Superintendent Series: Rich Shilling on Jeffersonville and Public Golf

Welcome back to another edition of the Fridagg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Toro. For more than a century with cutting edge turf equipment and irrigation solutions, Toro has had your front nine covered and your back nine two. In fact, Toro's always had your back period. Toro has committed to your long term success. As tour

I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

And when I find my ball in.

A brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida, egg Frida, egg egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of THELF course.

What have you been doing at home to keep you busy?

Funny story. I sold my house in September because me and my wife, the cyber, are going to downsize. My daughters seventeen, so she's going away to college and you know a year and a half hopefully we had this shutdown.

Might be might be with you for an extra semester.

I know, right, So we were having a house built. We settled on our on our old house. In January, new house is being built and they shut down construction. So I'm stuck in an apartment for god knows how long. We were only planning on being there for four months, but now it's looking like we're six seven months.

So so even better. You're in tight quarters with a quarantine or standing a shelter and place order.

Huh.

Yeah, a two bedroom apartment, one bathroom, two kids and a dog. Oh man, Oh it's fun. I'm actually sharing my son's bedroom because my daughter wants no part of that.

Unbelievable.

Everybody's probably getting closer than they ever were though.

Well, it's inevitable, right, it's a good thing, you know, to reset, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's I've been cooking like my wife, and I've been cooking more than ever, you know, Yeah, and I think like that's something I'm when this addens, like we're still going to cook a lot more than we used to.

Yeah, we've been getting familiarized with the with the instapot mules. Amazing. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, really good recipes you can find online. So we've been pretty successful so far with that.

Yeah, what about the golf course? What what's uh? What do you have to do with the staff? You're down and Philadelphia and then what what's the what's the situation with your staff and and how you've been you know, doing maintenance in this weird time.

Yeah, so the township has been really great because it's a municipal off course. They have allowed me to keep all my staff on, so even some of the college kids are now college is basically just zoom classes. They come in three days a week. I got them back early, and then my regular staff, so I have ten guys on plus me, and we're able to get you know a lot of things done and if the weather would cooperate.

No, no golf, it's got to be a so different for you.

I mean you're at you know, Jeffersonsville's one of the busiest courses in the country.

Yeah. We did forty two thousand rounds last year, just over forty two thousand rounds, and you know, that's basically an eight month season. We're open twelve months, but the majority of those rounds come in that eight month period, so it's it's really different I kind of getting a feel for what the country club life's like.

Do you guys operate around the same hours or obviously I imagine when it's seasoned, when golfers are coming out with your heavy play, it's like a matter of we got to get all this done as quick as possible in this order. Have you changed any any way, like you guys mow or go about it where you have like a different sequence.

Now, yeah, we're starting later. We're starting at seven work seven to three. Now, typically we start at five. We try to stay ahead of play play and during the week starts at six thirty. So we send three fairway mowers out, greens mower, two cup changers to approach mowers, and a team mower to stay ahead of play. But right now we're just kind of going with the flow, you know, go whatever hold you want to go to the sow.

How often do you have to mow to keep the course? You know, I know if it goes uncapped, you know, you can have some grasses invade invade the greens and different problems occur.

What frequency are you are you guys mowing right now?

The grass isn't really growing too fast. Temperatures are in the low fifties overnights or in the thirties. So we're mowing fairways once or twice a week, greens or twice a week right now, teas once a week. So it's not really a typical mowing week for us in season in season where mowing three days a week fairways, teas approaches and seven days a week greens. But I don't think you want to go longer than a week without mewing greens, otherwise you're gonna have a hard time getting

But tell us about how you got into turf at Jeffersonville. You've been there for a long time.

This is my twentieth season here at Jeffersonville. I got to Jeffersonville because, well, me and my wife had planned to move to Delaware. I was working at a course down there called the Rookery, and she got cold feet. She didn't want to leave her friends and family, so I looked for a job back up here in the Norristown area and Jeffersville was advertising for an assistant superintendent. So I applied for that job, interviewed, had three interviews.

Especially with the apartment.

