In an endeavour to empower its staff, Mid Ocean Club has been allowing greenkeepers to volunteer at major golf events in the United States.

The secondment has resulted in personnel acquiring first-hand experience in looking after greens for some of the finest golfers in the world.

According to Kenton Brunson, the director of agronomy at the Tucker's Town-based club, four staff members have so far benefited. with a fifth also being assisted to further his studies in turf management at an American university.

“Our foreman, Jemeeko Smith, has volunteered the last two years at the FedEx Cup Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, which is the biggest event of the year for the PGA Tour,” Brunson told The Royal Gazette.

“Matt Jackson also worked at FedEx with Jemeeko and he just left our team to manage Liverpool FC’s pitch in the UK. The FedExCup Championship is the end of the year PGA Tour event, where you have the top 30 players in the world playing.

“Our other greenkeepers, Clarke Trott and Jeffroy Warner, volunteered at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am from January 30 to February 2 in Pebble Beach, California.”

Brunson, an American with vast experience after working at three top-100 clubs in the US, spoke of what prompted him to embark on the initiative.

“When I arrived here two and a half years ago, all our 28 staff members had never seen another golf course or worked at another golf course outside Bermuda,” he said.

“It meant that their outlook on greenkeeping was pretty limited. That’s why we came up with the idea to send some of our Bermudian team-mates overseas for them to volunteer for seven to nine days.

“They get to work with the greenkeeping teams there and they get to prepare the golf course as part of their learning experience.

“It doesn't cost the club anything and all we have to buy is the plane ticket. The club that’s hosting the event offers housing, food and clothing, then of course they get the experience.

“They get first-hand experience on the quality, understanding at what you need to move, and just the standard. They bring those ideas back to us, and then we have a debrief for them to share their ideas with others.

“The most recent one was good because I used to work at Pebble Beach. It’s the No 1 public golf course in the world, so we hosted a bunch of PGA Tour events while I was there.

“It’s been good to see staff leave and when they come back, they appreciate what we have to work on in Bermuda. It’s very eye-opening for them, it’s going to make Mid Ocean better and golf in Bermuda better.”

Mid Ocean, the only golf club on the island ranked in the top 100 in the world, is also assisting Kaleyo James, a young Bermudian earmarked for management position. The 23-year-old’s fees is being paid by the club for him to complete a two-year turf management programme at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“Kaleyo James has just completed his first term at Rutgers University,” the American said.

“The hope is that he’ll come back to us and move into hopefully a management role in the next couple of years. He started with zero experience, I pushed him to enrol at Rutgers and we are helping him with his tuition.”