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Green hearts
The 2007 Distinguished Service Award winners have a passion for the profession.
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Like every other GCSAA Distinguished Service Award winner through six decades, 2007 recipients Stanley E. Metsker, CGCS, and William A. Meyer, Ph.D., “bleed green.”
“What a legacy it is to be in this industry,” Meyer declared after learning of his award. “It is a family of people. You either have it in your veins, or you don’t.”
Both the retired Colorado superintendent and the renowned turfgrass breeder have been deeply involved in teaching, training, advising and mentoring new generations of turf management professionals. Both are published authors. And both have been credited with discovering new turfgrass varieties.
Distinguished service, it seems, isn’t the only common denominator for this accomplished duo. Tabbed for the honor by the GCSAA Board of Directors from nominations submitted by affiliated chapters and/or association members, Metsker and Meyer will be acknowledged Feb. 22 at the Opening Session of the GCSAA Education Conference in Anaheim, Calif.
First presented in 1932, the award is given to individuals who have made an outstanding, substantive and enduring contribution to the advancement of the golf course superintendent profession.
Stanley E. Metsker, CGCS
Stan Metsker didn’t exactly plan on a career in golf course management when he went off to school at Colorado State University in the mid-1950s, even though he had spent youthful summers working as a caddie and as a gardener. But the social sciences major heard opportunity knock when he learned about the Trans-Mississippi Turf Scholarship from the head of the university’s horticultural program, Jess L. Fults, Ph.D. He became a Trans-Miss scholar for five quarters.
When Metsker received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture from CSU in 1958 and went to work at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, the ranks of the college-educated superintendents in Colorado immediately doubled — his new boss and first mentor, Ted Rupel, a graduate of Colorado A&M (CSU’s predecessor), was the only other. Metsker believed that needed to change.
“School made all the difference for me, and that’s why I believe in education programs to bring good young people into this profession,” he says today.
Retired now after growing in and managing the course at the Country Club of Colorado in Colorado Springs for more than a quarter century, Metsker estimates he trained more than 25 future superintendents. He also helped develop numerous turfgrass management programs at community colleges in Colorado and has been a frequent speaker and educator at regional conferences as well as GCSAA’s national education conference.
Wayne Niles, Class A superintendent at Englewood (Colo.) Golf Course and a four-year GCSAA member, recalls, “(Stan) shared not only his knowledge with others, but also offered some worthy advice. My favorite is, ‘Invest in yourself,’ which he encouraged many to do, including myself.”
Although he was busy establishing his career at his first and second head superintendent posts at Lakewood (Colo.) Country Club and Boulder Country Club during the 1960s, the concept of the “professional” golf course superintendent continued to intrigue Metsker.
“At Lakewood, I was making $550 a month,” he recalls. “I decided it was time (for superintendents) to get out of the barn and into the world.”
Using a copy of the Club Managers Certification Program as a rough model, Metsker developed a pilot certification program for his chapter, the Rocky Mountain GCSA. He crafted a process that would be acceptable to younger, college-educated superintendents as well as older superintendents who had less formal education, but were successful because they had learned a lot from their years in the field.
“Stan’s … program lit a fuse,” says retired Colorado superintendent Howard Gaskill, a 40-year member of GCSAA. “Superintendents from the far corners of the country recognized the value of a certification program and made their desire for it known at the national level.”
GCSAA rolled out its own certification program in 1971.
“It’s hard to make changes like (certification); it takes some effort,” Metsker admits. “It’s gratifying that today you go to the conference and see so many educational sessions. We didn’t have all that before certification — it brought a new level to the
profession.”
Lighting a fuse for certification may be Metsker’s proudest achievement for his associations, but his discovery of a new turfgrass at Boulder CC shines bright in his memory.
During his first few years at the club, Metsker searched out and tried a number of locally growing grasses that could tolerate the saline soil on the club’s fifth hole. One such find, a grass that looked like a bunch-type bentgrass with a gray-green color, was eventually identified as alkaligrass and commercially produced by Northrup King Seed Co. Metsker honored his alma mater by naming the grass after his former professor and turning over the royalties to CSU.
