Matt Hyde is the equipment manager at Schuyler Meadows Club in Loudonville, New York. This 80s kid is a former dirt track racer and owner of a landscape business turned turf tech. Matt reminds us that you never know what the job you didn’t get might lead to. He gives us the low-down on Baroness walk mowers and explains how he uses Google Drive for inventory and reorder to manage the parts shortages and backorders many of us currently face. Matt and Trent get into the importance of a good chef and the value of attending the GCSAA Conference & Trade Show. Say HEY to both of us in San Diego this year if you can get there!
Transcript
Trent Manning:
What kind of tractors you got just out of curiosity?
Matt Hyde:
Kubota, we have four Kubota tractors. Kubota is pretty big in our area. They’ve got a really big dealer network as they do most places. So,
Trent Manning:
I’m a pretty big fan of, or I’ll have been a pretty big fan of Kubota until some of this tier four stuff.
Matt Hyde:
yeah, you know, that’s the I, I actually worked for a Kubota tractor dealer for a short time doing sales and I, at the time tier four in the 25 to 75 horse range was just rolling out and. I, at the, at that point I had a pretty high appreciation for the brand name and the dealer network and, and, and the value when it kind of all changed once I started using John Deere tractors at my last course, and
Trent Manning:
That’s an
Matt Hyde:
mean, they’ve got both Kubota and John Deere and we have one new Kubota. And I think once that happened that whole Yanmar engine management that the John Deere tractor is utilized. I mean, it shows its superiority pretty quickly and a more seamless kind of operator experience. I think
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, I would, I would agree
Matt Hyde:
No, you’re not, you’re not pressing buttons all the time and, and dealing with you know, you got to turn the throttle up to a certain point or, or any of that from my, from my experience with it. So, but both good tractors, we’ve got some hours and some abuse on, on some of our old dogs and they just keep ticking. So.
Trent Manning:
well, and that’d been my experience with the older Kubotas. I mean, you can’t kill them. Almost
Matt Hyde:
We, we,
Trent Manning:
me on her.
Matt Hyde:
we inadvertently apparently tried to kill one with the assault damage. Our course is responsible for the private road that leads into it, which is. About a half mile long, I want to say. So they plow and salt and all that. And they’ve traditionally always done that with a tractor. They plow with the truck, saw the tractor and, you know, clearly don’t like almost every golf course equipped piece of equipment. It gets washed 90%, you know, so that 10% happens to be under the seat where the top of the transmission is. We ended up finding a leak up there this spring, like man, what the heck’s leaking, not looked at that whole valve bank on top and couldn’t find it. And I start picking away at the rust and the whole top of the transmission is like, kind of looks like and feels like about the thickness of the potato chip.
Trent Manning:
Oh, wow.
Matt Hyde:
rotted right away. You know, just like the pits are amazingly deep and Yeah. So we like really gingerly use that tractor. Like don’t drive it too fast and you know, don’t get it too hot. Otherwise the, the cop job we had to do use to make it work for the season may not hold up, but yeah.
Trent Manning:
Awesome. Well, we’ll get it rolling if you’re ready.
Matt Hyde:
Cool. Yeah.
Trent Manning:
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manny let’s have some Welcome to the real turf text podcast, episode 30 today, we’re talking to Matt Hyde. He’s the equipment manager at Galler Meadows in Loganville New York. Skylar Meadows is an 18 hole private club built in the 1920s. Matt is the sole technician in the shop and mostly has Toro equipment. Let’s hear what Matt has to say. welcome Matt to the real turf text podcast. How you doing today, man?
Matt Hyde:
I’m great. Thanks for having me try.
Trent Manning:
Thank you so much for calling. We’ll have a blast like we always do. And hopefully the listeners enjoy it. Tell us how you got into the turf industry.
Matt Hyde:
Well, I’m kind of a little bit of my background. I grew up like a lot of kids in the eighties and nineties working on mechanical stuff. Cars, three wheelers, four wheelers, dirt, bikes, whatever, any, anything that you could get on and ride. And a few other things up until the mid two thousands. I got into the landscape maintenance business owned a business for about eight years. And in the midst of doing that, we started racing dirt modified race cars on our local dirt tracks.
Trent Manning:
Is that circle, track
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. Yep. And did that for about five years. And when I kinda got burned out of the landscape world, we made it through the recession but it was pretty difficult. And my return to the real world which is in quotes in my mind, the working for someone else and collecting a paycheck was difficult. It took a couple of years to really find something. And what I found ended up being a job posted on Craigslist. I was looking for a job in 2014. So an ad sounded cool. It was this golf course, about a half an hour north of here. I applied, interviewed had a great interview didn’t get hired. They ended up hiring a former automotive technician,
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
Matt Hyde:
which is. Kind of a common story see it all over here about it all over. He passed my resume on to a couple of his friends cause he’s like, man, I really liked this guy and we had a great interview. I got a call from another superintendent later that year. I had an awesome interview with him. I mean, three plus hour, you know, just great time. He decided not to replace his existing technician called me back late in 2015. It was one of those calls, like. You know, it’s been a while and I hope you remember me, but if you’re interested, you know, that I got that job open, you know, if you want it. And the timing was, it was just right. Things. Weren’t working out well again, and with what I was doing. And I took it and I was there for five years and I’ve obviously learned a lot accomplished, basically everything I wanted to do there. And then moved on to Skylar Meadows club last November.