She probably doesn't talk to any of those friends that she stayed up here for us.

So you've been there for twenty plus years, So what was it like when you got there? It was before the Pritcher renovation.

Right, it was the very beginning of the Pritchard renovation. The course was what I considered neglected for many years. Fairways were probably ninety eight Clover there was. It was terrible. I mean there was no from no fault of the superintendent that was here. It's just the township didn't want to put money into the course, so there was no

Uh.

We were still mowing the fairways with gangmowers, you know, through the renovation and after the renovation, I talked the township into buying us some but two fairway mowers and immediately solved difference in uh turf quality. After obviously we sprayed all the weeds everything out out of this place.

What was it? Uh? What was it like?

You were?

You came in and you immediately got thrust into a big a pretty big project, and you know, much different than a lot of ways people would say the ideal way to restore a golf courses is that you've got people playing at the same time as you guys are doing work. Had you had you been part of any construction projects before you got to Jeffersonville and uh and if so, you know, how was it different with people playing while while you guys were doing work.

I was part of the tail end of the growing at the Rookery down in Delaware. I was mainly on bunker work. That was completely different as we were closed during that construction. This one was very difficult. We didn't even have irrigation to the fairways or to the bunkers or wherever we were sided sidding. We had a water with spray rigs, so there would be truckloads of sod coming in and we just have to have to fill up the spray and water all the sod. It's ninety

He got hundreds of golfers.

And hundreds of golfers, you know, but most skies do construction the shoulder seasons, and we were doing it right in the heat of the summer. And there was a draft that year too, so that didn't help.

That had to be I mean in a way, it threw you into the deep end and it put you in this sink or swim position.

Right.

Oh yeah, I was. I was in over my head for sure. I remember driving around with one of my sales reps and he said, if he could pull this off and get a job anywhere, But I never left here. We're still trying to pull it off.

That's uh, what what is I guess what was the biggest changes that that the Pritchard plan brought back?

Was it you know?

Was it mostly just recapturing stuff? Had there been a lot of work done to the course in the in the intermittent years between when Ross did it originally?

Well, the only work that was done before Pritchard got here was you know, they filled in almost every bunker. Uh, and they planted a ton of evergreen trees.

The best trees.

Yeah. In ninety four, Uh, the township got a grant for tree plannings for municipalities and they basically put them right the very corner of every fairway and then eighteen years later we cut them all down.

What did the what did the trees do from like an agronomic sense to the uh to the ability to you know, you mentioned you had you had clover fairways. But did they add to the turmues?

Absolutely? Not only are they are they casting shadows all year long evergreen trees, but you know they're robbing all the moisture out of the soil. They're creating wear patterns because all the golf carts are riding around the trees certain areas because they were so tightly planted. There's many reasons why you should never plant those types of trees on the golf course.

I imagined that when you guys have turf issues, it's only magnified by you know, the intense amount of play, you know, doing forty thousand rounds essentially in ten months.

You know, the right it it.

You almost have to be more cautious than a club, high end club that's getting ten thousand rounds a.

Year from a play standpoint.

Just from like, from like a turf health standpoint.

Oh yeah, you know, we can't drive the greens out like a lot of these other guys and chase hotspots all afternoon because we just can't get all the greens when there's two hundred and eighteen players on the golf course. I think that's what we averaged last year. It's just impossible to do a lot of things, you know. So we water a little bit more with overhead sprinklers, and we fertilize a little bit more so that the turf

Yeah, for sure.

I mean you could you get yourself in trouble and it would probably slow down play. I mean, does pace of play just think you about it. Does pace of play factor in how you guys set up at Jeffersonville?

Yeah? I used and not think about it, used to not care and just say, you know, I want to, you know, for my own ego, I wanted the Greens rolling ten ten and a half. But when guys are you know, four or five button on the eighteenth hole, it starts to get old here in the you know, hearing the complaints, complaints, and you know, not listening to them. I should have listened to them and said, you know what, they're right, Maybe we need to slow the Greens down.

Yeah, I bet, I bet.

