An Interns Experience at NHCC

Communication, via word of mouth as well as pen and paper, is a key element in our jobs on the golf course.  Dylan Scattum, our intern from Luverne, Minnesota, writes this weeks blogspot about his experience this summer at NHCC.

This experience at North Hempstead Country Club has been one that I will never forget.  Some of the things that I have learned I did not ever think I would be doing in my lifetime for this profession.  Everything that I have learned in these past twelve weeks has helped me so much and I hope to continue to improve on in the years to come.  Being from Minnesota and coming all the way out to the east coast was a huge commitment for me.  I chose to do my internship in New York because I have always been curious about the golf course industry on the east coast ever since I started working at my home course back in Luverne, Minnesota.  Also, I chose to come to New York because I wanted the experience of working at a private club.

Walk mowing greens for first time.

There are a lot of things I liked about this internship at North Hempstead Country Club.  I mainly liked the interaction I was able to have between Tom, the superintendent, Keith, the first assistant, and Tom, the second assistant.  They made sure that I understood everything that was going on and why we would do what we were doing.  Another thing I liked about this internship is that I was always able to learn something new every day.  To say that I was not surprised from this internship would be an understatement, I had an idea of what was going to happen but I could not have done anything before in order to prepare me for the experience I gained.   What surprised me the most was the amount of hours that I would have to work in order to maintain championship conditions. 

There are a tremendous amount of differences between Minnesota and New York.  The biggest one I noticed was the control of poa annua grass.  In the Minnesota area we try to eliminate it as much as possible, but out here we do anything we can in order to keep it alive which is something that I have never dealt with.  I hope to work on and improve everything that I have learned this past summer.  I really hope to improve on syringing greens and in order to get better at that I will need to continue to be somewhere that does this on a regular basis like NHCC.  Another skill that I would like to improve on is water management- when and how much I need to water via hand hose and through the use of sprinklers.

Needle tine aerify on sod farm.

Everyone has been extremely nice to me and has helped me feel welcome and I could not have asked to be an intern at a better club.  I enjoyed everyday at North Hempstead Country Club and have learned a lot that will help me in my profession as a golf course superintendent.

Tom dragging fairways in order to reduce Dollar spot.