Today marked the first of 20 trips to visit interns around the United States and in Europe. You can see the locations of all students on my former blog post about the 2015 PSU Turfgrass Internships.

For those of you who think these are glamorous, think again. Actually, I love the travel and seeing all of the great golf courses around the world. So I can’t lie, it isn’t all that bad. Having said that, today’s journey started with a 5:45AM flight from State College to Philadelphia and then on to San Francisco. I arrived at San Fran about 10:30 and headed straight to the golf course (which fortunately is only a few minutes from the club).

I met with the golf course superintendent Thomas Bastis prior to heading out on the course with Tyler. Tom is crazy into drones and technology so it’s always fun catching up with him. He’s doing some pretty neat stuff with his drone and pretty much has convinced me to go big on my next drone purchase.

The course, which I last visited in 2009 on my 2nd ever internship visit with Niels Dokkuma is still in great shape. In 2009, it was coming off a complete overhaul with new Penn A1/A4 greens and fine leaf fescue fairways. In my return visit, the greens are pretty much still pure bentgrass which is always a feat to maintain in the San Francisco climate. The program involves a variety of tools including PGRs, proper timing of cultivation practices and some handpicking when needed.

Tyler had several years of golf course experience at Interlachen in his home state of Minnesota before coming to the Golf Course Turfgrass Management Program. He is now getting involved in all aspects of the maintenance at CA Golf Club of San Francisco.

As for me, I’m back in the airport and waiting to catch the 4:45PM flight to LAX where I will visit my next student at Bel-Air Country Club tomorrow. Then I’m off to Denver for the 3rd visit at Ballyneal and home by Friday afternoon with just enough time to catch up with my graduate students to see how the week went.

View images from today’s visit