Fore Play - Winged Foot Superintendent Steve Rabideau

Episode Date: October 24, 2017

The guys are joined for a very rare and unique chat with Winged Foot superintendent Steve Rabideau, who's preparing the course for its 6th US Open in 2020. Steve details how Gil Hanse is helping restore the club's greens to their 1920s contours, why he LOVES taking down trees, and how he expects Winged Foot to hold up in 2020. Steve also tells us the most annoying things for a superintendent amateur golfers do on the course and tells us why aerations are necessary. Riggs and Trent also breakdown Tiger's new “stinger” video, JT's win in Korea, and the proper etiquette on returning or leaving driving range buckets!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon music. Barstlesports, the greatest website on the internet. We're taking a lot of fire recently. We are the greatest website because they let us host a golf podcast. We're great for a lot of reasons, but one of them is they let us host a golf podcast. How great is Barstall Sports.com? Barstlesports.com is, and I say this with no sarcasm whatsoever, it's the greatest place to work.

It is fantastic. They're not paying us to say this, although they are because we're, doing the podcast. But it's just, it's the greatest place in the world. Nothing solidifies my love for this place more than weeks like this where we're battling. We're fighting fires left and right. We got people flanking us left and right. We're fighting them off. We're fending them off. There is. I mean, it's a great place to work, 365, 24-7, all that. But when we have to circle the wagons for, I mean, I can't even list out the number of things we've had to circle the wagons for the last two weeks. But it does. It makes you really proud to be, I mean, before this,

we were readers of the website. So it's like- Huge fans before him. So we've been, you know, we've been around for a long time. So it's cool to see the website has not really changed. We're doing the same stuff. And people aren't going to like it, but it's Barstall Sports, baby. Barstall Sports is so cool that it's got this gigantic platform where Trent and I were able to carve off our own little niche. Talk about golf.

We get people on the podcast from Gary Player to Wingfoot Superintendent Steve Rabidoo this week. Oh. And we have a barstool is able to provide us a massive audience who's going to love this stuff, who's able to hook us up with stuff, who's able to get us guests, people recommend and stuff left and right. Barstall is awesome. This podcast is presented by Barstall Sports.

We do have on this week, as I just mentioned. This is Superintendent Week now. We have just deemed it Superintendent Week. Yeah, we put out the word last week. And we've kind of said it all along, but we want to have interesting guests. We don't want to have just PJ Tour pros on all the time. We want to all across the golf landscape.

We want to cover jobs. And our guy, Steve, this week. He's an interesting fellow. He is the man. Wingfoot is. I mean, it's maybe the most iconic U.S. Open venue. There is. We were kind of talking, so I was invited out by a couple Stoley's two Wingfoot.

I've played both courses now at this point. Very impressed. I mentioned this in the interview with Steve, but stunned at the vibe at Wingfoot. They got their little kind of bar grill area that sits kind of just past the patio in the clubhouse, which is the iconic clubhouse. Everybody's seen it. Is a phenomenal scene. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody's having drinks.

They're the nicest people in the world. A witch, you never know where you go to one of these places. Is it going to be stuffy? Sure. Is it going to be like waspy? Are they going to be like, who are these guys? Wingfoot is a blast. I've had an unbelievable time.

Both times I was there. Made some connections. Met a bunch of people there. Like, you got to have our guy, our superintendent, Steve Rabidoo on. He's the man. He's obviously, he's a big Patriots fans. He knows Barstall. He knows what Barstall is.

We got into a little bit. He was at the fog game last night. We got into that a little bit. We talked about Foggate a little bit. We get into trees. Oh, baby. No one. I don't want to spoil it

But when we bring up trees Trent said it's like somebody brought up Like it was like equal to in a political conversation Someone bringing up like abortion or something It was no no hyperbole That's exactly what it was It's you brought it up and he went Oh boy

Again I don't want to I don't want to spoil It brought up trees he was like oh oh God Trees Fucking trees So we talk all kinds of good stuff We get into the nuts and bolts of course restoration what it takes to completely restore a green. He talks about going back.

They're trying to find photos of old greens to make them look like them. Very interesting. Really, really interesting stuff. They're obviously hosting a U.S. Open again in 2020, which will be their sixth. The last U.S. Open that was there. The winner was, I believe it was six over. It was either five or six over.

I think Phil was five over on the T when he made double 118 to finish seven over, so he would have lost by one to Jeff Ogilvy. That means, I mean, if the winner was, six over, that means top 10, you're like 13 over bars. Right. And think about how good these guys are.

So anyways, we talked to him about prep work, restoration, getting a place like Wingfoot ready for U.S. Open. I was talking with a couple of the members up there. Iconic U.S. Open venues. It's really got to be Wingfoot, Oakmont Pebble,

I think, are in their own category. Yeah, I think those are probably the three people think of when you ask for iconic ones. I think those are the most iconic. Marion's in there is really Shinnock's getting up there but I think Oakmont, Wingfoot, and Pebble are kind of in their own realm.

I think you're right. Steve was interesting, Steve, it was some nerdy grass stuff but I think people, I actually think people are really going to enjoy that one. We talked about airation, why you got to do it, all that type of stuff. He went into what amateur golfers do that piss them off the most.

Yeah, so make sure to listen to that part. A lot of good stuff in there. So yeah, really interesting chat. We're friends of everyone in golf from lady golfers to superintendent. to caddies. We have everybody on this podcast. To Gary Player as well.

Also Gary Player. We do everything. We're just the people's golf podcast. We're just here just having fun. We just want to be interesting. We're just the common man's fucking golf podcast. That's right. I agree with you.

I was home this week. St. Louis. St. Louis. First time since Christmas. That was shocking to me. Yeah, me too. Nobody got married. Usually you go home once or twice for a wedding.

I've been home twice since I moved to New York for weddings. Me too. I usually go home. I usually see everybody like four or five times. a year. Sure. Haven't seen you guys since Christmas. Haven't seen my parents since Christmas.