I mean that's you see it even on the PGA tour, where like when the Greens are really fast, like the pace of play just like balloon so quick, you know, and these are what you're talking about the best players of the world, not not your you know weekend uh weekend warriors.

Right us more. And the other thing is we just don't have We have two acres of greens, so we really don't have a lot of pin locations, so we have to reuse a lot of locations. Our eighteenth green literally has two pin locations that are fair. Everything else. It's just like close your eyes with pray.

So how hard is that?

Because obviously you get two hundred and eighteen people like walking in the same places all the time. What do you do from a turf standpoint, like, what do you try and do to keep that grass consistent with the rest of the grass you have all over the course?

Is that a challenge.

The grass on the greens?

Yeah, Like specifically the eighteenth where you only have two pins.

I maintain it exactly the same way. Some of the pins are just a little sketchy that get put out there, you know. I make sure that those that the that the fair pin placements are saved for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

That makes sense if you go to do on you.

If you go on a Monday, he maybe five but.

In that green, just that just know that your scores. You know they should change the slope and rating for early weekday play.

Yeah, exactly. You know that's not the only one. I mean, the fifteenth green, the fourteenth green. There's a lot of greens that are pretty tricky out here.

That eighteenth green is really cool though.

Yeah, it's vicious, that one is. I hit it last year in two from the tips, and I know you did.

You must have been playing an early weekday.

I think I was. Yeah, it was probably a Tuesday.

You've been doing You've been doing a ton of expansions and you guys. I think it's interesting you guys did this Pritchard project and you did a significant chunk of it the gate and then but you left a lot of it.

And one of the things I.

Appreciate most about what you and the township are doing is it seems like you're constantly trying to improve the product. You've got a very busy golf course. You've got, of course people love in the area, and for good reason. It's you know, it's a well designed golf course for a very affordable rate, and you keep improving it rather

Well, to be honest with you, in twenty eleven, you spray to herbicide. I don't know if you probably have heard about it. Dupon put out for broad leaf for broad leaf weeds, and yeah, we that year we started to see a decline in all of our white pines and Norway spruces in here. Those those specific species were susceptible to this to the service side, so we filed

Yeah, how do you do that with obviously the amount of play?

Is it?

Is it taking? Is it really?

You know? I think like a lot of places would just shut down a hole, but you're not really in the position you can do that. Is it literally like, Okay, we're going to tackle one bunker at a time or how how does that work?

That's exactly what we do. We tackle one area at a time, you know, just from a budget standpoint too. We do a lot of the work in house. Obviously, Tyler will come in and shape out a bunker complex and then we'll sod and trade and at the sand. But we just have to dodge bullets. Man, just start start the project and let the let the play play through. They and the golfers don't mind, you know. Uh, they love to see improvements. I've noticed that, you know, since

Yeah, that, I mean, that makes sense.

It's a and I imagine like golfers, have you noticed, like anything with when you got the trees out, did play a pace of play get faster?

Probably did. It's hard to say. We do so many rounds, so I mean, I guess we did because we're doing even more rounds now. But you know, the funny thing is the golfers complained about all the trees coming down because they thought we were making the place easier. They thought that that the trees were going to affect their handicap, but that was just you know, it can be further from the truth because it really doesn't affect the slope and rating of the golf course at all.

Yeah, I think that's like a covin. Everybody always oh, you're taking the trees out, but unless you have like healthier grass and healthier rough so you know, the rough atom is more.

Of a penalty.

Exactly. I always ask them do you play out of the trees? You climb up that tree, pick your ball out. They already want to play off the turf.

That's another good one is just to say, hey, when was the last time you.

Broke par Oh? Exactly. There's very few that break bar here, you know.

Yeah, so you've been doing a ton of green expansions, and obviously I think that's something that we see it all all types of clubs, like everywhere kind of needs to get what how have you been going about doing the expansions.

So what we did was we tried, you know, one thing and kind of failed at it. We were just going to try to scalp down the collars and some of the rough areas and just slowly bring them down into two green sights. But unfortunately the collar dams are so bad that those areas just they just couldn't handle it. So what we what we did as a backup plan, we ever fought. When we raified, we collected all the cores and created a nursery green with all those cores

That's that's so it's exactly the same turf that you have on the greens.

