The Pete Dye Internship Program to New Heights!

For the last two years, The Ford Plantation Golf Maintenance Department has been operating The Pete Dye Agronomic Scholarship program. This is a developmental internship program for young professionals with a passion for golf course maintenance. 

 

Figure 1-2. Interns take part in all facets of golf course maintenance including irrigation break repairs and chemical applications.

In December The Ford Plantation and the Savannah Community Foundation have teamed up to make the newly named Pete Dye Internship a 501(c)(3) tax deductible donation.  Professors from leading turfgrass universities (Georgia, Penn State, Purdue, Clemson, North Carolina State and Florida) will submit up to two nominees for the internship/scholarship program.  Nelson Caron and CW Canfield will submit these names to the Pete Dye Scholarship Committee comprised of Mike Killian, Steve Rabinowitz and Dr. Bill Thompson.  Selected golf course interns will receive a scholarship to be used for educational expenses.  Along with this scholarship they will also receive an hourly wage for the duration of the 3 month internship. Free housing, competitive wages and scholarship makes the Pete Dye Internship one of the most sought after internships in the country.

This program has been met with enthusiastic support from the members of our club and universities.  Dr. Bill Thompson, Green Committee Chair, has graciously allowed interns to stay in his guest house, free of rent, during the summer months.  “The financial support we get for this program from our members is astounding. Without their help this program would not exist.” says Director of Golf Course Maintenance Nelson Caron.

In 2009 we accepted two interns from Purdue, Brent Seyer and David Cooper.  Brent graduated from Purdue in January 10’ and is now working full-time at Augusta National Golf Club.  David Cooper will be graduating this fall and intends to join Valhalla Golf Club in KY full-time. This past summer we had two more interns from Purdue University, Dane Alexander and Kurt Hockemeyer. Dane will be interning at another golf club this upcoming summer.  Kurt is considering pursuing a Masters Degree from Purdue University when he graduates in spring.  The capstone of the internship program is when each intern gets to run the golf maintenance crew for 3-4 days at the end of the summer. David Cooper commented, “Running the crew for a week was the highlight of my summer. This is not something all interns get to do at other clubs.”

Figure 3.The highlight for most interns is managing the crew for 4 days at the end of the summer.

Figure 4. Last summer interns had an opportunity to spend a day with golf course architect Tim Liddy and engineer Ray Pittman.

The Pete Dye Internship Committee is currently accepting nominations for the upcoming 2011 summer.  If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to the scholarship fund please contact CW Canfield (cwcanfield@fordplantation.com) or Nelson Caron (ncaron@fordplantation.com).