That's crazy. And I was talking to them and they were like, well, we actually, we feel like we catch up with you a lot because we listen to your podcast. There you go. A lot of times you guys just rant about shit that you do. So they're like, we feel like we know what you've been doing. There you go. It's a nice way.

We're not only one of the best websites in the country in the world. We also bring families together when they're far apart. True. It's great. We're a pro-family podcast. We are. Big time. Huge.

We've got some news to get to. we have let's start let's just start with Tiger Woods let me tell you something before we get to Tiger Woods Okay I want to talk about so I I shave this week Do you see how clean shaven I look too? You look great We are a couple dollar shaved club clean shaving guys I gotta tell you I am I'm not clean shaven

I have whatever's going on I'm confused about my facial hair I'm constantly confused about it Part of you is clean shaven Here's the thing I don't my beard doesn't grow above like It doesn't go up my cheekbones like you would think It only grows I grow pretty pretty epic neck beard So I need to figure it out, but I do know when I have to- You kind of have the facial hair right now of like a third-tier professional wrestler.

Damn. Who's like up and coming, you know what I'm saying? Damn. Yeah. Do you disagree with that? Unfortunately, I can't disagree with that. I'm going to say it. Here's the thing, though.

When I do shave, when I do need to clean up around, because now I've got a little bit of a go-tee thing going. When I need to get clean-shaven on all the other areas, I go to Dollar Shave Club. They're the best in the business. By now, everyone knows the Dollar Shave Club ships amazing razors for a few bucks. I've been a member for a while. I love my shave. Riggs, I mean, it's smooth as a baby's bottom. Smoother, maybe.

Probably. And what you might not know, though, because I didn't. Also not particularly familiar with how smooth a baby's bottom is or isn't. Yeah, we probably shouldn't be. So there would really be no way for me to know, but I would, it's hard for me to imagine it could be smoother than this. Yep. Fair? Fair.

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Lip balm is very underrated. Very underrated. Like, incredibly underrated. Also for skiers. If you're going to ski this winter, you need lip balm. I've never been skiing, so I didn't know that. But that's why we got rigs on the podcast. Now you're going to protect your lips if you do go ski.

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They're good with their copy when they do the shit shower and shave and face chicks the butt cheeks. That really gets people going. Yeah, it's very sharp stuff. You were talking about Tiger. So Tiger Woods just posted, he's kind of, I don't know if he's trying to time things with this podcast recording. Last week, as we were recording, we found out live on the show that he had been cleared for full activity. Yep, then we broke that.

That was huge. We did break that. We broke that and then recorded it and then published it like $12 later. So everyone knew, but we still broke it. That was pretty good of us. So he posts a tweet. He's big post his slow motion videos of his swing guy now. Yeah.

I have a theory about that, too. This one, Return of the Stinger. In the same, you know, capitalized form as the Star Wars movies, return of the Stinger, hashtag Star Wars. Let's start there. Okay. Because you know, Tiger, I'm sure he was excited to hit that Stinger shot. He was way more excited to make his Return of the Stinger, hashtag Star Wars joke. I just know after following Tiger for so long, he was elated to make that comment.

They're going to love this one is what he thought. Like, God, the people, they're going to, this one's fire. It's the guy half to post it. He's got that smile on. You can see him. He's like, yeah, the swing looks good, all this and that, but I'm going to crush this Star Wars thing. Yeah. So.

And my theory on why he keeps posting is because last week I had said, I think he's trying to push down all the mug shots and all the things that have happened to him recently. I honestly think that he is just genuinely excited. to be swinging a golf club again. Yeah, I think he's excited. I mean, I don't think he would be posting videos like this if he weren't relatively close to a return. Would he just keep him closer to his chest and, like, hold, you know? He would keep everything close to the chest.

He wouldn't. He's Mr. Keep it close to your chest guy. That's been his MO for his entire career. And now we're getting all of these videos of him just hitting different shots. I think it might just be genuine excitement. I think, too, he's very, he's social media woke to a certain degree now because he knows that social media goes nuts for the Stinger. Oh, yeah.

And so then he posts a Stinger. Anytime we post a Stinger video on ForPlay Instagram or Twitter, people go nuts for it. Right. So it's good to see. It's unbelievably exciting to see. The fact that he's captioning it, something like this, he's playful. He's not just like some of his earlier videos, it felt like he was posting just to prove that he was like not stuck in bed. Yeah.

That he could actually walk and move and do stuff. Yeah. This is like a real fucking goal. I also think I don't want to be too woke on it, but there is a history of since Tiger has not been kind to the media in the past, whenever he gets in trouble, they really bring the hammer down on him. So I think maybe if he's, maybe he's throwing us a bone. He's throwing all media members of bone. So then the next time maybe he screws something up, people aren't so mean to us. Like remember when I gave you guys that Stinger video that delivered a million page views.

Right. Stop being such dickheads to me. Exactly. Tiger. The day we have Tiger on this podcast is going to be a big day. I can't wait. Really, really big day. Hopefully he's soon.

I feel like, I mean, now he's getting to the point where eventually he's just kind of announced that he's back. He can't just keep posting videos. He's going to run out of that. That's going to get old quick. He's going to play the hero. That's what we're thinking, right? It's going to have the same trajectory come back as last time. I mean, we've been saying this for months.