It's pretty pretty darn close. Yeah. I mean we do overseed with some bank crass, so there may be a little bit more bank grass in those areas because they hadn't had traffic going them for eighteen months. But but yeah, it's pretty close. Definitely closer than buying side from the from the.

Sod form and a lot cost effective, right.

Sure. Absolutely, it is a little bit more labor intensive there because you're stripping side twice.

So would do you?

Uh, I'm just just curious how many you know, how BIG's your side farm? And like you know, if you if you want to go, you know, all out on exp engines. How much turf could you get down in what kind of impact? Like how many greens would that equal?

Well, we can probably expand the nursery to about six thousand square feet, so theoretically we could probably do five greens a year with that side. But there's a lot of waste that goes in that too, so it's hard to say.

And how long does it take to turn around? Like where you take the cores out, how long is the growing period?

It took a good year for us to grow it in. We have an old driving range that has been closed down for eighteen years now and so we use that tea as our nursery and it has it's fully irrigated and it's all it's on sand too. It's a USB spectae, so it actually works out well.

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Correct, Yeah, we're almost complete. We have three more to do. Uh, we're just simplifying the lines, you know, basically how a gangmore would cut. We're taking out ron calls and bubbles or taking all the bubbles out. All that was contours around where the trees were, where the car paths are, bringing the bunkers back into the fairway and they're kind of

You just have to cut it down. And then do you have to see there or anything on it?

I don't. I don't see that at all. Yeah, I just scalp it down, you know, because our fairways are you know, a mismasha turf, their bank grass poet you know, you know a little bit of rye grass in there, and the rough's very similar.

That's that's cool. It's a neat way to do it. It didn't overtime. And how how many years have you been at the fairway expansions to getting to where you're almost done?

This will be the third year, so we'll complete the rest of them this year. There was the reason why we didn't finish them last year is because we had some drainage issues and the ones that we wanted to expand this year. So we're trying trying to button all that up.

I imagine that you set forth all these plans and then you know, I have the same thing happened to me as like oh I'm right this morning, and then ten things pop up and I end up being like, oh there there goes the right time. And I imagine with project work for you, especially with all the things going on all the play things just pop up and stuff.

It just doesn't get done all the time.

Yeah, I'm trying to get better at that. I'm trying to you know, focus on one project at a time. The guys, they they kind of get annoyed. They're like, you just start too many projects. Let's just do one and get that one done. But you know you're not going to get them all done the amount of time you think you are.

There's I've learned, like I'm a really good starter, Like you want to guess something started, I'm your guy, But finishing a big project, I might not be the best at that.

Yeah, that that sometimes is my case.

Yeah, it's because I'm already thinking about the next project.

You know. That's that's the problem. Just too creative.

How much how often do you get out and play?

Well, we try to get out as a group, like a whole week, well not the whole crew, the crew that does GoF We try to get out, you know, two times three times a week. And if that's nine holes or eighteen, it doesn't matter, just how many we can get in after work.

That's cool. It's got to be fun.

You get and everybody gets to see what they're doing. Do you think it helps your staff?

Uh?

You kind of like know what's what they're what they're doing, and just help them.

You know.

Has anything ever come of you guys playing like an idea or anything.

Sure, I'm sure there're plenty. Usually there's Miller lights involved though, so.

Could could spurn more ideas.

But it definitely does give the guys a sense of pride when they play. You know, they know what all the work they're doing. You know, they at least get to enjoy it.

So with you guys, obviously you had the DuPont settlement, so you have money set aside and you're doing well. Like, how does when you want to do something, how do you how does it work with the municipality? How do how does the structure? I've always been curious of this. How does how do you work through the local government?

Okay, well, it depends on the size of the project. Obviously, if it's a big project that's got to go in front of the Board of Commissioners and they have to approve, you know, the plans to move forward. And sometimes it's multiple meetings and there's only one meeting a month, so these things can drag out. If it's a smaller project, I'd go to my township manager who's fantastic, and he's usually just says, go ahead and do it, you know, as long as it's under a certain amount of capital.