Trent Manning:
Okay,
Matt Hyde:
So I’ve been there a little under a year and everything’s going great. Very similar courses but a lot of differences in the maintenance. So it’s it’s still interesting every day. And I really think Really the background that I had in owning my own business and in being involved in racing both were huge in helping me get my first job in the industry and in doing well, at it. It was I think, easy for them to understand, all right, this guy can make responsible choices with our money. He’s done it with his own business. With regard to preparing race cars, attention to details is huge. And just you know, confidence and, trying to do the right thing, when it’s your, your business on the line or your bot on the line, you kinda have to have to try to do the right thing.
Trent Manning:
There anything in particular that kind of drew you to go
Matt Hyde:
No like not at all. And it seems like you know, a lot of your guests are either they start on a crew and move up or, or they see that Craigslist. Had, I’ve heard it from a lot of people over the years and the position really interested me because the way it was described as like, it’s kinda your, it’s kinda your show, you can you can take care of the maintenance on your our fleet of equipment, the way you think you should. And you know, we’re not going to stand in your way of of doing things that you really want to do. So was attractive in that it wasn’t say like what I consider a normal mechanics job Show up at a shop or a dealer or somewhere, and there’s, five, 10 other guys doing the same thing you are. It’s all on you. So it’s exciting that you’ve gotta thrive to kind of survive in it.
Trent Manning:
did you find it difficult to learn cutting units and real sharp? None. And that, that kind of.
Matt Hyde:
I really didn’t. That was kind of one of the most intriguing things about it. It’s like, wow, look, we’re going to cut this grass at this height. We went out and walked on on a green and I’m like, there’s no grass here. And but, but after doing it I found that I really enjoyed it. That’s one of my favorite parts of the job. Again, a lot of people say the same thing, there’s satisfaction in setting up a greens mower. That’s like, perfect. And then guys take it out and cotton, come back and say, man greens look good today. A cut looks great today. Everything’s working great. You know? And I actually had Greg ,I hope I’m not butchering his last name from
Trent Manning:
even pronounce his last name either, so
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. He was in the area and our local Toro rep offered to, it was like, Hey, he’s in, he’s in the area. If you want to combine and have them show you a really how to use your real grinder spend a couple hours, do it like, absolutely. So he was the first person since the last. Technician left to turn the thing on, you know, so we went through and we cleaned it up and we cleaned out the vacuum and blew it all out. Made sure it was level. I mean, we did the whole thing and it was great that he did that for us. And he even gave me a couple pointers on using our bed knife grinder, which wasn’t a Foley product. But you know, clearly he knew him. I was thrown into this thing, and that was in, I wanna say the beginning of February and we kind of start cutting and, had the March, beginning of April. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to grind everything and it worked out great.
Trent Manning:
That’s awesome. Walk us through your daily shot routine.
Matt Hyde:
So a lot of your guests. And unlike my first course where, a lot of the same things, a lot of guys do get out in the morning, check the cut machine start rolling in and in a couple hours work on them. We don’t have a lot of play at our course perfect amount of members, but they just don’t play a lot. And we’re able to do midday afternoon dry cuts, very regularly if weather allows. So I’m often coming in, in the morning, looking at yesterday’s mowers that came in at 2 30, 3 o’clock whatever. You know, they’ve it’s nice. They’ve had time to sit there and dry out. It’s not nice because if they want to use them at 9:00 AM, I’ve got a short timeframe to get things in order. so the end of the day is a hustle and like a lot of guys do at five or six in the morning to get stuff ready for the next day. So get in take care of the rest of yesterday’s mowers. Move on to, oh, if I’ve got to do some grinding of backup units anything that that was left broke down or damaged from the, from the previous day, we’ll take care of that. We do a lot of hover mowing. We’ve got, I think, seven hover mowers and every time they use them, we sharpen them. So usually two days a week I’ll be sharpening hover mowers. The stainless steel double-sided once. They get about maybe two hours and they’re, and they’re not sharp enough to do a good job. So I try to get to them as, as often as possible. So I usually take care of them in the mid morning and then move on to any other repairs or PM stuff that’s scheduled. Around lunchtime, we eat lunch kind of at 11 on the dot and and the rest of the day is, you know, finish up PMs or whatever. And then as maybe team owners, fairway mowers kind of start rolling in, get a jump on them for the next day. I try to just, just focus on preparing for the next day. I don’t spend a lot of time out on the golf course unless I’ve made any changes. We’re pretty consistent with everything. We do. Not a lot of height changes. Not a ton of cultural work during the year. a lot of detailed work in the shop gets done and I’m pretty confident when the machine goes out and we got some good operators. So I don’t have a ton to worry about unlike my first golf course, I worked at we don’t do hardly any hand mowing you know, walk mowers for greens or anything like that. I kind of found over the years prior that. Go out and find people doing the wrong things is walking greens, mowers walk a team hours around trailering them around. We don’t do that. So a lot of those things are kind of a non-factor. And this was the first year that Skylar Meadows hasn’t walked mowed greens a single time, and we’re getting excellent results, superintendents, very happy. So I’m happy,
Trent Manning:
Is that due to labor shortage?
Matt Hyde:
A little bit trying to just get more done with the same amount of guys and prepare for the shoulder seasons where there’s less guys we rely heavily on a bulk of the staff members high school, college age people. It rapidly goes from like 20. Seven, you know at the end of the year, then in the beginning of the year, you start out with the same seven, eight people. That’s allowed them to keep up on all the other detail work and still have excellent agreements. So I think that was really the factor in making that a change. So it’s worked out great. We’ve got plenty of equipment to do both walk Mo and or triplex depending on the day or whatever, but not once this year. Did we pull out any of the walk-in greens mowers,
Trent Manning:
No.
Matt Hyde:
happy with that?
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I was talking to Brian wrestler the other day. And I can’t remember, he’s got a lot 50 walking greens, mowers. I mean, Islam is absurd. The number of walk-in mowers he’s got.
