10/7/2020 - By William Buehn

It’s that time of year again. The weather’s starting to cool down, college football serves up our Saturday slice of camaraderie, and the annual battle against leaves is in full swing—fall is definitely in the air. For most people, that might mean pumpkin patches, sweater weather, and hot apple cider, but for our industry, it means EOP is upon us. Reps are mastering the ins and outs of the various programs, plugging away to see what might work best for different customers, and superintendents are planning their next year of applications, writing their budget while trying to keep up with their end-of-season tasks. No doubt, it’s a busy season for everyone, but when done properly, EOP can be hugely beneficial to a club. It may require a good deal of planning and effort up front, but if you put in the time, you can reap the rewards—both financially and agronomically.

Looking to highlight the EOP customer experience, we sat down with Ryan D’Autremont, superintendent of Dayton Country Club, to discuss his approach to the annual purchase and what he’s learned over the years. Ryan, who’s only the fourth superintendent to manage the Ohio course since its founding in 1897 (his predecessor had been there for 41 years), has been with Dayton CC for almost ten years now, but his experience with EOP goes back even further to his assistant days at NCR Country Club.

So how long have you been involved in EOP?

Oh, I mean it goes back to NCR Country Club. I've always done EOP here at Dayton, but also during my last four years or so at NCR (two golf courses—36 holes), I basically organized the spray plan for both courses. So, I did all of the EOP there as well for four years. I mean, we're pushing 15 years of this stuff really.

Why EOP for you?

Well, for me specifically, it works with my general sensibilities. I’m extremely efficient and fairly organized. I don't like clutter. I don't like surprises. You know, I work everything off of a calendar. Everything needs to be planned out, within reason. I do my entire fert/seed/chem budget­—I'm doing it right now—for the next year, and that's 95% of what we're going to apply already planned, accounted for, and purchased. And for whatever reason, it just works. That's how my brain works as well. So, I guess the two kind of go hand-in-hand. I don't know that I could just wait until 2021 and then just start buying stuff. It wouldn't work with my brain.

It can seem pretty overwhelming if you don't have a lot of experience with it, so what's your EOP approach?

Yeah, you know, a lot of it's already kind of baked-in given experiences. I can definitely see if you were a younger superintendent or you’d never done it before, how it would be overwhelming. Especially if maybe you don't have a lot of experiences with certain branded products or certain suppliers. But after doing this for many years now, I’ve been able to get experience with a lot of products. With that, I’ve seen a lot of products work and a lot of products not work. So, when I came to Dayton, I already kind of knew what worked, and I was able to put a plan down early and it's worked really well. So, I haven't had to tinker much. But yeah there's a plan, and yes we want to spray something in May of next year—doesn't mean we will—but it's all based on timing and general weather. Then I just kind of build from there I suppose. When you do things in the proper order and the proper timing, everything else kind of falls into place.

So, what would be your recommendation to those younger superintendents that you mentioned? Any tips you could pass on to them for getting their feet wet with EOP?

First of all, you need a rep, or representatives, from the multitude of companies that you feel you can trust and that isn't just out to sell you stuff. If there's an individual that you know is going to give you good advice and maybe help you with a base plan, I think that's really helpful. You know, they understand you, they understand your budget and maybe your capacities. They should also be able to help you organize a little bit and maybe just provide you with a basic starting point. Because in theory, if you've made it to golf course superintendent, hopefully you understand that there are products that you should spray at certain times of the year and products that you shouldn't spray at certain times of the year. So, you should have all of that knowledge to at least give you timing. And then from there, maybe you can lean on a rep or even another superintendent in the area for individual products or specific products or rate variations. And then you just kind of build from there.

Speaking of reps, where does your Harrell’s rep fit into the process?

He's definitely an important part of it. I've known Jim [Dillard] since NCR, and he's obviously one of those guys that’s not going to push product just to push product. You know, he understands that if he just starts pushing product and it doesn't work at the end, that's not going to look good on him either. So, I think a good rep will take the time to understand not only the superintendent but the program, the property, the budget, and the expectations because all that factors into what you're going to apply. And I think a good rep will take the time to do that recon and then make good recommendations from there.

How do you plan out your purchase of must-have, staple products during EOP?

When I think of a staple item, I think “Am I buying a bunch of stuff to have almost in reserve?” And that's not really what we do. So, in essence everything would be a staple item because we buy everything with the goal of using it for that next calendar year. We don't carry over a lot of stuff. In fact, we don't really carry over much of anything because our goal is to make the plan and follow the plan. But yeah, when I do my plan, I put a contact fungicide in basically every application. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean we’ll use it, depending on weather or who knows what's going on, but we always have that in there because we may need it at the end of the year or in the rough or the first cut or bunker faces or if something weird happens. So, even though everything is planned out, there are some contingencies for the next season that we kind of stockpile a little, but it's not a lot. So, I don’t know if we call those staples, but yeah, we do plan for that kind of stuff.

Do you play with the packs?

Yeah—one thing I've learned over the years is a rep will do a lot of this work for you. What I can do is just give my plan to Jim, and then he has the calculators to throw all the stuff in there. He can look at it and say “Well, your best bet is to get this stuff individually, but this stuff in a pack.” But then you've got points with some companies or rebates with others, and trying to figure out where everything fits can be complicated. So, sometimes I'll do a pack, a cube, a skid, or whatever they're calling it, as long as it fits within the program. That's the main thing—it has to fit within the plan first. Sometimes that can be challenging, though, because I don’t always need all of the products within the pack. Let's say a particular pack has four products in it, but only two of them I really want to use. Even though the unit cost of the pack is lower than buying it individually, now I’ve got two products that I have to kind of shoehorn into my program because I don't want them just sitting on the shelf. So, for me, everything in that pack has to be written into the program, or I’ll just buy it individually.

Yeah, that makes sense to prioritize what you actually need first and then find the deals from there. It sounds like Jim’s able to help you with that?

He does, but I like to plug everything in and sort of figure it out on my own first. I don't want to just send him all my stuff and say, “Here, go do this.” I know he could handle it, and maybe it would be easier on me, but sometimes superintendents are a little stubborn like that. So, here’s how I like to tackle it. First, I’ll make the plan and list out all my products. Then, I'll go through the packs with my list in mind and say “Hey, does this work? Or, what if I tweak this?” From there, I'll give Jim quantity totals of products (which might include some packs) along with some notes like, “Hey, what do you think about this pack versus individual products?” Finally, we’ll have a couple back-and-forth emails and then boom—that's pretty much it.

With all the added October incentives, do you try to get those back-and-forth details ironed out early so that you can complete your order in October?

100%, that needs to be done by October. And a lot of that also goes along with our club budgeting here. My GM wants to, at bare minimum, have a rough draft by the end of October. So, I'm already doing budgeting anyway; I might as well just knock out the fert/seed/chem while I’m at it. Then I can take full advantage of all the benefits of the points or rebates or whatever is going on at that point in time.

Are you thinking of trying any new approaches this year, or is it looking like it's going to be a similar purchase to previous years?

It’s looking similar in a general sense of things, but last year, we definitely tinkered with the ProtectMAX™ line and we had no issues with any of those. So, we're definitely going to expand into that ProtectMAX™ line. Outside of that, we won’t do a whole lot different. Like I said before, we’ve maintained a pretty solid base plan since I first got here, and we haven’t had to tweak it too much. We’re not opposed to change though. You know, we don't have a problem trying new stuff or new chemistries or even a different brand. But at the end of the day, I always believe, “keep it simple, stupid.” If it works, don’t mess with it.