Watching it unfold again is incredible. Yeah. We have the greatest shirt for this in the world. We do. Yep. You go to store. Barstoolsports.com. Go get your tiger, make Sunday's great again shirt.

it's the greatest shirt out there. It was flying off the shelves and then he died. Now he's back. He has returned. The shirt is returned. It is flames. Everyone needs one. And I've heard my friend Riggs talk about,

because he gets mad at people who don't buy the shirt. He says he might mark up the price somewhere down the road if you don't buy it now. So when that comeback, when it gets full steam ahead, we might jack up the price on that shirt. So get it now. I definitely don't have that power. But if I did, I would jack up the price on that fucking shirt so fast. And that you people would pay for not buying it right now.

theoretically it's spite it's a spiteful great idea correct but um we also had so uh my main reason the reason i was home is because my nephew turned one shout out to rob happy birthday rob first birthday uh he had a huge rager on saturday night huge rager like 60 people you had told me that uh it was just an excuse for the adult staff on so i learned that really quickly i um and this is all tied to golf somehow don't worry we'll get there but uh the you know we're all huge st louis blues fans big hockey people Sure. So we're all huge St. Louis blues fans, and they were playing Vegas at like 9.30 p.m. local time. Okay.

So Rob's one-year-old, one first birthday party started at like five. So I was texting people like, hey, I'm going to organize a bar scene at 930. We'll go watch the blues game. It would be a good time. My brother got really offended. It was like, what about Rob's party? And I was like, Rob doesn't party for seven hours. He's one.

He's a party at all. And my brother was like, yeah, you idiot. It's an excuse for all the adults to just get drunk and party all night. We'll be at my house drinking until like two in the morning. This is the thing that adults. that adults, and I say that with air quotes, like you and I don't understand about the real adult world where people have kids and we say it's awful and I'm sure that it is. But it also gives you an excuse to throw parties that are on the outside a party for the kids, but it's really just a party for the kids or the adults to get very drunk. Totally.

And that's exactly what this was. So I actually played some golf in the morning with some buddies I hadn't seen in a long time. Actually got hooked up by a guy who works for Golf Now, Golf Now.com. Nice. Got us a free tea time and all that. shout to those guys, and then we drank, had a couple beers. By the time Rob's party and all that moved on, and then this tournament, the CJ Cup, that was over in what, Korea.

Yeah. By the time that was finishing up, which was like midnight or something like that, I was gone. I mean, I was toast. I didn't remember anything at 9 o'clock, let alone midnight. So totally missed it. I will say that I love that the Golf Channel's coverage apparently. Oh, it went to the playoff and it just cut out. Right out.

Gonso. Right win JT. I think in the playoff, so Leashman in the second playoff hole dumped one in the water. And then J.T. was like, I'm going to go for it and pulled like a five wood or three wood or something. And then it just cut out. That's very golf on TV. That's very golf on TV. Golf on TV, we just haven't figured it out yet.

No. We fuck it up and we're so bad at it. I don't know why you're saying we because it's them and they. We don't have anything to do with it. I have a community, I think. But you're right. It has nothing to do with us. That was nice of you to bring us all in.

I thought we were doing the family thing and the, you know, whatever. I'm down to do the family thing, but the golf on TV thing, they need to figure that out, especially when you're cutting off a playoff. So I can't decide if I'm happy about JT ended up winning on the second playoff hole. He had some heroic shots down the stretch, and then on the second playoff hole, like I said, Leashman kind of shit the bed. A couple things I want to talk about here. One, JT, I have my bet where Spieth is supposed to beat JT in major championships next year. Okay. I'm hoping JT's kind of burning himself out still.

He is kind of going, I think, on a break here pretty soon. he's got to be because he did. I saw him. Eight out of ten weeks or something. I don't know if it was a tweet or a snap or whatever. He's on all of them, but he said, I'm finally going to take a break, which, by the way, that's going to be the greatest break. Maybe anyone's ever taken. It's a really well-deserved break.

I mean, he had an incredible year, and now he just gets to sit. He's got all this money in the bank. He's got all these trophies in the trophy case. And now he can go, he's 24 years old. You can be like a semi-normal 24-year-old and do nothing. I will say, I was thinking when I was on my way home, and I sat at the airport and I had an airport beer on the way home for Rob's first birthday party. Great beer.

And airport beer is one of the top beers. It's up there. Yeah, I remember KFC Radio a while back did like what are the top beer? Yep. You did Opry Ski. I remember was one of yours. Opie's a big one. 19th hole beer is a big one.

Post mowing the lawn is a big one. Post mowing the lawn, things like that. Airport beer is a good one. I got to think that JT with a long break coming up post the year that he just had winning like $20 million and then winning to begin the new wraparound season in Korea, that beer after had to be one of the top beers you can have. That's an, I mean, that's an exclusive club to have that type of beer. You got, like, months off to do whatever the fuck you want.

Months off, and you're set for life now. You played so well during one of your seasons that you're just good for life now. That's got to be a great beer. That is just such a nice beer. The other thing I want to talk about on this is Mark Leashman, because we never really talked about this, but his wife, after the President's Cup, had some very choice words about American fans.

And so going after people's, we're not going after him, but she kind of like, she made some absurd, absurd comments about how like, when Daniel Berger was interviewed and the U.S. was up by a million and he was like, yeah, our goal was to come here and crush him and we want to beat him even worse tomorrow, she singled out that being like, you could tell the fans had the same type of mentality. And that's just not the type of competition that I've got. it was appalling. And again, it's really, it's very tricky because we're classy folks. We don't want to get into like attacking players wives. That and that is absolutely not what we want. So we're not going to do that. But I just want to say, I did blog this several weeks ago. So if you want to go see the quotes, you can go look at that. And I just want to say that it makes me not want to root for Mark Leishman now.

Okay. I think that's fair. You're not saying anything else. You're just saying, this is where we're drawn the line. I remember, I actually did not see all of those comments, but I remember the burger comments. And those were great. Like those were as, I know she's saying that then the American fans took that on as something else. I don't know anything about that. I thought the burger comments were great. We obviously don't want anything to happen with people's wives, but it's like, I mean, that's a reason to root against somebody. She did say the crowds booing for good shots and cheering for Miss Puts, the drinking at 7 a.m., screaming Big Easy to Ernie Ells and begging for his autographs

and then yelling at his players. That's a team event. That's literally the tournament. That's the whole event's about. We just, that's like a, that's a pitch for people to go next time. Correct. People are reading that going, I got to go to the president's guy. This looks electric.