Matt Hyde:
I actually enjoyed working on. Them strangely enough. I mean, at my last course we had about 22, I think, a walking greens, T approach, column mowers, And half a Toro and half a bareness, which not a lot of people own, not a lot of people use. And those were kind of my babies. When I showed up there, they were clearly never taken care of. And we basically stripped them right down to the bare frame and kind of rebuild them out of necessity. And I kind of held those close to my heart,
Trent Manning:
Gotcha. I don’t have any experience with Baron ass, but I have heard other people talk about the men. Pretty good. What was your experience?
Matt Hyde:
My experience is with their triplex they’re 22 inch walk mowers and their San pro trapper, AIC, whatever bunker rake. I think it’s extremely underrated as far as a machine. The company in my experiences was very good for such a small part of the us market. They seem to support the machines well with parts and with technical support rarely was ever apart, not in stock. And in rebuilding these walk mowers, we bought a lot of weird parts.
Trent Manning:
I’m sure.
Matt Hyde:
that they’d been sitting in California wherever they’re warehouses here for a long time. But they, they had it all I really enjoyed working with their triplex. The last year I was at my previous golf course they just purchased one and it was amazing how well it worked and the pricing was excellent. It was a fully featured three wheel drive, diesel groomers, rear roller brushes panel powered. And I think it was 10,000 or less than any of the comparable machines from any of the other companies. It’s kind of like, wow, why would you not buy this if you’ve got a dealer in your area but they’re a little different to maintain and work on then. Say if you use Totoro or John Deere or Jacobson It’s almost like working on maybe like a Japanese car or a Japanese motorcycle. If you’re used to working on a Harley or a Chevy, you know, they just do things different. The design, the engineering is just different. It’s not better. It’s not worse. The manuals for them are probably the greatest thing. You probably could flip through one of the service manuals and enjoy reading it because the way they do it, it’s clear that this is a machine distributed throughout the world. And, we have the luxury of having a lot of resources, a lot of places around the world don’t have the things that we take for granted here. These manuals, they literally tell you to like drive bearings in and out with a screwdriver and.
Trent Manning:
Oh, well,
Matt Hyde:
And it’s like, well, you know, people are doing it. So you may as well, just come out and say it, you
Trent Manning:
right.
Matt Hyde:
There’s almost no special tools that they show in any of their manuals. There is a special tool, like say a funny wrench for making adjustment, it pretty much comes with the machine. It’s real interesting brand. They have really good support in the field support guy this fellow Graham who’s Kiwi New Zealand I think it’s where he’s from. One of the better guys to get cutting unit info from that I’ve met over the last six years. He’s been a lot of places that a lot of people haven’t so. Enjoyed working on the machines and I wouldn’t hesitate to get involved in one or more again good stuff.
Trent Manning:
Awesome. you relieve ground reels?
Matt Hyde:
I relief grind them whenever possible. So everything that gets done in the off season or the slow seasons gets relief ground mid season, try to do when I can, but a lot of times it’s just a span and put it back together. Particularly with our fairway mowers our grinders that we have, particularly the real grinder it’s kind of slow compared to what I’m used to. usually it’s a mid season. It’s often a spin and go unless the relief is mostly ground out of it, then I’ll spend the time and rerelease grind it. Most of my grinding in the season is with fairway units, we hit a ton of heads in our fairways. Whatever reason the soil, they move a lot and they twist it. You know, they get uneven very quickly and I spend a lot of bad knives and break some reels more than I’d like, but it is what it is. Keeps me busy. I believe in really grinding. That’s one of those arguments that all of us can have and everybody’s got their own take on it. My thought always is, if you can show me a negative to relief grinding, I’d be happy to entertain your theory. But other than the time it takes to do it, I can’t see one,
Trent Manning:
No I’m with you. Tell us something you’ve fabricated lately.
Matt Hyde:
well, our welder is more or less crap. So I’ve done minimal fabrication at Skylar Meadows. We’re actually working on purchasing. Kind of big, full featured. Meanwhile there right now the only thing I’ve really done is repurposed an old bench that was stamped steel legs for the lack of a better word. And then it was designed to be bolted to a wood top or a sheet metal thin sheet metal top. And I kinda had these big benches in there when I arrived and it was taken up a lot of room and I took them all apart and I used a bunch of the legs, got a thick plate steel top and put something together that matches the height of the real grinder and this kind of shop cart that we have for rolling reels around. So. It’s an easy little table to work on hover mowers and reels on I kind of pushed them around to get them from place to place rather than, trying to carry them and roll them on the floor. So we built that I try to work at a comfortable height and I wanna say it’s like 36 inches high. It’s pretty tall, so I can kind of stand there and not hunch at all. And it works out great. But in the, in the traditional fabrication I’ve been working on this month Google drive maintenance and repair logging and parts inventory with a reorder system. So that’s been, that’s been going on.
Trent Manning:
I don’t want, could you explain a little bit about, you know, I’m a sucker for Google draft,
Matt Hyde:
well, you probably.
Trent Manning:
Reorder system.
