and didn’t get half the stuff done that we needed to get done. And then we figured it up the other day. It’s rained, like 20 days out of 20. So that’s not conducive for airification and we’re trying to air fi fairways, all the T complexes, uh, approaches, you know, we’re trying to get it all done, AFI everything at one time in three days. Well, we didn’t expect to finish it in three days, but we, we thought we would have enough finish that we could open the course back up for. And I mean, we did end up opening for place. So that was another hurdle and hassle that we had to deal with is working around golf the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was, it was a mess. It was, uh, so anyway, to make a long story longer, we’re just now getting our greens Heights down to not even where they need to be, but we’re, we’re mowing ’em with a wa mower. Finally. Wow. We put so much sand on ’em. We ultra groomed so many times and trying to work that in and yeah. You know, get the leaf plates stood up and cut it and not scalp it and all the fun things of working on the golf course do do y’all do that every year. Yes. So that, that aggress. Well, no. So this is, I guess, a newer process that we started used to, we would core air fry, all the greens one time with like a five, eight OD about a half inch ID time on a one point. Well, our number used to be 1.6, 1.6 basin on the Procore. And I don’t, you know, I don’t remember the number that gave us, uh, you know, eight, 9% removal or something like that. And we done that every year, just once a year. And we would always do it sometime in July. And I got the two courses. So the Midtown course they’re open 4th of July and they’re closed July 5th. So we would always do it on July 5th down there. And then, well, yeah, one year when we done it down there, and as soon as we finished down there, we went and done the other course. That was a nightmare. So this year. Split it up like two weeks apart, we had two weeks in between the two air cations and I don’t, we went one time and we didn’t even airy, you know? And then now I think that hurt us a little bit. Not yeah. You know, membership loved it, but right. That didn’t do, uh, what it needed to do for the turf grass. So are, are you go ahead. Are y’all, uh, Bermuda or Ben Bermuda. Okay. And we’re champion Bermuda. And from what I know about it, it doesn’t like to be, verti cut quite as much as like mini Verde and that kind of stuff. But I think we definitely need to be doing more of the ultragrain and I don’t know if y’all are familiar with the ultra grammar just made by advanced turf technologies, I think at T yep. At T um, and it is that’s right. That’s. That’s what we run. Okay. I love those things. I mean, it’s dude, those things are nice. That’s really nice. And we were running it at, I don’t remember it was like 25, 50,000 below zero. But what number is that? What do you mean? Well, the, the, like my, my cassettes, my ATT cassettes for the ultra groomers, you know, they got like a, the dial that you. Right for the roller up and down and it’s on a number. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know what number it was. Gotcha. Um, I just, I measured it with, uh, beta cut gauge and we gotcha. Set ’em all to 50 thousands. Below and it, you know, it didn’t like rip the turf up, but what it done, it loosened the canopy up so much. That’s what we kept doing, trying to make the greens better. Loosened the canopy up, working sand in loosen the canopy work sand in. And we done that for like two weeks. So I think we’re gonna have a really good product once we come out of it. Yeah. But we, we gotta get there first. I think, I honestly think that spacing on those. You know, it might be like, I know what did, uh, Justin and in the WhatsApp group posted, I think this past week, um, an issue with his ultra groomer slash ver cutters, like it almost looked like it was bouncing across the green. Like it wasn’t, it was just chattering across the green cuz he wasn’t deep enough. Oh I gotcha. Yeah. Maybe or either too deep. You know, depending on ground speed and all that could, I guess, cause issues too. Um, yeah, I was just curious if that, that canopy’s too dense for how tight spacing those blades are. Yeah. Could be though those car by tips are the blades offset, like in a spiral setting so that they’re not, yeah, I’m just, I’m just, I was gonna say I’m just not familiar with it, but I’m just, I know. If you get the right spin they’ll they’ll chatter. Yeah, no, those blades are offset, but I mean, they’re like Seth saying and really tight. So you, you couldn’t do a, a quarter inch or a eight, even an eight inch, you know, vertical, like you could with a traditional Vertica. And I mean, that’s why they call it a groomer. I mean, it’s really more of a groomer and we that’s what it is. Yeah. We run it