Yeah, that's, that to me is, that's normal team, you know, USA, rah, rah, rah, you root for your own squad type of stuff. Totally. So, again, we're being, we're tiptoeing around this one. We don't do anything stupid, but I don't root from our at Leachman very often now. Okay. And I was happy to see Justin Thomas defeat him. Fair. All right.

Next up, we've got our interview with Wingfoot Super Bowl. Superintendent Steve Rabadoo. Folks, this interview with Mr. Rabidoo is brought to you by our friends at draftkings.com. It's week eight. Football season is in full swing. That is crazy to think about. We are in the heart of football season.

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the beginning, you know, becoming a golf course superintendent is a pretty unique gig. Kind of just talk a little bit, you know, about your background and eventually how you ended up at Wingfoot. Yeah, I think like most guys that are superintendents, we just sort of stumble into it. I got a job on a golf course and had no idea that you could really make a career out of it. I was working on a golf course to play free golf. There you got. I found that I could go to school for it. And next thing I know, I went to school for it and fell in love with what I, you know, working on a golf course and moved from a little nine-hole golf course in Massachusetts to New York.

And I was 26 years ago. And having looked back, I worked at a bunch of courses on Long Island. And very fortunate to be here at Wingfoot. It's an awesome place, you know. You know, it doesn't get much better than Wingfoot. Yeah, I've been out there a couple of times. couple times now I've gotten to play the west course and the east course each once and you know we want to get into eventually kind of the prep work for us open and all that but let's start talking about wing foot

a little bit just kind of first of all you know what do you what do you think makes wing foot so special uh the history i mean the 2020 will be our sixth u.s open you know i think about every day i'm here you think about the people that have played here and all the major champions We've had. Just went out. Yeah, hold on a second. A lot of silence. Do you remember that last?

What was the last question that you asked? I know what I asked. Well, now. Sorry about that. Welcome back. Welcome back is right. Come back. Well, like everything.

We're getting a new maintenance facility here, too. As you can see, we need it. I can't even get a phone call in my office. Good. That's a good call. That's a good investment. It's brutal. So, yeah, just kind of the history and what makes Wingfoot so special.

You know, the greens, the greens are so cool. They're so hard, they're undulated. You know, everybody tells you, you know, if you're going to play wing foot, you want to miss short. You don't want to go long. The greens pretty much are all sloped from back to front. Rough is brutal. I mean, that rough now is nothing compared to what it would be for the open. Right.

You know. Yeah, and I could, you know, you could tell when you're out there, when the rough's down and whatnot, it doesn't, I guess it doesn't seem like, wow, this is a course that's going to have a five. overscorer, you know, winner at a U.S. Open. But, but, you know, just kind of, in terms of the course and the course design, you know, I guess what is it that's made it able to stand up against the test of time for, you know, a century? Well, I think when you talk about the width of the fairways, the fairways and narrow, 20, 25 yards wide, you know, and you throw the rough in our rough, we cut right now

at two and a half inches, but when we have the open, it's going to be four, four and a half, five inches. We'll be the first cut her off. You know, speed, the greens will be probably rolling 12 and a half, 13, firm. You know, and then the greens, the greens are really undulated and tricky. And in the project we're doing right now, the restoration project, we're capturing a lot of lost holes that we've, that have just been lost over time, good, new hole locations. and you throw that in with the modern length now. Well, probably going to be over 7,500 yards, par 70.

So when you think about this year at Aaron Hills, they were 7,800 yards, but that was par 72. Right. So when you throw 7,500 par 70, that's a beast when you got 25-yard wide fareways. I mean, that's brutal and rough. So how far in advance does preparation for, a U.S. Open begin. When does the U.S.G.A kind of come in, and when do you guys sort of get together and go,

okay, now we're, you know, we're getting the course ready for 2020. Well, we've had an official U.S.G.A. site visit pretty much this year with the tour agronomis and Mike Davis. So, you know, we're looking at, we looked at what we did on the back of the West and what we're going to be doing on the front of the West. So, you know, it's, I mean, a place like Wingfoot, there was nothing we needed to do to host an open, you know? Right. All the things that we're doing are things that the club is wanted to do.

But we started now, you know, and after Shinnock, U.S. U.S.A. will move on site. They'll have some ops people on site. Usually have people out two years in advance. Okay. And a lot goes into it. You know, a lot of the setup, wing foot is unique in the fact that, you know, we pretty much, unfortunately, the East Coast takes a pretty good beating from all the tents and the corporate stuff to get set up.

Right. Which is tough to swallow when you start putting, you know, 35,000 people through a day and corporate hospitality tents and everything that has to get set up. So, you know, we're big, or to big property, but it's not relative to when you think of some of the other sites that have had. The Aaron Hills had over 600 acres, and we have 280 acres, but we have two golf courses. Right. Yeah, a lot of people might not realize that, that, you know, as good as the West courses, the East course is generally a top, you know, 50 or 60 course in the country. It is an unbelievable track that's right there sort of intertwined with the West.

Yeah, and we just finished rebuilding that golf course. So Gil Hans is our architect, and we started in fall of 13. We did the front nine fall of 13, finished that in the spring of 14, and then fall of 14, spring of 15, we finished rebuilding the entire East Course. Rebuilt all the greens, all the bunkers, all the T's, massive drainage work. And we had the USA Four Ball Championship on that.

