SUPERINTENDENT - KEVIN WELP, CGCS
KEVIN
Welp 1
Kevin Welp, GCCS has been the head superintendent at Midland Country Club for one year after coming over from Detroit Golf Club. He is 50, originally from Illinois, and holds a four-year turfgrass degree from Michigan State University.
22
2
HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED IN THE GOLF BUSINESS? I played high school golf, and my parents (Tom and Janice) owned a driving range (The 19th Hole in East Dubuque, Ill.). Then I worked for Leibold Irrigation in high school and through some of my college years, and I met a lot of superintendents through that experience. Plus, my Dad had a landscape company, so all of that combined put me into the business. I was, I think, John Leibold’s third employee and now he has built a company that is all across the country doing construction and irrigation for golf courses.
3
4
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE YOU WANTED GOLF TO BE YOUR CAREER? Right away. Working with John (Leibold) and meeting all the superintendents, it was clear it was just a good fit for me.
Michigan Golf Course Superintendents Association
| www.migcsa.org
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE COURSES YOU HAVE WORKED AT? I was an intern at Cedar Rapids Country Club in Iowa, and then worked as an assistant at Westborough Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri, and then came to Muskegon Country Club as a superintendent and was there 20 years before going to Detroit Golf Club and last year coming to Midland. WHAT PART OF YOUR EDUCATION DO YOU USE THE MOST? The unique thing about being a superintendent is the diversity it requires. You have a formal education that gives you your base and the terminology you need, but then you learn so much on the job and so much of what you learn is site-specific. The job is a little bit of everything all the time and then some. I can’t say there is any one thing I use from my education all the time because you use all of it in one way or another.