John Deere's Women in Turf program is back for 2025, offering mentorship and skill-building for women in golf course management. The video features participants sharing how the program shaped their careers in turf management and the value of hands-on apprenticeships in the industry.
What interests me the most, I think, in doing these sort of programs is meeting the other girls, listening to each other's experiences and learning about each other's sporting grounds.
Learning what goes into upkeeping a course this size, getting to use different tools and machinery. Oh, it's been brilliant.
This is our third year hosting the Women in Turf program at the Cobhambrugge WebEx tournament. We find the energy that all of the participants have brought over those three years has been amazing uplift for our team. So in the golf course industry, labour is an issue, particularly recruiting young people to come and do apprenticeships. And they don't have to be young, but it's nice to have a diverse mix. So this program can only help.
This is my first time working in a golf club. Got recommended by my supervisor, Sharna, who did the program last year, and she took a lot out of it and has implemented it in our workplace. Yeah, I was very nervous to start because it's far away from home and don't know anyone. But all the girls have been very welcoming and getting to know them has been good. I've definitely become a morning person since I started range caking. The sunrises are definitely the best part of my day. You get to work among the wildlife and nature itself and you see other people enjoy it and take pride in it as well when you achieve a really good result.
Each participant brings their own particular skill set. Everyone gets a chance at everything. But as with other years, our senior females choose teach our own crew something along the way as well.
We've sort of changed at the program this year, where now we could do the workplace for eight days, but then we teed on the back of a mentor program. So over the next 12 months, help with the soft skills, turf management skills, career development skills, just to help women progress in their career.
I want to be a superintendent. I got big goals. Yeah. So have big expectations for myself in the future.
I'm loving watching these young girls, the enthusiasm of them and stuff like that. Reminds me of being an apprentice and I can see them coming a long way.
I always think about my career. This industry has really given me a path. Always try everything. It doesn't matter if you try 100 things. Everyone's on their own time. I get a lot of opportunity to do a lot of things and I truly think it's because of confidence.
