Scholars Honor Superintendent Parents

Father’s Day is just a couple of weeks away and according to their kids, golf course superintendent dads have more than earned the right to be celebrated. “My dad did everything he could to provide a fantastic life for me and my family; we will forever be grateful,” one daughter wrote in her essay for this year’s Bennett-Maples Scholarships. Another wrote: I am incredibly grateful to have grown up watching my dad build a career that he is passionate about while also being an amazing role model for our family.”

A total of 23 sons and daughters have earned $1,000 scholarships from the Carolinas GCSA this year. The money will help with their continuing education, but it was clear from their essays, they have already learned some lifelong lessons from having a golf course superintendent parent.

As another daughter wrote after working a summer on her dad’s golf course maintenance team: “My biggest takeaways from the job were not about growing grass, it was about human connection, getting out of my comfort zone, and being willing to work as hard as it takes to accomplish my goal.”

Sometimes the lessons were absorbed over time. One son wrote of his dad, “By watching how he lives and the standards he holds himself to, I’ve learned the importance of hard work, discipline, and consistency. Those lessons have become the foundation of how I approach life...”

Another daughter said: “More than any lesson he sat me down to teach, my dad has shown me, through the living example of his life, what it means to have integrity. Success is not measured by applause but by the honesty and effort you pour into your work when no one is watching. Because of him, I hold myself to a higher standard.”

Excerpts from each winning essay will appear in the July-August issue of Carolinas Green.

Carolinas Maintain Auction Leadership

The Carolinas GCSA continues to be the nation’s leading fundraiser in support of turfgrass research. With net proceeds of about $152,000 from this year’s Rounds 4 Research auction, the association remains the highest earner among GCSAA’s 98 affiliated chapters. The amount was a new record for the Carolinas thanks to donations from 243 facilities across the region.

Carolinas GCSA Rounds 4 Research committee co-chair Matt Jones, from Forsyth Country Club in Winston-Salem, NC praised the efforts of board members soliciting donations. “The board just uniformly participated,” Jones says. “Everybody took ownership and everybody made it happen. It was a total team effort.”

A total of 310 items were donated in the Carolinas this year and all were sold in the April auction. Golf at The Tree Farm in Leesburg, SC was the highest-yielding item selling for $11,000. Secession Golf Club in Beaufort, SC was next at $6,420 followed by Mountaintop Golf and Lake Club at $5,020.

Nationally, this year’s auction was also a record with a total of $936,298 bid on more than 2,000 items. That was an increase of more than $180,000 on 2025, in part because this was the first year in the auction’s history that rounds were available in all 50 states.

That surge in participation and support brings the auction to the doorstep of a milestone Carolinas GCSA executive director Tim Kreger foresaw when the Carolinas launched the auction in 2009. He said then that Rounds 4 Research had the capacity to eventually bring in more than $1 million a year to bolster waning funds for turfgrass research. Next year may be the first such year.

“Much of any credit belongs to our members right here in the Carolinas,” Kreger says. “Their trust and faith in the concept proved it could work and did so well enough that it became the national program we always thought it could be.”

There’s a kid working on golf course maintenance at Springdale Resort in Cruso, NC this summer who first learned that was possible by attending a First Green field trip five years ago. In fact, there’s also a girl working in the resort’s restaurant who was on the same school excursion. Their roles are the realization of a scenario that the field trip host, Jeremy Boone, CGCS, MG painted for them and their classmates back in 2022.

“A few years from now you are going to be driving, and you’ll need to be earning gas money somewhere,” Boone told what, back then, was a group of sixth graders from Bethel Middle School. “You may be on a First Green field trip today, but this is also a job fair for your future.”
  
That was Boone’s debut as a First Green host and now, five years later, those kids have aged into workforce eligibility. Given that he’s hosted sixth graders from the same school every year since, he expects more kids to come looking for work from here on out. Nearly 90 kids attended Springdale’s most recent event back in April.

A few days later, another 34 kids, from Summit Charter School, attended a different First Green field trip hosted by Eric Shomaker and Greg Burleson, CGCS at Wade Hampton Golf Club in Cashiers, NC. It was the club’s second year hosting a group from the same school.

“It is a lot of fun and really opens their eyes,” Shomaker says of the students. “It is wonderful opportunity for these kids to see what the industry is about while they get their STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning. For a lot of kids whose parents might not be golfers, they never get to see what goes on behind the trees or the gates of a golf course.”

Superintendents Take the Game to DC

Jack Cross wasn’t entirely sure what to expect attending his first National Golf Day in Washington, DC but he left town certain that it did some good. An assistant golf course superintendent at Pinehurst No. 2, Cross was one of two Carolinas GCSA members among 280 golf industry representatives who took the game’s message to the nation’s capital early in May.

“The opportunity to meet some congressmen and their teams was fantastic,” Cross says. “It was something I never thought I would do when I got into this industry, that’s for sure. Some of their staff members weren’t familiar with some of the topics we raised but they were receptive, and they said they would be doing some research on their end. The time there really did feel impactful.”

National Golf Day is a project of the American Golf Industry Coalition, and spans three days of advocacy, collaboration and community service projects. While most meetings are with staff members of legislators, Cross and Carolinas GCSA vice president Jeremy Boone, CGCS, MG from Springdale Resort, did meet in person with Congressman Richard Hudson, who is co-chair of the congressional golf caucus.

“He is very passionate about golf and lives in Pinehurst,” Cross says. “So, it was really cool to be able to meet someone who is invested not just in the game but in the area where I live and work.”

Among issues discussed were the future of the H2B visa program for migrant workers and the PAR Act which would remove golf from a list of industries barred from accessing government programs for economic recovery and community development. Golf industry delegates also urged legislative support for making golf a part of the PHIT Act which allows Americans to use pre-tax medical funds and health savings accounts (HSAs) for physical activities.

Former Superintendent Finally Cracks the Big Time

Golf course superintendents appreciate grit, that willingness and determination to take care of business despite the odds. So, as much as anyone can, they will appreciate the story of one of their own finally realizing what for so long seemed like an impossible dream. It is the story of David Noto, who is now outside lead for golf operations at the Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa in Asheville, NC.

Noto’s job is largely a customer relations role but for most of his working life he was a golf course superintendent. The profession runs so deep in his blood that he remains a member of GCSAA several years after he “retired” from the job when he sold his share of the course he was working at in Georgia.

Since 2021, his “new” job, clocking in at 6am and off at 1pm, allows him to pursue another lifelong passion, competitive golf. When he turned 50, he also turned professional, setting his sights on becoming part of the Champions Tour. Seven years later, he still hasn’t played in a single Champions Tour event. He’s been close several times making it into playoffs at Monday qualifiers but each time falling short.

Then, on a recent Tuesday afternoon in May at Treyburn Country Club in Durham, NC, Noto drained a 20-foot putt to finally make it. And not just into any event. With that putt and a round of 70, he qualified for the biggest senior event there is – “the granddaddy,” he laughs - the U.S. Senior Open Championship at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, OH from July 2 to 5.

“The tears started and I just couldn’t stop crying,” says Noto, who won the Georgia GCSA Championship six times while he was at the now-closed Mossy Creek Golf Club in Cleveland, GA. “It was such a great feeling because I have been chasing it pretty hard for a long time.”