What did you want to be when you grew up? Was there something you chased before you landed in your role as a Golf Course Superintendent?
I believe that my young grandkids think I am not a grandfather but just another kid. This is mostly because I act like a fun-loving kid around them and teach them all the finer things that a young child should know and do. I won’t mention the bodily noises, contortions, and silly acts that upset their parents when they show them, but it also makes them well noticed in school!
I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up because at 68 years old, I have yet to reach that part of my life.
We will just cut that part out of your question and go with, “Was there something you chased before you landed your role as a Golf Course Superintendent?” Well yes, I wanted to work with and teach kids! There were many wonderful teachers in my young life that influenced my thinking and wonderment of the world. I wanted to be like them and pass along the excitement of learning all about the world around us but also knowing that you should see the world through the child’s “Mind’s Eye” when teaching.
As I was working and living at Towson Golf and Country Club on the golf course, it took me eight years to put myself through Towson University and get my degree in Education. I was so excited, but Golf Course Superintendents were making much more money than a schoolteacher and I was having fun working with people outdoors. I loved my thirteen years of cutting grass for Piney Branch (5 years) and Towson Golf (9 years total) and wondered what a Golf Course Superintendent career entailed.
I was having so much fun working on golf courses in my teens and twenties. Anyone who has worked on a golf course knows how much mischief the crew can get into together.
The child-like humor was still there and well mastered. Hanging crew members clothes from flagpoles and cupolas. Taking keys out of other workers’ machinery at lunch time. Seeing if someone had a better lunch in the crew refrigerator, Flat tires – One missing clipping bucket on a machine that had three. I could go on and no, I didn’t do ALL of these. These were mostly observed. LOL!
You know the rest of my story, but I do have one strong opinion from my life so far and it is something that I believe in strongly. GET AS MUCH EDUCATION AS YOU CAN! Not just in your field of choice, but one that will make you what is called, “A well rounded person.”
-Mark S. Merrick, CGCS Retired
Introducing ‘Merrick Mondays’, a segment where we hear from Mark Merrick, our resident brand Ambassador, Chief ‘Cool” Officer, and general source of wisdom and secrets of the universe, to spotlight a dose of interview-style content, weekly.