I think it's a good thing. You did a good job there.

You know, when you get done with say the greens and the fairways, do you have like do you have like a ten year plan or a twenty year plan or you just kind of going year by year.

Yeah, it's pretty much year by year. I do want to start, you know, I want Tyler to come up with a master plan for us. I want to present that to the commissioners next. But we do have some other projects in the works before I can even present that, And one is we have we have some stream bank restorations going on currently that's going to take a couple more months. And then after that, the touchup manager and the Commissioners and I've been talking about a short course

That'll be a lot of fun too. Huh.

Oh, it's going to be awesome. You know. I brought that idea back to the commissioners, to the township manager. Actually I visited the Cradle down to Pinehurst and I honestly I had the most fun playing golf that I had in a long time. It's just such a fantastic experience. You can just have a good time. This of the music coming out of the rocks and you know, just one club at around it around the whole course.

What a great thing to have for a township too, you know, fantastic great kids.

Didn't do it?

Yeah kids, uh, you know, anybody that is a little scared or nervous, and you know it hasn't been exposed to golf that much. I wouldn't want my first round of golf to be at Jefferson a golf course for one just I would quit. But this is an opportunity for young players, just anybody that's new to the game to come out, have a lot of fun with their friends, you know, and have a great, great time, great experience.

So have they come up with any you know, early ideas for pricing how it would work. Is it you know, kids free or anything like that, or you know, obviously you'll have clubs out there, are you still still in the works.

Still in the works, But we definitely have discussed that and you know, there probably will be a family discount because we definitely want to be a family experience. You know, I got into the golf business because it was the pursuit of free golf for me. You know, it's just it's so expensive, you know. Yeah, So you know, when I was twelve years old, I started playing with my dad and a friend, a few friends and we would go to the local twelve hole course rolling turf up

That's it.

I mean, I think that's like one of the big things like affordable golf. I grew up at a course and I think for the entire year, my season pass was one hundred and ninety five dollars. You know, as a kid, I could play golf every day for one hundred and ninety five.

Dollars and it's awesome.

It made my you think about it from a parent's standpoint, like which you know, it's like, oh, for two hundred bucks, we can have something that occupies our child for you know, endless hours every day.

Of the week.

You know.

Yep, you and you meet really cool people on the golf course, and you and you create a network of friends. You know.

So there's a proposed plan pinned to your guys, to Jeffersonville's Twitter account, which is pretty neat. It's the nine holes on seven acres and uh, you know the holes range from like basically one hundred yards and.

In that's right, Yeah, I think the longest one was one hundred and eight yards and the shortest one is you know, under fifty yards, and all the all the it'll be bankrast t to greens, so you can practically put it off the tea right onto the green.

Ideal for beginning or just fun you know, Oh.

Yeah, I can only imagine all the mini games that you can create.

Is you have different use a different club every hole, you know, all kinds of fun stuff you can do with those. It seems like Jeffersonville, like your township in general, is just very committed to golf. Is there a lot of golfers involved with this in the city or or is it just where you know, you guys have run, you know, a very successful business and that's where the

Yeah, yeah, I don't know if there's a lot of golfers in the township. Most of our membership is outside of the township. We do have like a small annual pass holders, not of an annual passers, and most of those are outside of the township. But I do think even the non golfers are very proud of the golf course. It is the one one thing the township has that they can you know, really be proud of. Not just the one thing, but it is a big thing that

Everybody.

I've I've got lists of courses that I'd love to see, you know, start to be you know, municipal courses that would start to invest back in and start to do small things. And I think You're course is a perfect example of continuing to improve, you know, year after a

I would probably hire an architect.

To help say there's no budget, you got no.

Connection, there's no budget, no budgetdget.

Yeah, I'm just I'm just a golfer. I'm a local golfer, and I'm and I want to see this golf course get better. What's the first what's the first few things that they that golfer should do.