Metsker tells the story of his discovery of Fults alkaligrass in a self-published book, “On the Course: The Life and Times of a Golf Course Superintendent.” Included in the book are Metsker’s personal history and favorite golf stories — even a few 1960s-era golf course maintenance budgets and green committee reports. Writing became a “second profession” for Metsker, who ultimately enrolled in a master’s program in journalism at Colorado University and who credits mentor Jerry Claussen, then a journalist with the National Golf Foundation, for his dedication to his new craft. In addition to developing and editing The Reporter, the RMGCSA’s newsletter, and contributing to it for more than 30 years, Metsker authored more than 30 published articles. Previous honors for Metsker include induction into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame (1999) and the RMGCSA Henry Hughes Award for distinguished service (2004). Metsker and his wife of 50 years, Maxine, have two daughters and four grandchildren.
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William A. Meyer, Ph.D. (center), tours a turf plot at Rutgers with Zach Taylor (left) and Greg Riches of the Oregon Fine Fescue |
William A. Meyer, Ph.D.
Growing up near Chicago, Bill Meyer thought he would become a golf course superintendent, just like his late father, Anthony, and late brother David.
“It was my favorite part of growing up — working for my dad in the summers,” Meyer recalls. “A golf course is a beautiful place to work; the most peaceful place on earth — especially at 5 o’clock in the morning.”
Encouraged by his professors at the University of Illinois to go to graduate school, Meyer maintained a dedication to turfgrass, if not to managing it on a golf course: During his 33 years as a private and public breeder of turfgrasses, he has developed or helped develop 29 Kentucky bluegrasses, 53 perennial ryegrasses, 59 tall fescues, 36 fine fescues, one creeping bentgrass and two colonial bentgrasses.
Managers of cool-season turf around the world can thank Meyer for modern, disease-resistant ryegrass. In the 1970s, during his early years as vice president of research for Turf Seed and president of Pure Seed Testing in Hubbard, Ore., Meyer discovered the source of stem rust resistance in perennial ryegrass and later released several resistant cultivars. Industry experts credit his discovery with uncovering the potential for controlling serious seed production diseases through genetic resistance.
More recently, Meyer and his team at the turfgrass breeding project at Rutgers University, Cook College, where he has been director since 1996, discovered the first sources of resistance to gray leaf spot in ryegrass.
“He’s changing the face of turf breeding, and turf managers and golfers everywhere will benefit from his work,” says David Oatis, director of the USGA Green Section’s Northeast Region.
Some of Meyer’s current work involves developing improved velvet bentgrasses, which offer stronger turf performance and disease resistance, particularly for golf courses in the Northeast. New Jersey, he says, is a wonderful place for selecting superior turfgrasses.
“It’s hot and it’s humid; we have all the insects and all the diseases to work with,” he explains with a laugh. “It’s just the ideal place to breed grass.”
But new and improved turf isn’t Meyer’s only legacy. At Rutgers, Meyer trains the next generation of turf researchers, including two winners of the Musser International Turfgrass Foundation Award of Excellence: Stacy Bonos, Ph.D., and Eric Watkins, Ph.D.
“He taught me more than I thought I would ever learn,” says Bonos, who identified 12 new sources of genetic resistance to dollar spot in creeping bentgrass in her Ph.D. thesis work under Meyer’s supervision. “He lets you grow as a person, finds your strengths and lets you succeed.”
Meyer coordinates Rutgers’ 10-week “short course” for 90 students each year and speaks frequently at turfgrass conferences across the country. His published work includes more than 40 refereed journal articles, five book chapters and 110 research abstracts and reports.
The newlywed Meyer’s wife, Jane, is a laboratory chemist for a hospital in Redbank, N.J. He has four children from a previous marriage and five grandchildren.
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