We had the second annual four ball championship on that one. In 16, we had that. No, 15 we had that. And so now it's, you know, now with greens aren't going to get destroyed. T's won't, but, you know, fairways and stuff. and it's it's uh and it's really the member's favorite golf course right because it's it's as good

the greens might even be better on the east than the west it's just as a little bit more forgiving fairways and not at quite as long and it's uh and you're right and it's nice you know the members don't want to necessarily go out there and get beat up by the west every day no the west a lot of guests play in the west and they get beat up i mean the west would just be it's just brutal so and i keep there's uh there's a there's a video on uh uh the USGA is out, which we'll kind of tag people in and show it to them, but it goes through the whole process of a restoration of a green, which is a fascinating watch,

kind of how meticulous it is and all of that. Just to kind of talk through what it takes just to do a restoration, like why you do it, and then the process of doing it on even just one green. The narrative we had when we were rebuilding the greens was we were trying to keep the contours exactly the same way they are. We were going to expand them a little bit in the areas where they've shrunk over time Throughout the you know throughout 50 60 70 80 years the greens tend to shrink

Okay It happens a lot when you In the you know probably in the 70s when they were using riding mowers They didn't have as many people working on the golf course The greens just shrink So we wanted to capture the lost cupping areas You know the size of greens

going to increase them back to what they were. We have a lot of old photos, which is really cool that we have a historian and we have all the photos. So we can look back at those photos and say that's what we want to get the greens to. Yeah, I was going to ask if you had any mapping or if you had photos or how exactly you guys looked and said this is what they were like, you know, 50 or 60 years ago. Tons of photos. We're trying to go back to 1920, somewhere between 23 and 29. We have the 23 photos and we have the 29 photos of what it was before the first open. So that's the area that we're trying to go back to.

and but we're trying to keep the contours the exact same so we're pretty much changing the infrastructure because in the 20s when the greens were being built greens were built with a native soil and they were meant to hold moisture that was back then they didn't have good irrigation systems and that soil was it was a was a good thing back then right today's day and age with the height we cut greens at the speed we keep greens at the firmness we want Soil is not so much our friend anymore. We don't want to keep things wet. We want to have the ability to dry them down, firm them up.

We want that ability to put water on a green, whereas with soil, it holds moisture. So we want to change the infrastructure and go to a USDA green, which is a sand-based green with drainage. So we were changing the infrastructure, but putting the greens back to the exact same contours. So we laser scan the greens and then we would strip the sod off the greens after we scanned them. We would have to make our expansions, recreate the green we wanted to create get. We had to scan the green again, and then once we scanned it after we created the green we wanted to get, we would shell the green out, do the drainage, build it back up with the mix, and then we'd put the contours back the same.

This is all done with grading instruments called the Total Robotic Station. So it takes endless hours to do this, and it's very meticulous. And at the end, after we got it back to, we call it the final strikeoff, when we get the green back to what we want to get it to, we have to scan it again, and then compare that scan with the original scan and get it signed off on by the architect and my green shim, and then we can, if it's good, then we can sod the green. Jesus. Wow.

I guess I just have sort of a general question. You say you've been doing this for 26 years, given that last little bit there. How much has the technology changed at your disposal from back then to what's the type of stuff that you're doing now? Oh, tremendous. Tremendous. I mean, this stuff wasn't available, I don't think, 20 or 15 years ago. And even the equipment we use, the heights we cut at, the chemicals we have. the chemicals we have now is different than what you had before.

I mean, completely different. And members say it all the time. They say it all the time. They say, oh, the golf course is almost like what it was in the 70s. And I just look at them, I'm like, what are you talking about? Nothing was what it was 40 years ago, you know? Right.

Like the height of my T's is what the height of the Greens was back in the 70s. You know, they just, I just want to, like, scratch my head and pull my eyes out. But so, yeah, technology's changed a lot, which is why we're doing a lot of things we're doing, because we keep pushing the envelope to try to cut lower and have firmer, faster greens. And, you know, we pretty much keep the golf course in tournament condition day in and day out. Yeah, I was going to ask a question, if, you know, how long do you think it would take you guys at Wingfoot? If it was midsummer and the USGA said, we have a problem, we need to. host the U.S. Open there this year. How long would you guys need?

Probably just let the rough grow. I mean, we hear that from a lot of, you know, we have a lot of people that come through here and play here and pros and stuff. And we hear that a lot from people, let the rough grow. Because we pretty much are greens teas and fairways. We're at the heights we would be at for the open. Right. Because even, you know, the two times I've been out there, I mean, the greens were buzzing. So I can't imagine that they're that dramatically different for a tournament. They're not. We try for 12, 12, 12 and a half day in a day out, and the Fairway Heights will be the same,

and the, you know, the T's, and we just have to let the rough grow. I mean, we were slowing the green speeds down for the USAFA four ball. That's awesome. So can you, you know, you or, you know, your staff or the members at Wingfoot, do they, do you guys get a say in the course set up for the U.S. open or is it 100% the USDA? Well, I guess I'm going on what I've been told. I mean, the USDA, in essence, they rent the facility for that week. You know, that week of the event is their say, and we'll work together.

And, but I mean, you know, they choose all locations and stuff like that. But we'll work together on that. Gotcha. And that's something that will be determined as we start, you know, building a program, getting close to that. but you know they'll they're the ones that set whole locations and in the lengths of the the tea markers each day based on the conditioning and based on the weather and stuff so we talked a good amount about restoration and that's kind of been the trend with a lot of the top courses you know rather than people building new courses or even you know making a lot of additions

people are very high on course restorations and a lot of that has been taking out trees talk a little bit about, you know, why eliminating trees is so good for golf courses? Wow, that's the hot topic. Trees. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's the hot topic for sure.

Oh, yeah. Trees are hot in the streets. My boy, Riggs stunned him. A lot of members, you know, love the trees. I always tell people that we're a parking golf course. We want trees.

We want some trees. But you can do more with less. You know, you can do a lot with one tree instead of five or six trees. But trees, for what we do nowadays, for the heights we cut at and everything, trees, too many trees blocks sunlight, they block airflow. Everything I do, I have to lean towards the turf and not the trees. You know, if you go to the forest or you go to an arboretum, if you ever walk around an arboretum, we're in the forest, the turf sucks, right? Right. Oh, yeah. So, if you go to the forest, you go to an arboretum, if you So if you're on a golf course and we're trying to maintain turf, we have to find that happy medium between having some trees and having great turf.

