Keeping up with the Jones: Miles traveled and stories collected

I hope you don’t mind that I sometimes make the content of this magazine a travelogue of where I’ve been, what I’ve seen and, most important to me, whom I’ve met. This issue, I hope, is particularly interesting because of the people I talked to, the golf maintenance equipment/solutions I saw and, happily for me, the fun, cool … or for lack of a better word … kick-ass things I’ve gotten to do over the last few weeks.

My wife and I recently took a trip to the Caribbean. We traveled back on a Sunday and finally got home at 3:30 a.m. on Monday morning. At 9 a.m., Jim Cummins, Golfdom’s national account manager, was in my driveway, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited for a road trip to Sioux Falls, S.D., where I was to be a guest speaker at the 42nd annual Turfgrass Seminar and Trade Show hosted by the South Dakota chapter of GCSAA that afternoon.  

Following that show, I spent four days at home with my wife and kids (fired up the grill twice), then I was on the road again to Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where Golfdom’s digital media specialist Will Coughlin and I spent the next four days at the 2026 Players Championship as part of a partnership with Quali-Pro. We saw a ton of golf, met a bunch of Friends of Golfdom (beware of the FOG!) and created a lot of content for our website and social media feeds (see Golfdom Gallery, pages 6-7, for photos from both events).

Here’s a quick peek behind the curtain: In that span, I did phone interviews in an airport, behind the 17th tee at TPC Sawgrass and beside the concession stand at No. 5. I turned down invitations to steak dinners not once, but twice (sorry, Bob and Jason). I changed from casual to (almost) business casual in a moving car (really sorry, Jim).

Indeed, it’s been an interesting few weeks. A lot of the content in this issue is ripped from my phone, where I record conversations and videos as often as possible. Some of it is still “in the can,” waiting to be shared — like the heartwarming speeches given at the South Dakota GCSA’s hall of fame induction ceremony. And some of it will be for me only — like the kind words people shared with me about the work we do here, both in Sioux Falls and at TPC Sawgrass (no one cared in the Caribbean).

But I will share this conversation with two new members of the FOG I hope to hang out with again soon: After my talk at the South Dakota show, Jim and I found ourselves in the hotel bar. We sat with some of the guys we knew. Then, as typically happens, some of the guys we didn’t know joined us. Jared Corlett, superintendent at Prairie Green GC and Ben Hoffman, assistant superintendent at Brandon GC, wanted to talk to me about a few things I glossed over in my presentation. It was a fun conversation, and it afforded me the opportunity to tell a few more stories. 

As we were wrapping up the evening, Jared had one more question, and it had an interesting lead-in: “I don’t want to sound rude, but …” I listened closely, because I thought maybe this question might have teeth. He continued, “… have you ever considered just how lucky you are?”

I knocked on the wood table, hard. 

I said yes, I do consider myself very lucky, even blessed — both at work and at home. I don’t take it for granted. Jared’s question was like a shot of electricity, and it’s stuck with me. Because at the time, I was beat down and tired from too much travel.

It’s a lot of miles traveled from the Caribbean to Kansas City to Sioux Falls, back to Kansas City then to Ponte Vedra Beach. It wears me out, but it also fires me up.