Matt Shaffer on his favorite products throughout the decades
Since this issue has a focus on superintendents’ favorite products, I thought it might be fun to take a trip down memory lane. Some of you may be mystified about my favorite products/requests, but I’ll attempt to explain each one.
The fun thing about this issue is that there are so many different products that people list as their favorites. That’s because we all have different challenges we’re trying to overcome. One of these products could be a real game-changer for a superintendent facing a similar problem, while others might be something a superintendent would never even consider.
My favorite products have changed often over the years. It always depended on where I was working and that course’s problems. But my favorite product of all time? I don’t think that one is changing. More on that later … but now, here’s a look through my years in the industry and what products were important to me at the time.
1965: As a 13-year-old, I wished for a pipeline milking system so that I wouldn’t have to carry milkers full of milk anymore.
1969: Age 17, my first year working on a golf course. What I really wanted was an easier way to edge bunkers. We used a half-moon edger, and it would wear a hole right through your leather boots.
1974: My first year as a superintendent. Back then, we were called greenkeepers. I needed a good chemistry to control Pythium — all we had at the time was SP and Koban.
1978: I started my second superintendent job growing in a golf course in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Automatic irrigation would have been nice! Everything was snap valves. They had to be manually put in the ground and turned on. You walk out on dirt to turn it on and back out again in mud to turn it off without washing the seed. You would have to rake out your tracks the next day and seed again if necessary. You did this every day until your first cut.
1986: I became an assistant superintendent again to resurrect my career at Augusta National. I wished for cooler summers. We had a hydraulic irrigation system that failed often. This system had tiny hoses that ran to the head to open the foot valve with water. When they would get a hole in them, the head would open and stay open until you found it.
1989: I was the superintendent of a private club in New Jersey. What I really wish is that I had one-tenth of the money they spent at Augusta National.
1992: Director at Hershey Entertainment and Resort Co. I wished we weren’t union.
2002: Merion Golf Club: I always wanted better and better drainage. Philly is hot and steamy in the summer. Having wet soils was risky business in that climate. I got lots of my wishes answered at Merion — underground sensors, fairway rollers, sand topdressing fairways. But my favorite wish came true when the U.S. Open came to Merion. It held up to the best golfers in the world with a winning score of +1 on a little tiny course that was on less than a hundred acres, and the length was never greater than 6,900 yards.
In conclusion, all of the above are great, but none of them are my favorite tool of all time. My favorite tool of all time is the cell phone. It allowed me to stay on the course all the time.
Superintendents and turf managers of today, imagine doing your job today but without your cell phone. Could you operate? We old timers did it for decades.
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