a lot during the season. Like we, since we’re closed on Tuesday, we’ll top dress on Tuesday and we’ll run the ultra groomer, you know, basically set at zero. So it’s, you know, it’s picking up some material, but not much. but like I’m saying it loosens that canopy up and we can kinda work some sand in there too behind it. That’s a good idea. Yeah. I got a set of ver cutters. I might do the same thing after I top dress. Yeah. That’s we at zero and just kind, you know, like I said, almost maybe keeping like a fan type going across and just tickling it. And that was the other thing after we did our heavy top dressing. After airification we started running the ultra grimmer and it kind of helps work some of that sand in, it does throw a lot of it too, but it does work it in more than it throws it. We believe. Yeah. I used to have the, the vibratory cutting units. I forgot who they’re from, but I, I would put a wooden block underneath the pedal and go really slow across the greens and we would literal. Green and switch out so they wouldn’t kill themselves. Oh, wow. that’s how slow I had ’em going when, uh, like it was so like, it took a while to do a green, but it did a great job, like moving that sand down to the canopy and really diluting it. Mm-hmm that’s great. Getting rid of all the UN bridging almost like I was watching a, a vibratory roller, you know, packing pavement one day and I said, well, that’s what I wanna do is move stuff down and get sand. And, uh, did a good job. Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s awesome. That’s good. Good stuff. Uh, Seth, do you have the vibratory for your cassettes? The ATT makes, uh, a laboratory or attachment that goes into the cassettes. And I was just wondering if Seth. we have ’em and I hadn’t really seen any benefit to running them. Anybody else in here have a set of those Jake? We do have a set of vibratory rollers and we’ve used ’em a few times. Sometimes we’ll we’ll roll after we double cut for a. but other than that, we don’t use ’em very much. I don’t think they do much good after amplifications. Right. I’d say once the greens firm up, they pretty much, their job is done, you know, for what they do. And it’s, it’s a little better job to help smooth things out. It’s more like iron versus packing, you know? Gotcha. So, and then I just use it for shaking sand down after top dressing and that’s all I ever did. Yeah. And that was something we were trying to use ours for, but, you know, and it might have helped a little bit, but it wasn’t like it opened all the holes up. And I don’t know, you know, if the frequencies off or what the deal is. Yeah. Mine, weren’t a cassette type. They were, gosh, I sure remember the brand. They were. True surface. I believe the red, there you go. Red true surface. Yeah. Okay. True surfaces. Yeah. I remember the rubber garments would go out all the time. Yeah. I always had a stockpile of those. Yeah. But those that would work like, but you gotta run it slow if you wanna really shake the sand down. I found yeah. One that could, like I said, you go so slow. Like south after a green it’s like aerating with an old G eight 60. Oh man. Yeah, that brings back. I dunno if I just dated myself. No, no, that brings back nightmares. G 60 what? Yeah. Jeez, the old G six behind a Cushman. You ever do that? Oh yeah. You can do a Chinese fire drill. Yeah. Yeah. Fairway. I don’t when we had the GA 60 and we were fine fairways, we would run it for 24 hours a day. So we’d. Somebody come in, you know, late and run it through the night and that poor guy going half a mile, an hour or whatever it was, you had to drive. That thing felt sorry for him falling asleep, everything else. What was your experience with GA 60? Y’all still there. Did I lose you? I’m still here. I’m just still saying same thing. Okay. Yep. I don’t know. My screen went blank and I thought I lost all y’all for some reason. Yep. The good old days of the GA 60 man, we worked on that thing more than it verified. that was one terrible unit. I had a superintendent that thought it would be a great idea to do to greens banks. I said, no, and I refused to operate it. And he took it and he bent the shaft on it. And the time it never was right again. Wow. I’m like, no, that’s for flat surfaces. I’m like, I’ll go straight down. But even that wanted to go sideways on a, on a particular greens bank that just wasn’t doing good. And we. Nothing else to really poke holes. And, uh, I won’t say where I was. I’ll leave it at that, but yeah, the mechanic and I, I was the assistant at the time and the mechanic just looked at me and goes, I, I, you break it. I ain’t fixing it. We sent it out to the dealer dealer says, man, that ain’t gonna work. Right. Yep. You broke it. You bought it. It thing blew apart. I mean, you could just hear it, the mechanic and I were just sitting