This week, Monday-Wednesday, is the annual Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association (Carolinas GCSA) education conference and trade show in Myrtle Beach, SC. This is a great event to network with fellow Superintendents and other industry partners. The event is attending by several of my team; Chad S. (Assistant Super), Bill B. (Spray Tech), Matthew G. (Equipment Technician) and myself. I personally took 2 excellent classes that dealt with data driven aerification decisions. This is an area I've always been fascinated with because it focuses on protecting one of the club's largest assets, our USGA spec putting greens.
I'd like to say on behalf of all of us, we are so appreciative that the Board and membership support our professional development and continuing education. These types of events are also required for us to maintain pesticide licenses and in my case, the various certifications I hold. It is also nice to see our team member, Cooper Hall, who has worked at Highlands CC for 4 years as a High School student and is now in his freshman year at NC State University. He is pursuing a degree in Turfgrass Management. Cooper is at the conference with a several of his fellow students and professors. Cooper will be completing his official internship at Highlands CC, next season.
While we are at this event, the rest of the team in Highlands has their own set of goals for the next couple days, Pruning back Rhododendron in areas and cleaning leaves and debris from this past autumn in all of our streams are priorities for the week. In addition to that, we started with rough aerification. Our goal is to have that wrapped up by Thanksgiving. This way, once the course closes for the season on December 1st, we can immediately knock out fairway aeration and get the completed by Christmas, which will allow us to focus on fairway topdressing after the new year.