Stanley Reedy worked at several different golf courses after graduating from Mississippi State in 1982 before settling at the County Club of Jackson in 1997 when the Golf Course Superintendent position became available. Reedy has been there ever since.
Reedy is over all of the grounds at the club and in the Country Club subdivision, which includes 27 holes of golf and croquet courses. He has stayed for so many years because he considers the golf course to be the best in the state and it is his home. The PGA Tour recently had the Sanderson Farms Championship at the beginning of the month at the Country Club of Jackson, and many said the course had some of the best greens on the tour.
“I hear people say the greens are really good, and it’s gratifying,” Reedy said. “We don’t just work during that time – we work all spring, summer and year long. My staff is very talented at what they do. It’s rewarding at the end of the day to hear that when you bust your butt and you’re recognized for what you do, so it means a lot.”
Reedy said there are a few things that allow him to create such great greens. Two things that make a big difference for the country club are an understanding membership and a good staff with a good budget.
“First and foremost, you have to have an understanding membership,” Reedy said. “The things we have to do to make the greens good, obviously, affects their play. We may have to do something on a Tuesday where they can’t play but they know that, by the weekend, they’re gonna be playing on some really fine surfaces.”
Reedy said, because of this, the members are very understanding of the things he has to do to make the greens good.
“The second thing is having enough staff and money to do the things we need to do,” Reedy said. “That is another credit to the club and having a good staff is hard to beat too.
The grass used on the greens is called Bermuda grass, which has grain in it.
“If you can get rid of a lot of the grain, the ball tends to roll in a straighter manner,” Reedy said. “When we have a lot of grain, the grain will actually pull the ball in the direction the grain is going, so you can’t get a true putt. So we really fancy ourselves on getting rid of a lot of the grain.”
By getting rid of the grain, they are able to increase the speed the ball travels at.
“During the tour event, we were above a 14 for speed, which is pretty much unheard of,” Reedy said. “Even for our members on a given weekend, we’re in that 12 range, which, again, is considered really good. So, the members get the benefit of all the stuff we do. The tour just gets a little bit of a bump up in speed just because of the number of people we have for the things they want that we couldn’t do on a normal basis.”
Reedy said they pay extra care monitoring for pest disease and insects and taking care of the soil by using the correct fertilization, and that helps them manage the greens as well. However, they are still always looking to improve.
“Any club that is happy with where they are at is probably not a good thing,” Reedy said. “We want to continue to improve the club. The club has been really good at doing the things we need to do.”
Reedy said they have made improvements to the course, grounds and inside the clubhouse.
“There are things we’d obviously like to build on the golf course — you can spend as much money as you want on any of those kinds of things, but we’re getting there and just continue to work at it.”
Reedy said he continues to work on and improve the grounds for so many years because he simply loves his job.
“I get to see a lot of things that people don’t really get to see or take for granted like sunrises every morning and the smell of freshly cut grass and just the beauty of the golf course,” Reedy said. “The people I work with are great. We just love what we do.”
