Penn State Turfgrass Featured by Bloomberg
April 11, 2013 in 2-year, 4-year, Alumni, Extension
Forks Join Bluegrass in Education of Masters Greenskeeper
By Michael Buteau
Mark Kuhns talks about the importance of Penn State’s students at Baltusrol.
For the first time, the State College, Pennsylvania, school has produced all three superintendents for this year’s U.S.- based major golf tournaments — the Masters, which began this morning in Augusta, Georgia; the U.S. Open; and the PGA Championship. At Penn State, Benson was schooled by Joseph Duich, a man who stressed that proper comportment was part of the job and force students to take an etiquette course.
“Mrs. Franz; I can’t believe I still remember her name,” Darren Davis, a 1989 Penn State graduate, former Augusta National grounds crew employee and superintendent of Olde Florida Golf Club in Naples, Florida, said in a telephone interview. “It was such an aggravating class. Many students hated it and begged him to get rid of it, but he knew that how we presented ourselves was huge. If you can’t talk to the CEO of Ford, you can’t work at a place like Augusta. I still have my notes from that class.”