Matt Hyde:
Sure. You probably know a thousand times more about Google drive than I do, but I’d used that my previous course, a system called turf cloud, which is a job board with stuff attached to it, which seems to be a common thing. And so turf cloud which is a really simple, easy to use job board has its own equipment management section, which is more or less kind of a notepad, but it logs in whatever repairs you want to put in. And you’re able to sort by machine and by date range. So you can go back and verify what you did, or if you don’t know when the oil changes, it’s very easy to go back and look through your records. They’re just not very detailed. So I just used a Google sheet and put in a sheet for every machine with its own name. So instead of, Toro 50 10 H number one, it’s just fairway one, fairway, two fairway, three, you know, just a basic name for everything. And then I did a form to drop information into the form responses and then did some YouTube searching watched a couple videos, figured out a formula that I could use to drop the form responses into each sheet and get it arranged the way I want to see it. And it works really good.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Matt Hyde:
you know, it’s simple. It doesn’t have anything fancy going on, but it allows me to track dates, hours repairs and costs to each machine. And then on each sheet I put another boxer chart or whatever that I just labeled this quick reference that just has the make the actual model number. So if it’s Toro the five digit number The serial number. The engine, like say if it’s got a gas engine, you know, the Briggs, whatever with the engine numbers and then all the basic stuff for PM. So air filters, oil filters what kind of oil it takes. Just so if I want to do a quick oil change on something, I can just pop it up, take all the part numbers out inventory, go grab them out of the shelf and go do the maintenance.
Trent Manning:
Are you using it also for inventory?
Matt Hyde:
I’m using a separate sheet for inventory because I’m not smart enough to figure out at all how to link any of this stuff together. But for inventory? I’ve got a sheet for each brand, apart with all the pertinent information, I try to log every interchange number that I can in each part number. So say you buy a Touro air filter for a greens mower. It’s a Subaru air filter. I’ll have the Subaru number listed with the Toro part. Then on the Subaru sheet, all the Torah number listed under the Subaru next to the Subaru number or Honda number or Kawasaki number, whatever. So if, and like we’re all running into this now with things being out of stock and back order I’ve got my choice of two or three places. I can get something from whether it’s a Napa filter or a Touro filter or a Honda filter. I’ll find one somewhere. And then I added another sheet that if I’ve got a. Quantity of zero and, and a reorder quantity of more than zero, it just drops the part number description and then quantity on hand and reorder quantity into its own sheet. So more or less just for convenience. If I forget to write it down, which I could easily do at any time, it gives me a reference. I don’t have to go back and look at a note pad if I use the last, bolt or what filter, whatever it may be. It’s there to tell me. And when I go to go buy some repair parts at our local dealer I can just look on my phone and be like, oh, well, I could also use this and this and this. Let’s save a trip, grab everything that you know, so that works out well. And it was free. I tried the accompanying equipment management section for the job board that we have at the golf course. And it was just too much. It was more than I needed more than I wanted required too, money keystrokes, too many clicks. And I think it was really something that is better for a bigger operation. One guy in a shop doesn’t need all the functionality that had. So we went with the Google drive version and it’s it’s free and works very well.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, that’s awesome to hear. And how would probably be interested in seeing that if you wouldn’t mind sharing it?
Matt Hyde:
Absolutely. The only thing that you probably want to see is the formulas, but I’ll send you pictures or I can share the whole file. It doesn’t matter.
Trent Manning:
No, it was the old adage. There’s a bunch of ways to skin a cat, and we all go about it a little bit different, but you can pick up good ideas here and there and,
Matt Hyde:
Yeah,
Trent Manning:
you know, come up with your own system.
Matt Hyde:
Sure.
Trent Manning:
What’s your favorite tool and why.
Matt Hyde:
So I have two actual favorite tools, not most important tool. I’ve got a S wing short little drilling hammer like a little three pound hammer. That’s like, you know,
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Matt Hyde:
12 inches long that I’ve had since I was probably 15 years old and a I forget the brand name, but it’s an American made old style foreign one screwdriver,
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Matt Hyde:
know, like it’s got the, you know, Beryl flip the bits around that I’ve had since I was probably 14, 15 years old. And I always look at that hammer and it’s all steel with that rubber grip on it. And it’s just, I mean, there’s so many things, then it looks like it’s been in a war and I look at it, I’m like, man, think of all the things I’ve done with this, you know, I’d hate to lose it. So it’s got, sentimental value in the same thing with that screwdriver, which incidentally is like the best screwdriver I’ve ever had for taking carburetor jets out.
Trent Manning:
Yeah,
Matt Hyde:
you know, because they’re ground I think they call them hollow ground. The shaft is round and then the end of the flat bits are not tapered there. Th the flats are perfectly parallel, so it never strips out jets and small engine
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. Yup.
Matt Hyde:
and it it’s, it’s super handy. So if I lost either one of those, I’d be heartbroken.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. And that’s why it’s your favorite tool? Not the most important tool or anything like that because there’s usually usually a story behind your favorite tool.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. I mean, there’s plenty of important tools that we all use, whether it’s your cell phone or the internet or your grinder or your high-ticket gauge or whatever. So yeah, those are, those are my favorites. I love,
Trent Manning:
What do you like best about your job?
Matt Hyde:
Like a lot of your guests have said there’s something new around every corner, the variety of things that you do. It just keeps it interesting. You can’t get bored doing what we do, you know, it’s always a flow of something. And the independence that it gives you in a way to be able to just make your own choices and figure out a system, put it in place and watch it work.
Trent Manning:
What is the strangest thing you’ve seen at work?
Matt Hyde:
So I haven’t seen one strange thing at my current golf course, but about three or four years ago at my prior course Mohawk golf club
Trent Manning:
You didn’t have to say their name.
Matt Hyde:
that’s okay. It’s totally fine.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, I got
Matt Hyde:
there there was a fellow mowing greens up towards the clubhouse and someone had from just outside the property line, been shooting arrows at him while he was mowing greens.
Trent Manning:
okay.
Matt Hyde:
Like legit, like, whatever I don’t hunt. So I don’t know Bose that well, but it wasn’t like the tips with the razorblades, but it was the ones you’d shoot at hay bales or
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
Matt Hyde:
or whatever. It was some kids or whatever, shooting arrows at the green while this guy was walk mowing.
