Image Credit: Dr. Kevin Matthias
After working for 20 years in the green industry, Brian Knott enrolled in college. Majoring in Golf Course Management at Institute of Applied Agriculture (IAA), at the University of Maryland, Knott is making a career shift toward golf/turf management and completed an internship at Old South Country Club, a private 18-hole golf course in Lothian, Maryland.
Knott spent his summer performing course setup, mowing, raking bunkers, scouting for pests and repairing irrigation. He also logged fertilizer and pesticide rates, completed MDA sheets, and scouted for turf diseases. But, he says water management was the key to keeping the bentgrass course well maintained.
This internship helped Brian better understand the different aspects involved in golf course management: growing turf and running the business. Knott believes that gaining the knowledge from both sides of the industry will contribute to his career in this profession. He adds that the knowledge he acquired during this internship taught him to "apply what [he has] learned in school and out in the field" to his every day duties.
While diligently working as a full-time IAA student, Knott earned the Shields Memorial Scholarship and Mid Atlantic GCSAA Scholarship in the fall of 2012, and the Shields Memorial Scholarship and Seibel Scholarship in the fall of 2013. He is a member of the Mid-Atlantic GCSAA, a volunteer in the IAA teaching garden, and vice president of the student chapter of the DC branch of PGMS. Knott was also named to the Dean’s List for fall 2012 and spring 2013.
The IAA is a two-year program in related fields and provides students the ability to not only acquire an education about a profession in agriculture, but also how to utilize the information learned. To learn more about the Institute of Applied Agriculture at the University of Maryland visit http://www.iaa.umd.edu/
