Tifton, GA |

While it might be off season for golfers, there is no such thing for those who are tasked with maintaining the fairways and greens. It’s why ABAC, with their turfgrass and Golf Course Management program, as well as this course just a few miles off campus, is so important, as students get both the classroom and real-world learning experience before joining the workforce.

“They are hopefully taking the knowledge they are getting in our lectures and labs and then putting it into practice on a day-to-day basis. Because out here, the superintendent allows them to do pretty much everything under his supervision,” says James McCrimmon.

And there is plenty to do out here, as keeping a golf course in pristine condition requires numerous tips of the trade that can only be learned through experience.

“There’s a lot more to it than people realize because behind the scenes you have a lot of irrigation repairs on an aging irrigation system, you have a lot of spraying that we have to do to keep the turf looking very healthy. A lot of technical aspects of golf course maintenance that you have to learn and little secrets that you have to apply that keep that grass looking like carpet,” says Austin Lawton, Superintendent of Forest Lakes Golf Course.

Even though keeping each aspect of the course in good shape is always the goal, much of the focus and hard work goes into one area in particular.

“The greens are your bread and butter of the golf course. You’ve got to keep consistent greens twelve months a year. We probably mow greens three hundred and twenty days, three hundred and twenty mornings a year. There’s also the other aspects like spraying greens. We spray greens probably forty out of the fifty-two weeks a year,” says Lawton.

That year-round effort pays off in the end, as graduates are well prepared to join a job market that not only is in high demand, but also has opportunities all over the country.

“Students really benefit, good careers, so they get to all around the state and the nation and we do a lot of hands-on learning here for our program. And so, we try to provide these students with opportunities and skills to really see what’s out there in the industry and succeed in the areas where they want to work and live,” says John Layton.

Because of this, it’s a program that has seem some major growth over the past decade in both numbers and status.

“We’ve probably got one of the highest numbers in the country as far as our turfgrass program, but it’s picking up. I know when I started, we had probably sixty-five, seventy in the program. We’re now over one hundred. So, that’s over a ten-year span basically. So, it’s going up every year. I think it’s an excellent program. I mean, I came through it and when I graduated, they hired me on at ABAC. We get multiple calls a day from other people that are alumni and companies and golf courses saying ‘hey, we want your kid to come'”, says Justin Exum, Horticulture Technician at ABAC.

By: Damon Jones