You know, Shinnecocks this year where the open is coming up next year, well, there are links golf course. They don't want trees. We're a parkland course and we need some trees. We do. But you don't want trees on an east side of a green or something where the morning sun's going to hit you. that's not good. You need to get morning sunlight on your greens and your teas and stuff.

So it's a, boy, it is a hot topic at clubs here and everywhere, you know, and I get it, but it's, we've taken a bunch out. Steve, I love that you hate trees. That's awesome. Yeah, and we appreciate you coming on the record to talk about trees. It seemed you were a little hesitant. Trees are touching. Well, it's a hot topic, you know.

Yeah, we took a miller. million trees out of my course before here. It was great. We had a land clearing company came in and just clear-cut it. It was awesome. Dead of the winter. It was great. I like that. I love the superintendents against trees. It'll always be a good one for me. So what does a typical day look like for you kind of, from when you rise to when you go to sleep as the superintendent? Well, thankfully, I love what I do because it's a long day. It's every day. You know, I pretty much work seven days a week.

Depending on the time of the year, it's 4.4.30 in the morning here at the club, and it's usually leaving it anywhere from 6.30 to 8 o'clock at night. And you – You walk both courses in the morning, I believe, a rumor that I heard. Is that right? Yeah. I get on – in June, May, June, July, August, September, I grab my phone, my radio, and I get on foot, and I try to walk the whole property. Try to see almost everything every day. because once it gets busy out there, I can't get out there.

I can't see it. There's too many people. We're busy golf course. So it's a great time to get out there, and I walk all the greens and the T's and see the property and really see what's going on, you know, because we get a lot of moving parts. And with 50-some-odd employees, it doesn't take much for one person to make a mistake or something because it's not like cooking a burger in a kitchen. where you get a redo, there's no redo button for us.

If we screw something up, you're going to see it. And, you know, that's a problem with us because everything we do is on public display every day. So we make a mistake. We got to catch it earlier. We don't want to make that mistake. So, you know, that's why I'm out there every day, checking it out, walking it. So you mentioned 50 employees. Do you, you know, are there just different groups of people who are experts?

You have, like, bunker guys versus green guys? or how does all that work? We've got a, you know, we're fortunate enough here. We get to attract good guys. I've got a great group of guys. You know, I've got a bunch of guys who have turf degrees like myself. So I've got a main superintendent. I've got assistance.

I've got about seven or eight assistants. I've got interns, turf interns. I've got some AITs, assistant in training. So we got a really good team of all the turf team, we call it, that does all the chemical applications, the fertilizer, the hand-watering, you know, when we're hand-watering everything every day. And they do all the technical stuff. And then we have, you know, the other crews that do, you know,

all the mowing and the bunkers and all the other daily maintenance. You know, and it's every day. You know, we've got to get out ahead of play, you know, because we're so busy that once you get going, it's hard to get things done around play. So what makes growing grass different in all different parts of the country and, you know, up in the Northeast, kind of what are your toughest challenges up here? There's all different types of grass, right?

So you've got the northern grasses, you've got the southern grasses. There's a transition zone where they can sort of both grow, but they don't like doing that in there. It's the weather, you know? I mean, we grow, some people grow bent grass. We maintain poana, and you've got to babysit it. You know, everything we do is at the mercy of Mother Nature. You know, too much rain's not good, too little rain's not good, too hot's not good, dry and windy's not good.

I mean, we're never happy. You know, super intense, never happy. Right. It's always something, and people look at me, and they go, oh, it's great. great. I'm like, no, it's not. It sucks. And, you know, and everybody said, oh, that's a great year this year. Well, you know, you don't work any less because you're still here all the time, babysit in the place. And so the weather is by far the number one issue that we have to deal with.

And, you know, in the Northeast, if we've got a really tough winter, how much does that affect your preparation for the golf course at the beginning of the year? It can be okay. snow cover can be okay, but then we get into issues if we have ice, and we have ice that hangs around for too long, we can have the greens die from ice. So that's an issue. Sometimes we have to go out and remove the snow, remove the ice off the greens. It doesn't happen a lot here, but honestly, to have a nice light cover of snow out there is pretty good because it protects everything. Whereas if you didn't have any snow and it's just dry and windy all you long, you can actually

lose more turf sometimes from just the wind blowing and drying things out. Interesting. What do, what are, you know, what are some things that your typical player, amateur player does out there that makes you the most frustrated? Not repairing ballmarks, or thinking they're repairing it the right way, but they always repair them wrong. Detail, what's the most common wrong way that people repair ballmarks? Oh, they lift up from the center and that leaves that brown mark.

Right. They think the golf ball falls straight out of the same. guy. It does not. It does not. I hate the guy that drives his golf car two feet off the edge of the T. You know, he's

supposed to be 30 feet away from the tea or green. Yep. Or the guy that walks out of the bunker with sand all over his shoes and just, you know, gets sand all over the greens. So there's a million things, you know.

Pretty much everything. Yeah, you know. Especially as a day gets long. You get a little bit more cranky, you know? I mean, it's your baby. You want to look after it? Well, that's it. You know, I mean, I love what I do.

And you hear every day, and that's what it is. You know, it's where, you know, it's pretty cool that you get to be entrusted and maintaining one of the, you know, largely, be one of the best properties in the country. And you have to treat it like it's yours, you know. So it takes a lot of TLC and a lot of time. It is kind of a crazy concept that you. you get, you know, this massive property in perfect shape every morning only for it to be kind of ruined all day. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Well, without doubt, you know, and the new soft spikes are terrible. You know, these new soft spikes, it look like you could go on a damn soccer field or football field of some of these soft spikes these shoe companies are making. They care of the turf up. We'll have to talk to the shoe companies and take care of those. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So one of our guys, Keegan Bradley, we know you know him a little bit. What's your connection with Keegan? Keegan's good, good dude. Keegan, when he was at St. John's, I was the superintendent Wheatley Hills out on Long Island. And St. Johns used to practice at Wheatley all the time. So that's how I met Keegan and Ballo. And they were practiced here. Then Keegan started, he worked in the bag room there for a little while,

Although he didn't really work, he would just play golf all the time. That sounds about right. Yeah. And then he became a member there, and then the members helped him. And then he went out and got his tour card and went on to win the PGA and championship. And, yeah, it was awesome. So I've known Keegan for a while. He's great, dude.

