Mr. Pat's Home Turf

photo by Beth Wynn

FALL 2018 | DIVIDENDS

Mr. Pat’s Home Turf

By Tom Lammert

The pro shop for the Mississippi State University Golf Course is a modest brick building. Its covered concrete patio hosts a metal bench where golfers adjust their spikes or read the course’s policies, one of which stipulates that guests may wear “tasteful” t-shirts. At many golf clubs, allowing a golfer to wear anything aside from a collared shirt with slacks constitutes a sin as egregious as not repairing a lawn-sized divot. Features such as its unpretentious facilities and t-shirt policy distinguish the MSU Golf Course from elite country clubs, yet it is clear this course shares some characteristics with those built exclusively for wealthy patrons.

Next to the patio is a putting green, its grass verdant and smooth. The surface’s apparent health might come as a surprise because it is July in Mississippi, and the summer of 2018 will not be remembered for its rain.

This impeccable green raises questions. Who keeps it pristine under such harsh conditions? How do the fairways look soft enough to nap on while the temperature hovers around 95 degrees? Someone must care for this publicly-funded course as if it were some celestial club where one day the ghosts of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth will haunt its tee boxes.

It takes about 30 seconds to drive a golf cart from the pro shop to the maintenance crew’s warehouse. Beneath its rafters there are at least half a dozen lawnmowers. There are weed eaters. There are leaf blowers.

And there is Pat Sneed, the Superintendent of the Mississippi State University Golf Course. When he says hello, his gentle tone suggests why the course’s employees call him Mr. Pat and speak to him with reverence. Sneed’s unapologetically southern accent makes it obvious that he spent years of his childhood in Mississippi.

Sneed grew up in Tupelo, spending his early years playing golf with his father and eventually working at the Tupelo Country Club’s course. Sneed dubs this summer job his “preliminary beginnings,” an era during which he initially “carried around a weed eater and a gas can for two weeks solid.” Every day he walked the course in the morning, took a break for lunch and then spent afternoons and evenings walking and trimming. It did not take long for Sneed to realize he wanted to ditch the crude work of weed eating for the more refined study of turf. His job at Tupelo Country Club introduced him to the science that is essential to proper turf management.

Sneed began his college years at Mississippi College with the intent of playing as much golf as possible. While at Mississippi College, he took pre-med classes – his plan being to enroll in Mississippi State University’s veterinary medicine program. However, the program had a long wait list, and Sneed says that he never properly pursued the avenues that might have expedited his entry into the program.

He still transferred to Mississippi State, where he knew several older students who told him the Golf and Sports Turf Management (GSTM) program could lead to a respectable career. Golf course superintendents and assistant superintendents made good money, but Sneed’s motivation to enroll in the GSTM program was more about having a career in golf.

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY

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He graduated in the fall of 1981 and headed to New Orleans to work as the Assistant Superintendent for New Orleans Country Club. He worked there for 10 months, and then, more than a decade after he had first hauled a weed eater and a can of gas across its lawns, Sneed took the position of Superintendent for Tupelo Country Club. He worked there for about seven years before moving to Florida for another seven. Sneed recalls the dates and lengths of his various jobs without hesitation; it is as if someone asked him to state the color of his shirt.

In 1995, Sneed received a phone call concerning the MSU golf course’s superintendent position. His family had just gotten unwelcome news concerning his father’s health, so he was thankful for the opportunity to return to the nearby course and school where he had refined his craft. He has since spent the past 23 years providing leadership to countless students and employees as well as overseeing the living lab that is the course.

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MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY | COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

The golf course is under the purview of the PGA Golf Management program in the College of Business. It is the host facility for the program, as well as the MSU golf teams and the GSTM program. Owned by the University, it provides a place for practice, tournaments and PGA seminars, and it is open to the public. The par 71 championship layout plays over 6,600 yards for men and over 5,300 yards for women. In 2012, a new practice facility, exclusively for PGA Golf Management students and players on MSU’s teams, was added to the existing practice facilities. It expanded Sneed’s territory with a 22,000 square-foot practice tee, an 8,500 square-foot putting green and an 80,000 square-foot short game area.

As Superintendent, Sneed also has an intimate working relationship with Mississippi State’s GSTM program, which is housed in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He is quick to mention the program’s critical role in maintaining the course’s conditions. In addition to Sneed, an assistant superintendent and an equipment technician, the course relies on GSTM students to function. Summer school can create what Sneed calls “scheduling nightmares,” but this is the only negative thing he has to say in relation to his students. They are all “well-rounded and refined turf professionals” who bolster the GSTM program’s stellar reputation. He credits his students with maintaining the quality course conditions, saying that if the GSTM program puts “knowledgeable students out there [on the course], the program will take care of itself.”

The MSU Golf Course

photo by Logan Kirkland

DIVIDENDS | FALL 2018

FALL 2018 | DIVIDENDS

Many of them follow the path Sneed took after graduating. When they leave Mississippi State, they are hired by renowned, big-budget courses – both public and private. It is their accomplishments that make Sneed proud, rather than the effusive praises he and the course have received in publications like Golf Digest and Golfweek Magazine. In addition to his history with and love for Mississippi State University, Sneed’s students are why he returns to the golf course every morning.

“It doesn’t make sense to do it for any other reasons,” he states.

Mentoring students keeps him busy, but Sneed makes time to innovate. According to Ryan Wilhelm, the course’s Assistant Golf Professional, Sneed’s commitment to maintenance never stops. Wilhelm describes how Sneed conducts experiments on the fairways. He says some golfers might notice that their approach shots gain or lose momentum at unusual, unpredictable rates, but these athletes should know that the extra strokes on their scorecards are for the greater good. During any season of the year as many as 15 research trials may cover the course, and Sneed ensures that whenever possible, turf varieties developed here at MSU are used as a functional part of the course in order to promote the University and the GSTM program. The last time the greens were re-grassed, Sneed used Mississippi Supreme, an MSU hybrid Ultra-Dwarf Bermudagrass released in the mid-1990s.

The nature of a public university means this quality course will never be an exclusive escape for the wealthy, but the course will not suffer from a lack of such patrons. Be thankful that the course will remain an unintimidating place to play a round with friends because a kid from Tupelo played golf with his dad decades ago. Be thankful that this kid grew into a student who cultivated his affinity for turf management. Be thankful that this student left, then returned home to become the Superintendent for the Mississippi State University Golf Course. Be thankful that this superintendent has spent decades researching, mentoring students and maintaining the greens and fringes and fairways.

Be thankful for Mr. Pat.

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY

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