Yeah, I would definitely see the superintendent, maybe even come up with a plan. You can you can you can always go to a meeting, to a township meeting, and it's always open to public comment at a certain point. M h. Well, you know, I think that's what happened

Deal, Yeah, I imagine, because then you can get in with the you can always play the historical.

Tag right exactly, which is you know, it.

Helps you tied it to the history of the of the community.

That's a good point.

You know, everybody always goes straight to the golf aspect, but if you could find more historical antidotes beyond the golf course.

Yeah, and non golfers may embrace that even more than you know if you're just going on, I just want to spend money on the golf course, you know. But if you say it's has historic value, then as non golfers may you know, may hold out of some value to it.

So, uh, when when you guys expected to expecting golf to come back.

Well, the governor just opened some construction on May eighth, so we're hoping it's middle of May. We really don't want to sing to bleed into June, but I guess we just got to go with the flower at the mercy of the governor.

In terms of just like an impact it's had on on Jeffersonville as a as a business, Like what what would you say, say you go into mid mid May, what kind of loss and rounds would that be from last year's forty two thousand.

It's gonna be close to ten thousand rounds lost? Crazy, Yeah, Yeah, it's uh, it's gonna hurt.

Hey, it's gonna hurt so many courses that you know, we're on.

The edge. You know, that's gonna be a sad thing.

That's that's the scary part. But you hate to see any anybody lose their job or golf course close up because you know, it's just going to be a housing development probably, you know, yeah, we don't really need more of those. Maybe we do.

I don't know, I don't know.

A housing development might not be the best best thing right after this.

No, that's true.

What what are You're a big golfer? What are your other favorite courses of the area to play?

Mm hmm. My favorite course that I've played, Uh, it's probably Plainfield, New Jersey.

Another rock that's.

A fantastic golf course, Like the closest the golf course is closest to me. My favorites would be Golf Mills another Ross. I played the Cricket Club before the renovations and it was fantastic. I can't even imagine what it's like now. Oh God. One public golf courses, uh, I love Uh. I think Turtle Creek is a great golf course. I'm not going to promote any more public of course. Yeah.

Do you when do you go see do you do you ever pick up anything when you say, like when you when you play played Plainfield? Is it was there anything that stood out that you know, you're like, oh, you know, that's kind of like something we have here being both ross courses.

Definitely can see the similarities in the bunkering. Uh that Ron did and I did add some. I got inspired by some of their short grass areas around the greens, so I started to do that also, similarities definitely, greens complexes even ours are on like a smaller scale though.

Yeah, with the with the short grass around the greens, is it does that? How did that change from your maintenance standpoint?

Was it?

Was it a lot of work added or is it just easy because you're already bow in the fairways?

Yeah, it's not really that. It doesn't really add much more work for us. Maybe a little bit more with spraying, but it's not that big of a deal. We're able to get that, get through that just as fast as we were before.

All right, fun question before before we get you out of here, what what's the what's your pet peep? What was it that pet peeve? But what did you what would you wish that every golfer understood about, uh, you know, maintenance, say the morning, hm, you know my.

Biggest okay pet peeve or whatever? Is Well, we just get done raking bunkers. The guy goes in, blasts a shot out of it and just walks right up the face and doesn't even rake the bunker, plus walks up the face of the of the bunker. Complex. That drives me crazy this is that I.

Can see how that bugs you.

I mean, we do have a limited crew. We have ninety two sandtraps, so it's not like it's you know, we do it every day. At least you rake break the bunker and and think about the guy behind you, you know.

So it was funny.

I was playing last fall and I hid it in a bunker and some guy was playing another hole. He walked all the way into the bunker, picked my ball up, and walked all the way out, didn't rake it at all. And and I, you know, I see him across on the other hole and I'm like, hey, I think he picked up my ball and and he's like oh, and I'm like it's you know, whatever it was, and he goes and I go, also, you know, you forgot to

I know, man, there's no etiquette with some people.

The worst was he walked in where he walked in, there's a bunker right next to or a rake right next to him.

Oh yeah, I'm half time to the pull in the bunker. Rakes Nobody uses them.