Trent Manning:
Oh,
Matt Hyde:
It was real, real weird. So that was, yeah, that was pretty strange.
Trent Manning:
Strange.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. There was another thing that has happened that I guess it’s not strange, but it’s strange to me. And I think it’s strange. to probably most Americans. So have you ever had a battery blow up in anything while you were working.
Trent Manning:
No, not personally.
Matt Hyde:
Okay. So we had a big Ford backhoe with a big, monster battery, like almost two guys with two handles to stick it in this thing. And it didn’t fit right. The hood didn’t close right over the top of it. Clearly it wasn’t the right battery, but it’s one whoever put in there put in and one morning backhoe would start long story short. I kind of leaned over the side behind the center console where the key switches. Can keyswitch switch, meaning you put a screwdriver in it and turn it. This baby was all. And as soon as I turned that key, I thought the world ended around me. Because that battery is right on top of the hood, right under the sheet metal, the hood. And it took me a few seconds to realize what just happened here. And you know, like parts flying all over the place, acid all over electrolyte, all over the place. I couldn’t hear the fella, you know, 20 feet away from me. Couldn’t hear his ears were ringing. We were finding battery parts on the roof of the building on the other side of the building. And there was one of our guys who is a older Italian fellow. He’s been in the U S for, for a couple of decades, but he spent a lot of time in Italy and he looks over and then just goes back to work. And I talked to him later on and he’s like, that happens all the time in Italy. They go, Nope, what’s the big deal.
Trent Manning:
Hmm.
Matt Hyde:
So that was an interesting thing to have happen and more interesting that there’s people out there that could completely ignore,
Trent Manning:
yeah, yeah,
Matt Hyde:
120 pound battery blowing up in your face.
Trent Manning:
yeah. I wonder what I got going on in Italy. That’s
Matt Hyde:
Oh, they have a lot going on over there. He’s an old truck driver, an excavator kind of guy. And he’s got some great stories, but it turns out the, the battery actually was broken. Cause it didn’t fit right. The hood had damaged, it cracked the top of the case and well something happened, maybe loose terminal hydrogen coming out at the right time, you know, bad news.
Trent Manning:
crazy. What’s one of your pet peeves around the shop.
Matt Hyde:
Around the shop, it’s all the usual stuff, Not clean and mowers, just not doing the right thing. So all I asked for, for people is just try to do the right thing. So I’ve got nothing interesting to say, as far as around the shop in the industry though, I guess the best way to put it is the blanket statement. So red mowers are better than green mowers. Red mowers are better than orange mowers. That stuff drives me nuts. Listening to people that haven’t even used, all the big three brands of equipment, try to tell someone what’s what’s the best without even knowing what they need. Interest drives me nuts.
Trent Manning:
No, I agree with that a hundred percent.
Matt Hyde:
You know,
Trent Manning:
This is very frustrating.
Matt Hyde:
There’s no absolutes in this business. The only thing is what’s best for you and your situation. Not what’s the best. So yeah, that, that, that close-minded this is better than that. No matter what drives me crazy,
Trent Manning:
Yeah. And when somebody asked an agree how to, you know, they’re having a problem with this mower and I said, oh, it just change colors.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
buy another mower because you know, that guy really has that option of buying a new mower. That’s up to him.
Matt Hyde:
not one single person in the world is asking a question on Facebook and how to get their mower back. And action is like, oh, I could just, pull that 50,000 out of my pocket and go buy another one.
Trent Manning:
Well, right. Yeah, exactly.
Matt Hyde:
never gonna happen. You know? And that whole thing having an absolute a hundred percent answer for, for anything, it kind of happens all over in this industry. I feel, you know one of your guests prior had mentioned something about turning machines to factory specs and being like that’s kind of, our job is we’re mechanics. We return the machine to factory specifications. We maintain it to factory specifications. Which I gree with, that’s like a good way to do things. But my question to all that is, is the factory always right? And the answer in a lot of cases is yes, but some cases, no, you know, you can read through manuals and there’s there’s information in there that just isn’t going to work for you. There’s a reason why people buy certain aftermarket parts, OEM parts aren’t always the best part. You know, so I think keeping our machines in the state, they need to be in for our course and our environment is by idea of the right way.
Trent Manning:
Well, I mean, and then there’s, you know, a lot of people in the industry that make the manufacturer’s machine better by
Matt Hyde:
oh yeah.
Trent Manning:
whatever to it, to make it better.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. Yeah. There’s all the excellent add on accessories and undoubtedly, some of the advancements that the OEMs have made have been driven by, feedback from, users over the years, it’s the natural progression of things. Just that the whole idea of there’s an absolute right or wrong answer. I actually have been to a few lectures where I thought they were really good. Or I thought they weren’t that good, but in both cases, they were contradictory to someone else’s lecture or someone else’s document or someone else’s, whatever it may be and all these people. Right. And all these people are doing the Right, thing. They’re just going about it different ways.
Trent Manning:
right right around What would be your dream job or opportunity?