Yeah, we've had Keegan on the podcast as a friend of the pod before. So anybody that likes Keegan is one of our guys. We're both big boss and sports fans. That's right. Yeah. I heard you try to get to any Pats games that you can. Yeah, I was there last night. I couldn't see you in the damn fog, though.

Yeah, many people are saying that the Patriots might have done that on purpose. I'm not saying that. I'm saying other people are saying that. It's foggate. I'm sure there hasn't been in the papers everywhere. Fagate. I mean, you say that like it's a joke because we now just throw a gate on anything with the Patriots. People are actually upset.

But it is 100% a storyline right now. Oh, yeah. Fagate. It was brutal. Was it really hard to see when you were sitting right there? Oh, it was brutal, yeah. Yeah, I'll text you a picture. It was really hard to see.

Yeah, that sucks. That's actually really a lot. Because on TV they were able to kind of make it fine where you could just watch the game. But I guess if you're there, I didn't really think about that. It was hard. It was definitely hard to see. Yeah.

So, yeah, it was a late night. Got up early and drove back. But, yeah, I go to most of the games up there. So I get a question that most people can relate to a little bit. Errated greens, you know, everybody gets frustrated. It's kind of that time of year. Just talk us through the necessity for aerating greens. Airation is a necessary evil.

We just started aerating today, so all the members will, they definitely don't like me today. But you have to do it. If you don't do it, you know, there will be a turning point when the greens will just go the opposite way. You have to airify because if you want to get into the science of it, the grass breaks down, it doesn't decay. It makes it mad. It makes a layer and you can't get water and the nutrients you want down to the roots. And it becomes spongy, right? It gets soft and spongy.

So the only way to have good greens is to aerate and get sand in there and dilute it. And it needs to be done. And you have to do it a couple times a year. You know, we try to do it in the show this season now and again in the winter. spring so that the summer is good. But you have to do it. There's no way around it. There's no grass that, you know, it doesn't need to be erified.

It all needs to be airified. And, but nobody likes it. Yeah, it's one of those things. Everybody at that time of here, everybody's bitching about it. I would go on Twitter. People are bitching, so I figure it would be nice to hear from one of the best in the game saying, no, no, we got to do this. You have to, and nobody likes it.

I mean, people think we like it, but it's so much work, you know? Right. Why the hell would you like it? We're still out working right now. I mean, and it's a ton of work. And, you know, we have one course open all week. Actually, we get nine holes open them all because we're airifying, and it's just, it's a nightmare, but you have to do it. Or else, you know what, the people aren't going to come in in the summer.

It's just, it's not good. You have to do it. So Wingfoot obviously storied for hosting, you know, U.S. opens, really tough U.S. opens. Last one, Jeff Vogelvy, I believe, was what. six over did he win it at? I believe so, yes. And then, you know, we've had, I think it was 74, Hill, or when it's seven over, what do you think,

you know, do you guys have anything, you know, early in your minds as, you know, this is kind of a winning score ballpark that we want to see for the U.S. Open in 2020? Boy, I just hope it's over par. Me too. That's what we like to hear. I better be over par. I don't want to, you know, put a number out there,

but I would think that it's going to be over par. It's a hard golf course. The rough will be thick. The greens will be firm and fast if the weather allows us to have them that way. Fairways and narrow. I mean, it's a true U.S. Open test of golf. You know, and it's a classic test. You know, I mean, it would be the sixth time the U.S. Open's been here.

You know, and it's had one PGA championship, on the west. This will be sixth open. The East has had numerous USA championships. So the whole place here is just championship golf, which is really cool. It's an incredible spot.

I was really surprised, you know, when I was there, even just kind of the grill seed and how friendly and all that. The membership was, how everybody knew each other. And then the golf courses are both, of course, about as good as it gets. You guys got one of the greatest Tesla golf in the world. I think a good place to end it is saying,

it better be over par. So, Steve, we really appreciate your time, man. All right, no problem. Thanks, guys. All right, take care. Thanks a lot. All right. All right.

All right. All right. For hopping on. Hopefully he doesn't have nightmares about trees after asking him about that. Yeah, if you see Steve, be careful if you bring up trees. Don't, no, don't bring up trees at all. Do not bring up trees around, Steve. He is a touchy subject.

He will hurt you. I'm glad that interview wasn't in person, because if you brought up trees and he was sitting in here, I'm afraid that he might have, like, strangled him. Well, it depends what you would have said. If I was like, man, if I started listing my favorite kinds of trees and stuff, he would have stabbed us to that. Pine trees, my favorite. He's like, you motherfucker.

I love it. I love seeing, you know, I love getting a little peek inside the window of people's lives, people's jobs, the fact that this guy cares about stuff so deeply that we would never have thought people care about is it's like my favorite hobby in the world is consuming that type of information. It's fascinating. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's like these things that normal people don't even think about. You wouldn't even think about erration and all this.

and he lives it and he has a passion for it and you can tell that passion comes through the way he talks about it. Absolutely diabolical point when he said go walk through a forest, the turf sucks. And I started thinking to my brain like, you're not walking through a super dense forest with trees everywhere and it's like perfect grass. It's always like marshy swampy crap. Yep. Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Really hard to argue with that.