I mean some some would say that, you know, your bunkers would be better they You know, there's a famous CV McDonald quote that you rather have a thousand elephants run around in a bunker than than have it perfectly groomed.

That's true, that's true. Learn more.

It's amazing though, like the for the retail golfer, bunker maintenance is such a such a like important thing.

Yeah, yeah, that's probably our biggest complaint here bunkers. And the funny thing is is if you put sand in the bunker, they say there's too much sand. If you don't have enough sand in the bunker, there's not enough sand. There's there's no happy medium with anybody. I think it's just that they just don't know how to hit the ball out of the bunker, so they have to blame it on something.

Well, naturally, that's golfers. Never that's never their fault.

You know, funny story. I this is a while back, probably ten years ago. We didn't have a roller, and this member would always come up to me and say, hey, you need to roll. These greens are a little bumpy. I said, well, we don't have a roller. He's like, okay, I understand. So I borrow. I demoed a roller off of a local distributor and I just parked it next to the green. I was getting ready to go out and roll. This guy gets off the green against Mandy.

That that sums up golf in so many ways.

Yeah. I mean I blamed the superintendent too. When I go out and play my course, it's my fault.

I shot ninety two exactly, is Sally is somebody else's fault. That's the key to happiness and golf. It's ever your fault. You can't get mad.

Or I blame it on the guy. It's with me to changed cups that day.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's another one. Would you have a bad night last night?

List of most common it would be like, yeah, they cut the cup wrong. I looked out so many putts because they cut the cut the cups wrong, bunker sand, you know, bumpy green.

I was. I was actually told last year the fairways are too tight. They're too tight. I can't hit off them. You gotta raise them up.

It's insane.

I'm like, okay, whatever.

So people can find you on social media.

You're on Twitter, I'm on Twitter. I don't I'm not very active on Twitter, but more so on Instagram.

Oh, I gotta follow you on Instagram.

Yeah, I do post some pictures on Instagram.

What's your handle?

Uh, it's shilling two p A all.

Right, same as your same as your your Twitter yep. And then uh, and then they can find you at the at the course.

You know you're there all the time.

Yeah, I'm always here. You know that. Some of my wife thinks.

Anybody looking for good uh good golf in Philadelphia Jeffersonville should be right at the top of the list.

Oh, thank you for that. Of course, I'm enjoyed. I haven't gotten tired of it yet. I've been here twenty years.

It's it's cool, and it's I love you know, following you guys because you it's so neat to see the work keep going and you know, you see all all the all the greens, the expansions. It's just neat to see you guys continue to invest in the in the product.

Yeah. So it makes it fun for us too. I mean it would be pretty boring and falls we did was cut grass day.

Yeah.

Projects projects are like the spice of the spice for us.

It's got to be great for your crew.

They love it, you know, they hate maintaining some of these bunkers and Tyler Tyler put together, but they are awesome to look at.

Yeah.

Yeah, did you get a drone or these Tyler's pictures?

I got, I have a drone. You inspired me for the drun pictures.

You got some good with the light.

That's just that's just a little spark.

It's perfect. You're yeah, you're understanding. How Once you understand the light, then that's you know, you're gonna take amazing pictures. Yeah, that's uh, that's cool. It's uh. But we'll talk soon.

I can't. I'm excited.

The next time I'm out in Philly, I'll come by and see you.

Well, next time you come out, make sure you know we don't have three inches of rain and on us. You were here for the worst day possible.

That the whole week.

It was unbelievable.

Every single day it rained.

That's like the new normally norm here though it rains every other day.

It's strange we didn't.

We got no snow this year, just all rain.

Did you do you get a lot of play in the winter, because yeah, we do.

Well. Yeah, if it's if the weather's decent, I mean we get people, We get people out here. When it's below thirty, it's crazy. I mean it's got to be like hitting into an ice cube.

If there's no wind, you can play.

You gotta play the you gotta play the ground game. Though the ball hits the green, it bounces twenty feet in the air.

Yeah, all right, Rich, I appreciate the time, and uh look forward to seeing you soon.

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