Matt Hyde:
My dream job would be doing something in the racing world. Like I mentioned before, we raised dirt modified which in our area it’s Northeast dirt modifieds. We have a specific car type that more or less is only used widely used in the Northeast New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, whatever. And Canada, that’s a tube frame car. Yeah. Whereas most of the rest of the country uses a car that is based on the stock. Frame horns from like a GM car. And then the rest is fabricated from to, our cars up here are not. But they interestingly have some kind of remnants of the early days of stock car racing from, the fifties where they would take these old Fords, and strip parts off and make them light and race them. Some of the front end parts that the kingpins where the front spindles pivot on are the same basic thing that was, I think, on like an old Ford, they’re whatever diameter and length or whatever, it hasn’t changed in 80 years, whatever, a couple of, couple of other odds and ends like that, that are just remnants of the old days. So something in that world, whether it’s working on crew chiefing, Oh, the team or working with a manufacturer, a chassis manufacturer shock company drive, train company. I love to be able to make a good living in that business. But I’m not seeking it out. That’s just a dream,
Trent Manning:
What do you know now that you wish you’d known on day one?
Matt Hyde:
I hate my friend miles for asking you to ask this question because it’s the hardest question to give an answer to. I don’t think though it’s anything having to do with working on equipment. I just think it is more of I wish knew how big of an impact and how valuable we are to the whole industry. It took me a while to figure out after going to GIS once and go to some trade shows and talking to some manufacturers, we play an important part and it changed, my perception of what we need to do, you know, we don’t need to just work on things. We’re not just mechanics that turn wrenches, we’ve got an important part to play.
Trent Manning:
Yep. I like it. I was talking to I got another course has been couple years ago. He’s, I don’t know how old he is. He’s already retired once. And then he went back to another course and he was telling me that he gets paid for what he knows now, why he does. So that’s, that’s where I’m trying to get.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah, man. I think that’s where we all should try to get some day.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, for sure.
Matt Hyde:
There’s still a lifetime worth of worth of learning to gain. And I’m already halfway through that lifetime, so I better cram it in fast.
Trent Manning:
that’s right. What are the latest tips and tricks you want to share with us?
Matt Hyde:
I don’t have anything great to tell you, as tricks. The one minuscule tip that I have is just something done out of habit. So I have a been in the bottom of my toolbox and I save every shaft or heavy sleeve or pin or big bushing or anything. Might help me make a tool or be of use to press something or push something or beat something or accomplish some tasks down the road. So I’ll throw away a lot of stuff, but I won’t throw away anything that I think might be useful for something like that. Whether it’s, pushing something around with a shop press or whatever.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yup.
Matt Hyde:
if it’s, if it’s thick and steel, I kind of hang on to it. But kind of the reason, a lot of the tips and tricks that I’ve heard on your podcast are all. But there’s something that my, my first superintendent kind of said to me and all this stuff that we do is an application of some kind of science So you know, if you’re heating something up to do something, it’s not because you know how to use a torch it’s because, you know, what metal does when heat it up or, you know, whatever, when you drill in a certain kind of metal, what it’s going to do. So young people coming into this industry, do the best you can at all your high school science courses. like if you can, grasp a lot from physics and math and geometry and all that, even chemistry, you can do a lot of what we do, and it’s important to know those things otherwise, you’re kind of doing things blindly. So I try to learn as much as I can about the ins and outs of all that stuff, different kinds of metal and anything involving electronics. Whenever I can pick something up it might not have anything to do with anything that we work on, but it’ll apply something.
Trent Manning:
I agree. And I like your tip. I’ll do the same thing. I got a ban and my parts room and that’s where I’ll washers, spacers
Matt Hyde:
Yup. Anything that anything that might be used to make some contraption to get a job done that maybe you don’t have the right tool for,
Trent Manning:
Yeah, yeah,
Matt Hyde:
you can’t have all the specialties. I mean, maybe some people have them, but we don’t have all the specialty tools. We don’t have every Poehler or kosher or driver or whatever. And,
Trent Manning:
Right, right.
Matt Hyde:
you know, man, that stuff comes in so handy all the time,
Trent Manning:
And my punch drawer. I have a PTO shaft out of a tractor. So the spine part, but the other, you know, the other jazz, whatever inch and a quarter or something like that. And that’s, you know, whatever 12 inches long and it comes in handy all the time.
Matt Hyde:
Oh Yeah. Those things are great. I have a couple. It’s basically the transmission input shaft from the bareness walk mowers. It’s probably, A foot or more long and it’s pretty thick. And it’s got a couple of different steps on it and I’ve used those so many times for, driving something with a heavy washer or whatever,
Trent Manning:
Hm.
Matt Hyde:
In a spot where you can’t get to with your regular punch or you couldn’t put it in the shop press. All those things are super handy.
Trent Manning:
What else you got? You want to talk about?
Matt Hyde:
There was kind of a note I had. And it’s something I’ve always thought about? That obviously we know our job is important. The rest of the industry is catching up to the fact that our role is super important. If I’m doing things Right I’m going to be my superintendent’s most important employee whether that’s true or not, that’s the feeling that I need to have. Like, I did everything I could to be that valuable to that person that they don’t want to live without me.
Trent Manning:
right, right. right.
Matt Hyde:
All the stuff I do. That’s something I always think about. Not saying there’s a ranking of most the least important person on the golf course, but I always want to be that person that’s like, man, this guy can figure it out for me. You know, when there’s a situation, I can count on this guy to do something, not even in the shop, just in any capacity.
Trent Manning:
Right. No, I agree. Oh, I want to be that guy. I want to be the go-to guy. No matter if it’s fixing something in the kitchen, British chef or fixing something in the car barn for the golf staff,
Matt Hyde:
Right.
Trent Manning:
you know, sometimes I guess, frustrating fixing those stuff. But I still want the phone call,
Matt Hyde:
Absolutely.
Trent Manning:
you know?
Matt Hyde:
Our course provides lunch for all the criminal. So if anybody from the kitchen needs anything, we are on top of that because we are like food focused, you
Trent Manning:
Right, right, Yeah.
Matt Hyde:
If one of their carts isn’t working right. Or they need their car tire aired up. We’re on that.
