How I Entered the Profession.

Many years ago I was introduced to “Green Keeping” by an experienced “old school” type, who practised his magic on grass greens, the type of which would be any ones guess, yet they were the most fantastic, superb putting surface, one could wish for. I trained under his supervision for three odd years learning to do things his way. The science behind the practises we followed, never came into the picture. “Spring treatment” was done on the first day of September, come hell or high water, soil temperatures, not an issue, so long as the sand for top dressing ran through your fingers and yet was not too fine. The 2:3:2 fertiliser needed to be on hand. Watering was by hand, and the quantity? When it looked enough! The cutting process started when it finally broke through the sand, and had sufficient healthy growth. You kept adding nitrogen until the green looked good, lowered the cutting height when it felt right! Kept an eye out for the dreaded “dollar spot” and algae, and insured the necessary curative chemicals were on hand. This was my introduction to keeping the green. Soil condition, black layering, verti cutting, and soil testing never came into the equation, additions of fertilisers and which combinations to use, were done by feel. “The green tells me what it needs, and that is what I give it”, this was a standard answer to my inquires. Later we became more modernised, and started the practice of verti cutting, and sometimes even dusting. But no matter what we did the greens remained superb. I started on my own to study more, and read all I could get my hands on, whenever a person appeared to know something about golf greens, they became a target for me to harass, not letting up until they had divulged all their know-how. (Knowledge is gained from looking, listening and asking questions)

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