Introducing new member Bryan Fenny

[Mike McGuire]

My nephew, Bryan Fenny, has worked at Erin Hills since they started construction.  This lead him to a fascination with golf course maintenance and he is going to graduate from Wisconsin in May with a degree in soil science.

His goal is to someday be a superintendant.  Any advice or contacts is welcome!

[Bryan Fenney]

Like Mike said I am going to be graduating in May 2013 and will be actively looking for an Assistant job. A little bit about myself:
Work History
•   7 years at Erin Hills, 2011 and 2012 as an intern
•   2008 WAPO, 2011 U.S. Amateur
•   Comfortable with: mowing greens-tees-fairways-approaches-collars-roughs, fertilizing, spraying, hand watering, irrigation/irrigation repair, building tees-greens-nurseries-bunkers, sod work, construction, large tractor operation, skid-steer operation, top dressing, aerification, needle tining, vertical cutting, dragging greens, roll greens, seeding, repair damaged area (plug), course set up, landscaping, managing workers, inventory.
Education
•   Graduating from UW Madison in Spring 2013 with a degree in Soil Science
Interests
•   To not only show hard work and quality decision-making, but also continue to learn and develop my understanding with turf management.
Goals
•   To become a superintendent. Working my way through assistant positions by creating creditability.

[Jon Wiggett]

Bryan,

welcome to the DG. I am sure that you will bring many interesting ideas and view points to the threads. I wish you luck with your search for a position. My advice would be be prepared to take on something even if it appears not to be in the area you think you want to go. These opportunities often lead to more interesting and worth while experiences.

Jon

[RJ_Daley]

Welcome Bryan.  Did you put in much time at the OJ Noer center?  How are you at scouting the course and identifying pests including differentiating various turf disease?

[Pete Blaisdell]

Welcome , Bryan. A good contact site for those in the Golf industry is LINKEDIN with many sub-groups you can join.

I hope you enjoy the give and take here at GCA.Never a dull thread and surely a lesson in the human condition. It won't take you long to figure it out. Very entertaining!!

[PCCraig]

Welcome Bryan!

[Bryan Fenney]

RJ, I have done a little work over at the Noer, but not that much-only through a few courses that I have taken. Any scouting experience that I have had has been at Erin Hills. Over at Erin we have seen pythium, algae, dollar spot, pink snow mold, fairy ring, brown patch, powdery mildew, red thread, and take-all patch--the usual culprits of fine fescue fairways and bent grass greens/tees. Most of those listed I feel pretty comfortable identifying. I will be participating in the turf bowl and plan on continuing my studies so I am able to identify desease. This is important because I know that it is not easy for most to do. At Erin Hills however-we have a pretty big budget, and we practice a zero tolerance on greens (like most) so I personally have never seen desease on our greens. But we had a few pythium scares both last summer and two summers ago-but we were lucky enough to have caught in time so there was little to no damage. We like to not get caught with our pants down so spraying becomes routine- no one likes to curatively spray disease
If you have any more questions I would be glad to answer them.
Thanks for your time
-Bryan

[Bryan Fenney]

Thanks guys for the welcoming!
I will check out LINKEDIN, I have heard about it before but I have never explored it. Sounds like a great source
Thanks
-Bryan

[Phil McDade]

Bryan:

Always good to see a UW soil science success story! Hope Professor Bland was good to you!

[Pete Blaisdell]

Bryan
  Forgot to mention--Please say hello and give my best to John Morrisette (The world's best rules mind, undisputed) and an old APL buddy of mine, Lou Pascot (Enthusiasm is Lou's middle name and a great guy to know).

[Bryan Fenney]

Phil, thanks for the welcome. On Wisconsin
Pete, I will do that next time I see him, thanks for the advice-I appreciate it. The more people I know the better.

-Bryan

[Mike McGuire]

Bryan -

One of the things that impressed on my visit to Erin Hills in August was the native areas between the holes.

When they first opened the "native" areas were mostly invasives like reed canary grass. Now its mostly fescue.

Would you describe how that transformation took place and the effort needed to maintain it now that its established.

[Bryan Fenney]

Mike ,
The native areas at EH are very hard to "create". Since we had a lot of invasive grasses (and still do in some areas) , we had to completely regrow these areas. For several years there was bare soil in-between holes-which created a lot of skeptics. Our native consists of over 100 acres, this to most courses, is an absurd amount of area to maintain that does not consist of greens, tees, or fairways. Fescue has a three year growth, where it sleeps-creeps-and leaps (leap being tall fescue). So knowing that this process isn't easy to do. Once fescue is established, it can be very drought and nutrient tolerant, but for it to germinate it almost needs perfect conditions. Another part of the process is creating ground cover, many like the fescue to be thin and sporadic, but this creates a void for many weeds to come in quite easily. So in turn, we try to put down more seed to not allow patches of soil to be exposed (also because the more seed = more opportunities for this very low rate of germinating seed to even develop in the first place), BUT this can result in too thick of fescue (unplayable). So this Goldilocks type -too much- too little situation is tough to work with but getting better and is almost perfect. We do spay preventively for weeds, but only once or twice a year, mainly because of the tire marks (from the sprayer) in the fescue. Most of our cleanliness comes from back pack spraying or pulling (physical labor)-this takes time and money, and should decrease as the years continue. Our fescue is a work in progress but i would put it up against many courses in the US. Come check it out!

-Bryan