Trent Manning:
Yep. We’re the same way we get lunch four days a week and we’ll do anything for the shifts, but, well, it depends on the shift. I will say that. So for several years, our shift was not quite up to the speed and we had just gotten a new sheriff about two months ago. And he has been killing it. So, I mean, anything he needs we’re on it right away.
Matt Hyde:
That’s great. That’s great. Yeah. He’s a very valued person by somebody there, you
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah. Yeah. The whole agronomy team values and a lot, especially after being on the other side where it was not the best food,
Matt Hyde:
sure, sure. Yeah, we get a nice variety. We’re happy with what they do for us. And, and most, all of us have been somewhere where they didn’t provide lunch. so It’s welcome and appreciated.
Trent Manning:
It’s a great perk and we get new employees and quite often they’re like, wow, they feed you lunch here, but yeah.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
And it’s actually pretty good. Most of the.
Matt Hyde:
the greatest thing is if, and I don’t know if it happens that at the course you work at Trent, but if we get an outing say like on a Monday that gets canceled because of rain or whatever, we ended up eating whatever they were going to make for them. So if they come down with a couple of pans full of ribs, it’s like, yep, that’s right. We added, we had an outing canceled, we got ribs and corn bread and whatever. So the variety is there, you know, I love
Trent Manning:
we had a member gas this past weekend and I’ll, so I got the two courses and they played certain down Saturday morning and then they’re supposed to eat a quick lunch and then go downtown for the playoff part. But anyway, I guess a lot of the guys left early and in the lunch. So we had brisket on Monday and banana pudding and it was really good.
Matt Hyde:
That sounds wonderful.
Trent Manning:
it was.
Matt Hyde:
That’s great.
Trent Manning:
Well, tell the listeners how they can get ahold of you.
Matt Hyde:
I’m not huge on social media but I can be looked up and if your equipment manager or any type of golf course employee find me on Facebook and I’ll hook up with you. Just Matt Hyde, M a T T H Y D E. My email Matt Hyde, fifty2@gmail.com golf tax.net. I don’t know if you’re on golf techs, Trent.
Trent Manning:
I have been, I hadn’t, I hadn’t been in there lately.
Matt Hyde:
Okay. Join up on that private message beyond golf tax. That’s a great resource that I enjoy. Steve puts a lot of time and money into running that and well moderated which is something I don’t like about a lot of the other social media forums. You can be professional and you will get professional answers from everybody on that site. You can reach me on there and then I do, I am on LinkedIn as well. Just my name, Matt Hyde. So any, any of those forms if you email me, want to talk about anything I’ll give you my phone number and I’m open to anything. I really enjoy this industry and I love meeting new people that we can use as a network to help each other out.
Trent Manning:
Would you be interested in joining a WhatsApp group?
Matt Hyde:
Sure, absolutely. I’ll try it out. I’ll try anything.
Trent Manning:
It’s been, that’s been a lot of fun. It’s basically just a text messaging app, if you will, but you can use it worldwide. So like Matthew, this has been on the show he’s in there. We got a couple other, I think, international folks on there and, we just share daily problems or share a funny story. I mean, it’s, this is a good community.
Matt Hyde:
I’m glad you’re doing that. And I’m glad you’re doing this podcast. It’s a small industry in general, as far as things are in the world. And it’s nice to have something like this that allows people to kind of hear everyone else’s stories and get some different perspective on what you’re really doing and why you’re doing it. And it’s I think it’s really, helping
Trent Manning:
Thank you for that. And I do appreciate it. And that’s the only reason I’m doing it is for this community. And I’m so passionate about this community and I want to see it grow and I want to see us all make more money and, have a good time. You gotta make a living doing something to support your family or yourself, whatever the case may be. So might as well have fun while you’re.
Matt Hyde:
You got enjoy your, work. I totally agree with that. Some days it’s not easy to enjoy it, but most days it’s rewarding.
Trent Manning:
When I’ve had several listeners, say I kinda thought I was, by myself alone and nobody else knew what I was going through. And I think it’s hard because a lot of times the only news we get all day long is bad news. You know, this is broke or that’s broke. And just knowing how to react to that. And it’s not the end of the world. I think it’s pretty important.
Matt Hyde:
It is nice to know and have at least a couple of guys that you can kind of rely on to run something by, even if it’s just a silly question, but they know what you’re talking about, It’s hard to just run it by one of your buddies that isn’t in the industry, because what’s important. to us. And what’s a priority it’s hard to convey that.
Trent Manning:
Well, yeah. And if you want to make a joke about something, you might have to spend 10 minutes explaining the joke, you know, but
Matt Hyde:
thanks all the funny out of it.
Trent Manning:
Doug’s all the funny out, but in the group you can just post a picture and everybody will laugh and no say, yeah, I’ve been there before. How did that happen last week or whatever the case is?
Matt Hyde:
That’s what we need. And you know, some people get it through, I guess, Twitter, some people get it through, Instagram, Facebook groups, that kind of thing. I shy away from even asking or answering some of the questions and things is I don’t want to get into it’s my profession, and I don’t want to get into anything that isn’t a professional discussion.
Trent Manning:
Well, and that’s one thing I really enjoyed about the WhatsApp group is like you were talking about golf techs. I mean, there’s no really negativity there. Nobody’s going to give you a hard time for asking a question that they think you should have known the answer to. It’s none of that. And I am the moderator. So if I do see something like that, you’re gone,
Matt Hyde:
Yep.
Trent Manning:
you know what I mean? We ain’t got time for it. Life’s too short.