there, we just put our arms up in the air to the superintendent we say told you, right. yeah, those, uh, was it the pitment arms that broke all the time on that thing? Yep. It was something like that. Yeah, it was nuts. Gave a good hold though. I tell you. Yeah, I don’t know. You’re more on the superintendent side, right? Yeah, I am now. Yeah, I’ve always been super more. I flipped the mechanic side right now with everything going on in Michael. Well, you guys and your, uh, holes, it’s a hole. It’s a hole. Give a break. I don’t care what that hole looks like long as a hole. Yeah. But you’re not the only one out there. There’s uh, there’s plenty of ’em. So, oh, I really like those holes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s more, more, more interested on the greens, fairways and DS F whatever, you know. Yeah. I run, I run a toe behind spoon unit and across the fairways where I’m at now. Cause it’s just it’s time, you know, then something’s better. yeah. How quick are those? What’s the ground speed on those? I usually get about five miles an hour with it. Pretty good when producing a good hole with some weight on it. Okay. And you know, moisture’s a big key, you know, you wanna don’t wanna be too wet, but you don’t wanna be too dry. You won’t get penetration. Mm-hmm you know, and you just, you just pull it and put a little weight and, you know, as long as I’m getting three inches down, I’m happy. And then we just drag. Blow it off and send out the old mower before we grind it. Gotcha. So, yeah. What are y’all using for, uh, plug removal or not necessarily removal, but busting them up. We use a core Aster to collect them and then we just dump them in most spots in the golf course. Gotcha. Yeah, I don’t go ahead. I just had to rebuild our core harvester this summer. I don’t envy you. It wasn’t that bad. I ended up having to go to a local metal company to have both Sprockets, I guess, made or rebuild because I could only couldn’t get anything from Jacobson or on back order. Yeah, no, it’s, they’re nuts with their whole parts. And the, and then the blades that collect the, that force it up to the, the, uh, yeah, the elevator to the conveyor. Yeah, the elevator. Yeah, the big blades. If you catch them little up of grass, you’ve bend to shit outta the blade. Those things are on they’re on back order since March. Oh, wow. I’m glad you’re telling me all this. Cuz I got two of ’em and I need to go through ’em this winter. I might be, uh, calling you and finding your local machine shop and driving to South Carolina. If I have to, to North Carolina, baby North Carolina. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to insult you like that. I’m kidding. Its all good. What about the rest of y’all? What are y’all using core processing? Well, I’m. Same here. My plan is to top dress, pull the plug, drag it, and then use a core harvester to grab the remainder up above, and then gonna take that over and start creating a, uh, sod nursery with it and start spreading it out and top dressing it and getting it into grow. So that way I have the same type of grass onry then I do my course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. So, so, but, uh, yeah, I got a neighboring course that has a core harvester that hasn’t run for two years and. I told him if I get it running, can I use it? So, and he said, yeah. So my experience just gotta get it with the core. Harvester is you need two core harvesters to keep one running. Yeah, he got a second one. He’s got a second one as well. He hooks it up and it just sits there. And, but, uh, I’ve rebuilt many before and you know, and his paddles, like he said, on the conveyor, a little worn. Probably need replacing, but for what I’m doing, I don’t want anyway. So I just wanna try and pick up the fat that’s remaining. That’s all I’m looking to do. Like I said, I’m trying to reincorporate the sand. Uh, my thought behind it is that, you know, I continue with the nutrients that’s there. Cuz my profile I is, is a good profile. Like I send em Sam base mm-hmm so I’m not trying to native push up type stuff. Right, right, right. So. Yeah. Like, like someone was saying there, when you’re a good mechanic, you got your neighbors. Well, I, I go to like neighboring golf courses and I say, I’ll fix your stuff if I can borrow your equipment. Cause I don’t have it. Right. Right. You know, mm-hmm so, so everybody’s been coming to me to fix up their stuff neighboring wise, cause up here, it is hard to find a good mechanic golf mechanic at that you. I think anywhere. Yeah. Sounds luck. You can wrench on the, the golf stuff. And like I said, my neighboring courses, they just, they got oil changers and parts changers, but they, they really don’t understand a lot of stuff what they’re doing or they just don’t have anybody mm-hmm yeah. That’s a lot of places I’m. Hey, there you go. I didn’t even know you left. I had to I had to loop a second. it’s all good, man. How’s how’s those kids doing? Oh man, the newborn he’s he’s good. And then the BA the, uh, my daughter, I mean, she’s, she’s wearing us out. I bet. Two year old, terrible Tuesday say, yep. That’s yeah. Sometimes that turns into terrible threes. That is a real thing. Yeah. that is a real thing. Yes. So I’ve got six of ’em. I know what you mean. Six of them. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You know what cuddles is that right? I think so. Okay. All right. Well, you know, I grew up in a dairy farm background. They, they said you don’t hire hands. You make. Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s my dad. He was one of 11 and they were sharecroppers, so yeah. Yeah. Well, I got the oldest working at the golf course, so that’s good. Well, yeah, that’s awesome. This episode that I’m putting out this week is Tate Johnson and he’s 19 years old and he works as an assistant mechanic at chambers. And his dad is director of agronomy there, and he’s got two brothers and they’re both in the turf industry. So y’all guys, y’all gotta get, get good to cracking here and get more people in the turf industry. You know, I, I don’t think, I think the only thing closest to working at a golf course, my son will do is be a caddy. Okay. why, why is. I don’t know, man. It’s it’s I, I don’t know. are you that, uh, unhappy with the golf course? You going to turn him against it? No, no, no. I love my job, but I think there’s better. Uh there’s there’s better opportunities to make good money with less hours and. no, that’s something that we probably don’t talk about enough is all the stress that’s involved with what we do. I think, I know at least me, I don’t know if I’m just deflecting and going over it and trying to ignore it or, um, um, have other distractions that try to make me forget it or, or what it is, but amen brother. It’s, uh, it can be really stress. What was that? Aaron, you just, I said, amen brother. Yes. Yes. It’s stressful. It’s a, what up, how Saginaw what’s up? The, uh, Saginaw is, uh, it’s holding together, man. It’s barely holding together. Chewing gum and uh, duct tape. And we got it. Nice. That was funny. Tr you need to interview, uh, Aaron. Yeah. Um, would you be interested seriously, Aaron I’m I’m needing guest. I need guests. Um, I have, uh, Tourette. So you go ahead and do whatever you gotta do, man. Okay. I don’t, I mean, I don’t, I don’t judge. Everything’s cool. Um, I mean, serious. Oh, whatever you wanna know, man, I got it. I got the answer, man. I, I got the answers to all. All right. Well you, uh, I don’t know if I got your email or not, but if you don’t mind DM me your email and I will, uh, I’ll send you more specific on how to do that on, on here. Uh, well, I mean, not right this second, but on Twitter or send me a, an email real turf text. gmail.com. I don’t I’ll I’ll DM you. How about that? I’ll do my best. I, I don’t know how to use this stuff. Very. My that’s okay. Whoops. Um, my old boss said you need to get Twitter, man. You need to get Twitter. Dad, you probably, you probably know St. You know St. At, oh yeah. I know St real well. Oh yeah. He said you need to get, you need to get Twitter. This, this Twitter said, you need to get Twitter, cuz you know, there’s a lot of stuff on here, man. You know these guys, you know, if you have a, a question on something, man, there’s a lot of guys that know which is actually pretty cool. Any question I’ve ever asked has always been answered. So, but I don’t, I don’t think you, you really have that many questions. You’re pretty smart. I I do, you know, YouTube is a great source of inform. I hate YouTube mechanic, but dude, when I can’t figure something out, I go straight to YouTube cuz there’s no other source I can think of that’s readily available the way that that is. Oh yeah. I love me some YouTube dude. I’m I’m on constantly. Yeah. People fun of me all they want, but I like it. I usually tell people, watch five videos. If three of ’em are the same. Those are the ones you trust. That’s probably about, that’s pretty, pretty true. Yeah. You get some funny stuff on there and you look at these guys and going, what the heck? I guess that’s another way to skin that cat. There’s pretty much anything you, you wanna know on YouTube. And I don’t, you know, I don’t use it that much. I don’t guess for golf stuff, but. Definitely for stuff around the house or stuff on my car or whatever it is, they, everybody has a video for it. And that’s something I, I wish we could get more of, but I don’t know. Who’s willing to do that. I mean, I appreciate Hector doing all the videos he has, but. Let’s go ahead. I’ve thought. I mean, I’ve thought about doing starting a YouTube, but I mean the amount of time you would have to put into like