Hard to argue with Steve about grass and trees and marshes. He's going to dominate us in the marshy trees forest turf sucks argument. Undoubtedly. All right. Next up, we've got from the gals. A gallery, quick reminder, we are running low and from the galleries. We haven't done them every week because we've had other shit going on. That's right.

And we did a whole hour of Gary Player that one week, so I don't think we had a... Oh, we did kind of from the gallery with Gary Player. Oh, we did do that. That's right. Revolutionary. Revolutionary. But send us from the galleries. We need a million.

We want to try to get to all of your stuff, and we want your stuff to be interesting. Email us for Play at barstoolsports.com. So the one we picked this week, this one's interesting. It's from this guy, Mike. and it kind of brings up an interesting little conundrum. So he says, I went to a local muny range, places a fucking goat ranch, hard to find a patch of grass to hit more than one ball on. So I'm kind of all over the place, hitting balls on the ground in different spots.

Cranky old bastard who runs the range, comes over, starts giving it to me for not staying in one area. He goes on to say, do you ever see Tiger on the range and how he hits in one area to keep maintenance down? I brushed him off, finish my bucket when I was done. I left the bucket on the ground, then starts yelling at me to go back and get it. blah blah blah blah blah I bet Steve would have some takes on this one he probably should have asked Steve

he would all these guys in their buckets so this one is a tough one we'll start with just range etiquette and kind of the process of how you're supposed to hit balls in the range you do fuck up way more grass than you're supposed

most people do fuck up way more grass than you're supposed to you're supposed to just put your ball like an inch behind your previous divot because then your next divot will just be where that grass is already gone and it will affect the minimum amount of grass. Right. However, a lot of schmucks like us, the ranges that we go to, the grass stinks.

Stinks. Terrible. You're not getting any better hitting off a mud. No, you're not. So you do kind of like, you do the little search party, you move around a little bit, you're looking for some blades of grass, you kind of perch your ball up there nicely, and they're like, oh, I finally get to make a real swing. Yeah.

So I get that. It's a really tough one. You got to think, like, if you're at a dog shit range, this guy gets it. Like the reason there's no turf anywhere is because your range sucks. Right. So you can't be that upset if I destroy your range. Right. So what you're saying is you shouldn't do it, but sometimes you have to do it.

If you're at like, yeah, if you're kind of like playing like streetball type driving range, then I think you get to a point where all bets are off. Yes. And maybe the guys who are the guys who are mad about it haven't realized that they are where they are and they're trying to take pride in what little bit they have left. Yeah, this guy, I mean, the guy freaking out of the range, like you're not. not the superintendent wing foot, dude. We had him on the podcast. Relax. I'm actually very interested in your bucket's answer because I take...

Return the fucking bucket. Damn, all right. I was going to say, that's the one moment where I'm just like, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. Yeah, I mean, I do... I guess I get it. It's not... It's almost like when you go to, there's certain restaurants that you go to, they give you

like a tray and like kind of nice plates and stuff, and it's like, are you supposed to leave your plate here? Are you supposed to throw it with? and it gets kind of tricky. Yes. But the range, yeah, and you do see the people walking. It's always like these high school kids making four bucks that kind of pick up the buckets. And it's like that's just what you're supposed to do.

You're in your keep. Get out there. Part of your maintenance of the range is like the little middle school kid making four bucks is to pick up the buckets. You're doing their job for them. I will say if like my last couple shots, I stripe them, I'm way more inclined to return the bucket. Certainly. That is circumstantial, definitely. If you're hitting the ball while, they're like, all right, I'm going to take this stuff.

If I, like, block a couple off, like, onto the fucking road. I'm like, fuck this bucket. I'm not picking up the bucket. That's your like your stance, your rebellion. Your rebellion for your bad driving range around or your session is like, fuck this bucket. This bucket is, yeah, maybe you even kick it. Oh, yeah. Just get a little kick.

Well, all right. Let's not get too carried away. Let's not get too carried away. I would say you should return the bucket. I do, but again, it depends on the range. I guess it depends on the range. It's the same thing as the first answer. Like, yes, in an ideal perfect world, you should take that bucket back every time.

But it's circumstantial. If I'm in a good mood, I'll take the bucket. If I'm in a bad mood, I'm not taking the fucking bucket. Yeah, I guess if I go to a dog shit range and I'm like trying to find, I can't find any turf to hit a good shot off of. I'm like, fuck your range. Fuck your bucket. I'm out of here.

Yep. You got to pick up that bucket yourself. All right. I kind of came around on that. Well, I kind of gave too shitty like I could see both sides answers, I guess. I got to tell you, I think the bucket thing could be a hot button issue just like the trees were for Steve. I think people get, I think people might get a little upset about the buckets.

Well, my original take was, yes, you ding heads. return the bucket but then I started to think like I've definitely not returned the bucket before that's a that's a perfect but I'm not a bad I'm a very polite person you are a very polite person I think anybody who comes at us and says you guys are assholes for not picking up the buckets they are a person it's like you've been a nut bucket picker up for sure he who he who has not sin throw the first stone or whatever I'm gonna okay anybody that chirps us out there on Twitter I guarantee you you've been a non bucket picker up or before at least once I guarantee it and I if you shit on us on Twitter

Twitter. We will like retweet, respond, and we will find one of your buddies. We'll be like, no, this guy's a fucking nonpicker up. I was going to say, unfortunately, people like, it's hard to get bucket receipts, like the Adam C best when Nate went after him. It's an honor system. Your buddies. They know. Yeah. All right. Interesting. I don't know where I really fell on that. I might have to go back and listen to it again. All right. That's it. We've got, we've got any guest recommendations again. Hit us up. We're able to get a really interesting one on this week because of that type of search. we've had going on.

You know, spreading the tentacles out there and trying to grab any interesting stuff that we can. So hit us up, email us also for from the galleries, for Play at barstoolsports.com. We love hearing from you folks. Go buy a tiger shirt. Go buy a tiger shirt. Barstoolsports.com is the greatest thing in the world.

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