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Glossary

The words the job
actually uses.

Two vocabularies run at once on a golf course — the agronomy one and the club-office one — which is how a new assistant ends up nodding at "we're skipping the verticut because the REI hasn't cleared" without knowing either half. 43 of them, written for somebody who has to act on the word.

Agronomy7 Maintenance10 Compliance6 Club9 Money4 Labor7

Agronomy

7 terms

Disease pressure: How favourable current conditions are for turf disease — mostly a function of warm nights and long leaf wetness.
Evapotranspiration: How much water left the turf — evaporated off the surface plus transpired through the plant — usually reported in millimetres or inches per day.
Green speed: How far a ball rolls on a putting surface, measured with a Stimpmeter and quoted in feet.
Growing degree days: Accumulated heat above a base temperature, used to time the next application instead of guessing from the calendar.
Localized dry spot: A patch where the soil has turned water-repellent and irrigation runs off or through instead of wetting the root zone.
Plant growth regulator: A product that slows vertical leaf growth, so the turf needs less mowing and puts more into roots and density.
Thatch: The layer of dead and living organic matter between the green leaf and the soil surface.

Maintenance

10 terms

Aerification: Removing or displacing soil cores to relieve compaction, exchange thatch for sand, and get air and water into the root zone.
Engine hours: The running total on a machine's hour meter — the unit maintenance intervals are actually set in.
Height of cut: How low the mower is set — measured on a bench, and never quite what the plant gets.
Hole location: Where the cup is cut on a green today, which changes daily on most courses.
Hydraulic leak: Hot hydraulic fluid onto turf, which kills it in the shape of wherever the machine drove.
Preventive maintenance: Servicing a machine on a schedule rather than after it fails.
Rolling: Passing a weighted roller over greens to smooth the surface and gain speed without cutting lower.
Syringing: A light hand-watering during the heat of the day to cool the plant, not to wet the soil.
Topdressing: Spreading a thin layer of sand (or a sand-soil mix) over the turf to smooth the surface and dilute accumulating thatch.
Verticutting: Running vertical blades through the turf canopy to cut out lateral growth and grain, usually on greens.

Compliance

6 terms

Application record: The written record of a pesticide application: product, EPA registration number, rate, area, applicator, licence and time.
Applicator licence: The state certification that permits somebody to apply restricted-use pesticides, usually renewed every one to three years with continuing education.
Personal protective equipment: What the label says the applicator has to wear — and what anybody entering a treated area during the re-entry interval has to wear.
Restricted-entry interval: The period after a pesticide application during which nobody may enter the treated area without protective equipment.
Safety data sheet: The standard sixteen-section document for a chemical product, which federal hazard-communication rules require to be available to anybody who works with it.
Worker Protection Standard: The federal rule covering people who work around agricultural pesticides — training, notification, protective equipment and re-entry.

Club

9 terms

Cart path only: Carts stay on the paths, usually after rain, to keep wheels off saturated turf.
Daily-fee course: A privately owned course open to the public, without membership as the primary relationship.
Frost delay: Holding play until frost has lifted, because footprints on frozen turf leave dead marks that show for weeks.
GHIN: The USGA's handicap service — the number a golfer carries between courses, and the identifier a club looks them up by.
Municipal course: A golf course owned by a city, county or park district, usually run as a division of parks and recreation.
Outing: A booked group event — a company day, a charity scramble, a league championship — usually with food, prizes and a shotgun start.
Pace of play: How long a round is taking, usually tracked against a target time per nine.
Shotgun start: An event where every group tees off simultaneously from a different hole, so the whole field finishes together.
Tee sheet: The day's bookings, in intervals, from the first time out to the last — the single most contested document at a public course.

Money

4 terms

Aging: Outstanding money grouped by how overdue it is — not yet due, 1–30 days, 31–60, 61–90, over 90.
Dues: What a member pays for their membership, on whatever cadence the club runs — annual, seasonal, quarterly or monthly.
Green fee: What a golfer pays to play a round — the primary revenue line at a public or daily-fee course.
Procurement: The public purchasing process — quotes, bids or a cooperative contract — that a municipal course has to run any significant purchase through.

Labor

7 terms

Assistant superintendent: Second in command on the grounds crew — runs the morning assignment, supervises the day's work, and is usually the one who does the records.
Equipment manager: The person who keeps the fleet running and the reels sharp — often the difference between a good course and a mediocre one.
Geofence: A radius around the shop that a clock-in has to happen inside for it to count as being at work.
Morning assignment: Who is doing what today — traditionally a whiteboard in the shed, read at 5am by a crew standing in front of it.
Prevailing wage: A legally required minimum pay rate for certain public work, set by the state or federal government for the locality and job classification.
Seasonal crew: The staff hired for the playing season — often students, often returning, and in much of the country most of the crew.
Superintendent: The person responsible for the condition of the golf course, its crew, its machines and its budget.

No gate

Every one of these is something the product has an opinion about.

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