one video, you know? Oh yeah, yeah. And it’s I already, I mean, I, I work enough as it is. I don’t wanna do it. Maybe sweet. Somebody could do that, like legit at a golf course. Equipment manager video. Yeah. Yeah. Just. Even like a day to day. I don’t know. Like I, I watch more YouTube than I do TV, cuz there’s just endless amounts of content on there. And that’s um, you know, the other day I’ve stumbled upon this guy that pours concrete for a living. like three hours later. I was still watching his videos. I mean, it’s just like crazy stuff. I, I don’t know the warm hole. Dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. It is a warm, the ones I get, the ones I get stuck on is the greater. You broke up? What was that? I say, the ones I get stuck on is the guy that’s the grade all shape and bunkers. Oh yeah. That guy is amazing. I don’t know who that is, but gosh, it’s like an extension of his fingertips. Yeah, no, I, I love that. It’s yeah, it’s amazing. I lost two hours of my life watching that guy one day mm-hmm yep. I could definitely see that. And I was still sitting on the can my leg went numb. No, no, that’s funny. So, yep. No that’s good stuff. I will. Somebody like myself, that kinda left the, the maintenance side for 15, 16 years, UN did sales and service, uh, you know, coming back the content, like someone was saying the content that’s available either on YouTube or through the associations, or, you know, gosh, you wanna know something about something, somebody’s got a video on search it and there it is. And. You know, I, I remember back in the day, really all we had a good resource was turf net back in the day mm-hmm and now with Twitter and everything else, you just put it out there and that’s, what’s so nice about this industry. Everybody’s so helpful. Yeah. Everybody’s, uh, willing to share the knowledge that they have. Well, even a session like this is pretty cool. Oh yeah. And that’s, I mean, I give Seth a hard time, but I appreciate. Calling me out and getting me to do it and that kind of stuff. Um, cause I, I enjoy it. I mean, I don’t care what we talk about just getting on here and at least, you know, you’re not the only one that’s struggling is what we were talking about earlier. I like it. This is a small world place cuz Seth, you gonna feel fill Kaari there, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. I, at his course that he was a superintendent in New York, uh, when, uh, he was at left Oak hill and. Over to course, I’m now at the course that he ran for a while. Oh, nice. It’s kind of small world sometimes how this place is. How long was he there? What, I don’t think he was there very long. Was he, I think only two seasons or season and a half, but I still probably have there’s some product probably in the chemical building that he bought. A bunch of progress in there. That’s now pass EPA registration. He was probably the one that brought up the idea to get rid of the Ben grass outta the green or get the out the greens course was let go for, but yeah, that in Rochester? Yeah. Yeah, it was, yeah. I’m at blue Hern Hills in Rochester. Oh, okay. I’ve heard him talk about blue hair and I mean, he’s, I, I can’t remember what he said. It’s like the, one of the nicest golf courses. That’s like, like not a big name, you know? Yeah, it was originally designed. We had hillside skins challenge, heres where they had Jeff Salman and they’d bring in some pros for a charity event. So we’ve had Arnold Palmer here and oh yeah, Jack Nicholas. We had, you know, fuzzy, I mean, heck there’s a plaque out there from, uh, the third where he hit longest drive on the first hole and like nailed it around this corner and, and, uh, yeah, lot of. Lot of pro history. And I actually worked on the ground screw back in the nineties before Phil was there. But yeah. Nice. So yeah, this is my third time. Phil’s uh, Phil’s good to work for working for him. I’ve heard nothing but good about him. Yes. Very detailed. Probably the most detailed person I’ve ever met. yeah, my assistant, my assistant worked on the ground screw when Phil was there. Okay. So all the time. Nice. It’s a small world. Isn’t it? It’s oh yeah, everybody. Yeah, just, I should be up there. Uh, next may. Yeah. Bring, bring your sticks. Well, I’ll let you play the course. See what Phil was talking about. Yeah. Well, we’re doing the PGA with Jeff. Oh yeah. I’m gonna, I gotta get on that list there. Hopefully. Uh, it’s not filled. That’s gonna be fun. That’ll be good for the city here. We haven’t had a major in a long time. Which major is, is that I’m out of, out of the loop on this, uh, PGA championship. Oh, okay. That’s awesome. Yeah. L PGA used to host their championships here every year and then, uh, PGA bought L PGA. And next thing you know, it went to Westchester where the money is. Okay. Funny. How bigger, good purse. Well, what else y’all got tr you going to Eastlake this year? Yeah, I’m gonna try and hopefully with the guy coming back Monday, I’ll be able to get over there. Um, honestly, I haven’t even been in the WhatsApp group much. I hadn’t been on Twitter much. I just got my head. Well, that’s how this in the sand. That’s how this whole thing came about. Cuz I was on the phone with talking with Jerry car and he is like, man, we haven’t done a Twitter space in a long time. He’s like I missed those things. Yep. I was like, yeah know, I was like, I know been, been uh, super swamped. Yeah. Being shorthanded at all, doing where where’s Jerry at? I don’t know. I don’t know where he is at, but he’s missing out. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I don’t, um, I saw Mike, uh, putting out some stuff on Twitter. I did catch that at east lake, but I yeah. Saw all what he’s doing over there, but I do, I want to try, I’m gonna get down there at least once because, uh, Chad Kinser and, uh, Michael Sheldon, I believe is coming down together tournament. Yeah. I talked to Michael and he said he was going so, so that’ll be good. Yeah. I definitely wanna get over there and, uh, catch up with him and if I’ll, I need to find out the lunch menu. sad. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, the pork chop. Yeah. That pork chop, man. It is so good. Have you had it? No. I just remember you saying, okay. Yeah, no, we’re doing one of these and best, best food at a tournament. You said the pork chop at east lake is hands down the best. Yeah, no, it is. It is so good. I don’t know why, but, and not all their food’s good. I mean, every day there’s something good, but, um, the pork shop really speaks to me and yeah, it’s a smoked pork chops. All they do is warm it up. And it comes from some meat place in Tifton, Georgia down close to aback. That is so good. So yeah, I gotta find out what day pork chop day is. And that’ll be the day I’m over there. Oh yeah. That’s the plan anyway, but I would like to even go by when is the tournament? Not this week, but next week. No, it’s two weeks. Two weeks. Okay. Well, why is Mike the being there so early? He said he was gonna be down there for three weeks. I know, but if it, yeah, I guess yeah. If he was there all this week. Yeah. That makes sense. Getting everything squared away for him. Oh yeah. I’m kind of curious to, you know, what kind of practices they’ve kept from last year, you know, up until now. Oh, as far as all their, their relief stuff and all that. Yeah. Because I know Chris, he wasn’t that big of a believer in relief because he’d never really done it. And I’m just curious if they kept that up or not. Well, and I think he was, I think. If I’m not mistaken, Mike’s up there. Cuz he is short staffed right now. I guess a guy had some surgery or something. One of his texts. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Eric, the assistant was having back surgery or something. Yeah. That’s in the middle of the summer. Which man? I mean, you know, dudes gotta do what he’s gotta do, but talking about bad timing man. Yeah, that was rough. It’s almost like having a baby in. Yeah, no. What what’s with y’all guys. Yeah. I had both my kids in December. yeah, not that. That was planned. It just worked out that way. I was lucky. Hey, what happened nine months? What happened nine months before the airification just ended, right? Yeah. That’s that’s probably right. Yeah. My dad was a plow, snow plow driver out and myself and my brothers were all born in November, December because nine months prior snow season. Right, right. Yep. He was finally back home. Hey chat guys. I, I gotta get my boys to bed. So straight chatting with you guys. Oh yeah. No great chatting with you and thank you for being on and we’ll see you next time. All right. See you man later, Chris. Yeah. I’m uh, so. I’m gonna be out here pretty soon too, but go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just, is that Chris guy? Superintendent? I don’t, I believe he is, but he was saying like his current situation he’s in the shop a lot more because I don’t know if he doesn’t have a mechanic or exactly what the deal is. Gotcha. So he’s, he is turning wrenches a good bit and I think he enjoys our group. Um, yeah, I know I follow my Twitter and I’ve seen him posting some mechanic type things, but then also posting turf stuff. So I wasn’t sure. