Working 80 plus hours a week for some college students may sound like an impossible task, but for Ryan Geils this was a breeze. His story starts after high school when Geils decided to pursue an education in golf course management. He enrolled in the University of Maryland’s Golf Course Management two-year certificate at the Institute of Applied Agriculture (IAA) at the University of Maryland, College Park.
This summer he interned at Congressional Golf Course in Potomac, Maryland, where he mowed fairways, greens and tee boxes, changed holes, resodded, and sprayed for insects. He also raked bunkers, fixed irrigation and learned how to use a boom sprayer. Using the sprayer was his favorite part of the internship.
While many days maintaining golf courses run together, July 8stood out for Geils. Multiple inches of rain fell that day in an hour and a half, flooding the course in The course was flooded in multiple areas and causing lots of damage. When Geils was finishing washing silt off of the 18 green on the blue course, he noticed fish in many of the greenside bunkers on #18 and #10. As the water in the bunkers was steadily lowering himself, an assistant, and another intern saved as many of the fish as they could.
During his internship, Geils learned to operate new equipment, took on many leadership roles, and learned to roll with the punches. His IAA advisor Geoff Rinehart observed of Geils’ internship, and said, “From a program-perspective, it’s nice to have an intern do so well at a place like Congressional CC, which is a top-tier club nationally. This raises the visibility of the UMD turfgrass management program and gave Ryan an opportunity to learn a lot of the little details that are required at a top facility.”
Geils summed up his internship by saying, “I thoroughly enjoyed my internship. I was able to grow myself professionally in a demanding environment. The skills, knowledge, and experience gained will help me tremendously in the years to come.”
He is excited to go into the golf industry after he graduates from the IAA and his hope is to be a superintendent at one of the top 20 golf courses in the nation.