Matt Hyde:
You’re a hundred percent. Right. And that’s what golf tax is nice too. It’s heavily moderated there’s there’s people that have been banned. And I know that the format of golf taxes is kind of getting old the long in the tooth,
Trent Manning:
Hm.
Matt Hyde:
Forum message board type thing is is not what it’s not what people want these days. They don’t want to sit and flip through a bunch of categories and, you know, click on things a million times. But I think the group of guys there is good too, so I try to get on and contribute when I can and, and ask questions when I need. And you know, met a couple of decent people out of there. Actually met up with Steve, the owner, I guess he owns the website or whatever his equipment manager and a couple of fellows from Canada. We had a nice steak dinner at. What was the last GIS that we actually went to? Was that Orlando
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Orlando.
Matt Hyde:
Orlando. So yeah, it was nice. Nice to see a couple of guys in person and have a nice dinner. Some for some reason I’ve never made it to the erm, reception or any of that stuff. In a couple of times I’ve been to the in-person real GIS shows. But hopefully this year we’ll be semi back to, to a normal, I really enjoyed the opportunities I’ve had to go to them. I know a lot of people don’t get that opportunity. I would highly recommend if you can figure a way to get there to get there. If for nothing just the appreciation of the industry and all the things involved with it
Trent Manning:
And if you’ve never been to show and you are a member, you get in one time for free. So if you can get there, you can use your one free pass.
Matt Hyde:
I think we did that. I think what I was able to do that. The first time I went and we had to pay full price the next time. But it was worth it. I’ve heard a lot of superintendents and GMs and whatever say, it’s just a party. It’s a waste of money. You’re not getting a lot out of it, whatever. I still think even if you didn’t go to any sessions or seminars or whatever that applied to us, just going to the trade show and talking to people, I think it’s worth the cost of admission just for that,
Trent Manning:
I agree. And yeah, I usually learn more on the trade show floor talking to my peers than I do, you know? So that, and then a class.
Matt Hyde:
Do you have any of those seminars or sessions that stick out to you as like, wow, I really enjoyed it or I really got something out of it.
Trent Manning:
The one, Jim Ned and us, I think in partnership with Foley, anytime Jim Ned and his dog, and you need to be listening. That’s my opinion is Jim that, and I’m not serious. He’s a walking encyclopedia but he normally does a class on, I think, quality of cut after cut appearance. But he has a sprayer class. Any class he does is excellent.
Matt Hyde:
I believe I went to a sprayer class at one of the shows that he did. And that was good. But he actually did locally, a maybe two thirds of a day seminar at one of the local courses. They hosted a day with Jim dead and it was all cutting unit quality of cut stuff.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Matt Hyde:
and we had some we had some discussions, I of course had some hard questions and he had some tough answers to come up with. But then we had lunch together and it was a great time.
Trent Manning:
Awesome. Good deal.
Matt Hyde:
I remember the. The class that Steven Tucker did at the last Orlando. I thought he did a real nice job with his presentation. I forget what it was called, it was about real maintenance and grinding all that.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah,
Matt Hyde:
it was one of the things I found so interesting. I knew a lot of what he was going to say. But I enjoyed the way he presented it. And the interesting thing is of all people, the grinder manufacturers, other than mark at sip had no idea what he was talking about. That they didn’t know the words he was saying, but the idea is that that were being presented. Some of which are contrary to the grinder manufacturer’s ideas. I thought it was interesting, I kind of have some technical discussions with some of those guys like, Hey, do you know, there’s a guy that just taught a class that said this, and what do you think about that? And they’re just kind of like stumped in a way, Those guys should have been in the room to listen to that because right, or wrong. That’s something that people are, are paying attention to. But I understood, I enjoyed it bottom
Trent Manning:
right. right.
Matt Hyde:
he didn’t, he did a real nice job. So yeah, GIS let’s do it. I’m ready.
Trent Manning:
I’ll be there.
Matt Hyde:
right.
Trent Manning:
Look me up. And any of the listeners
Matt Hyde:
Yep. Absolutely.
Trent Manning:
to shake your hand and say hello? Face-to-face Thank you so much, man. For coming on talking to us today has been an been a lot of fun. Like it always is.
Matt Hyde:
Absolutely. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re doing an awesome job.
Trent Manning:
Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
Matt Hyde:
All right, we’ll talk to you.
Trent Manning:
I hope you enjoyed hearing from Matt. Greg chatting with him. He sent me some of his, a Google drive or a Google sheet that he put together and Google drive pretty cool stuff that he’s doing over there. And I love to see people taking the ball and running with it. With Google drive, the possibilities are really endless. Whatever you can come up with, you can do. So I appreciate him sharing that with us. I’m I asked his permission and if so we’ll put it in the Google drive folder that I’ve shared with most of the listeners. If you’re interested in the Google drive folder as just a big resource with all kinds of tech manuals different Google draft stuff that we got stored in there, you can send me an email@realtermtextsatgmail.com. Or hit me up in Twitter and I will get you access. All I need is your email address and it does work a little bit better with a Gmail account, just the interactions a little bit better. Oh, the thing I want to encourage you is to attend GIS as possible. If you can’t come in person, they are going to have a virtual aspect this year. So make sure to check that out. I know me and Brian Bressler are doing a Google drive class that will be virtual. And I would appreciate y’all checking that out, but just get involved, whether it’s coming to a show, going to a local seminar somewhere getting involved with golf. Or becoming a part of the real turf, text, WhatsApp community, just getting your foot in the door and meeting some other people that are like-minded can go a long way for advancing your career. And even if you’re not looking for career advancement, just having a shoulder to lean on from time to time is pretty nice. So until next week, I’ll talk to you soon. thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at real turf techs.