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s a superintendent without a mechanic. So he does a lot of mechanic stuff and I don’t know that all make up of his crew, but, and I don’t, it could have been one of, uh, Mike’s spaces. I don’t remember if it was MySpace Mike’s space. Uh, Chris got on and talked a good. About, you know, doing mechanic stuff and, but I’m pretty sure he is a superintendent. Hey, that’s, that’s why I got into the, uh, equipment manager’s side, cuz you know, I figured well with my turf background, if I could get a superintendent job, be more, uh, you know, if it’s a place that doesn’t have a mechanic I’d know what I’m doing. And then, um, turns out I liked it more than being an assistant. Yep. No, we’re glad to glad to have you on our side for sure. It’s been good. Yeah. And I don’t, so I don’t know if you listened to the latest one with, uh, David blowers, but when he, oh yeah. When he was talking about that, it did kinda make, you know, we can look at something and say, okay, we gotta replace that, that, and that. These superintendents and assistance, they look at grass and say, Ooh, I think this is wrong with it. Let me spray this and, and wait 14 days. yeah, yeah. We, we have the instant gratification if we fix it or didn’t fix it and they’ve gotta wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, our job is stressful, but so is theirs not taking anything away from them? I think there’s more stressful, honestly. Yeah, no, it is. Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s the other thing. You know, even if you don’t make a wrong move, if you do everything right, you can still get fired where for us. Right. I mean, if we’re doing everything right, we’re probably not getting fired, right. Yeah. Yeah. There’s way more politics on that side of the aisle. Oh yeah. Yeah. Way more politics. And, you know, and say it’s your first couple years at a course. And. You piss off one member and then 10 years later, 15 years later, he’s the club president. And he hadn’t forgot that. And he’s holding a grudge. Yeah. You know, it’s yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. How that can happen. Yeah. We, we go about our lives doing our work and not knowing any of the members. Yeah. Yeah. I know some, I know some of ’em, but you know, they’re the ones that you wanted to. Right. Yeah. One guy, um, Ralph Romanis he’s one of the founding members, uh, of setting down and he lives over on number eight and he called me this morning at 10 30 and he’s from Scotland. And. You know, so with his accent, he’s telling me what’s, he’s got a Toro 1000. That’s like a 1995 model. No, it’s older than that. I think it’s like an 87 model Toro 1000 and he called to tell me that the reel would not engage. So I gotta go over there and look at that money. But I mean, he is super good guy and. He’s always good to us. He’s always bringing us golf books. um, for the guys to read. Does, uh, do you sharpen his mowers for him? Yeah. Yeah. And then, so his neighbor is Bobby Gaston and he was. Founding member and club president for, I don’t like 7, 8, 9 years. Yeah. And I forget he’s like 95 and he still plays golf, but he’s got a John Deere 22 that the guy and they have the same landscape company. So whoever’s, mower’s working. That’s the one they use. So it buys me a little bit of time cuz they’re set at the same height and they live right next door to door. So it all works. What do they mow their, they mow their yard with that or they got pudding greens. No, they mow their yard. It’s like half an inch. Yeah. And they both have Zia yards and look really good at a half inch. Oh yeah. Yeah. When I worked at CCD, we had probably five or six members that had their own pudding green in their backyard. So the assistance would take care of the pudding greens and. We would, they’d bring him in and we’d sharpen ’em for ’em and nice little side gig. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And I mean, I’ve done that a good bit over the years, sharpen for other people. And I don’t know, I’m just getting too old and too burnt out. I don’t even really oh yeah. I’ll do it for the members that I like and everybody else, I send them to Kent he’s. he’s a good friend of mine and he’s got a sharpening business and he worked in the, uh, golf courses for a long time and he just left. Well, I guess it was in the spring. He left and went to, uh, private school, taking care of their equipment, which is gravy and, uh, oh yeah. Yeah. I think it’s good benefits, you know, decent money and all that stuff. Plus he runs this side hustle and I mean, he makes some, some money on the side. He just grinding reels for the most. But yeah, why don’t, I’m ready to call it tonight if y’all are 10, four. I’m good. Yep. No, I, I appreciate you calling me out and get me on here and no, I just wanted to, wanted to do it just to hear everybody’s voice and say, Hey yeah, no, we need to, summer’s need to do it more often. I’m sure it’ll ramp back up in the winter. I know. Everybody’s. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. For sure. Well, thank you for being on Seth and Aaron. I’m gonna hunt you down and send you an email and good talking to you too, Jack. Appreciate you being on here. Same here, guys. All right. Talk to y’all soon later.