Turf management course for RP?

MAGALANG, Pampanga -- A turf management course for Filipinos?

Starting June this year, the Pampanga Agricultural College (PAC) will open a new two-year course offering which is the first of its kind in the country.

The course? Turf management whose graduates will be experts in the management of the grasses in fairways and greens of golf courses.

Dr. Zosimo Battad, PAC president, said that graduates of this course will have the opportunity to be hired as managers of the turfs of golf courses abroad. He said a manager of such golf courses earn a minimum monthly pay of $30,000 or an eye-popping P1.2 million a month.

Battad, son of Dr. Fortunato Battad, former president of the Munoz, Nueva Ecija-based Central Luzon State University (CLSU), said golf generates tremendous fan interests and is second to basketball in terms of business opportunities and popularity.

"Unknowingly, this is a course which could make Novo Ecijanos earn a lot," he said.

He said that he has signed in behalf of the college an agreement with the Hong Kong-based consortium, Yat's International (YI), to set up a Turf Management School on a six-hectare area in the college compound here.

The YI will finance the building and set aside P250,000 as yearly maintenance fund. Three faculty members of the college will be trained as core staff of the school with the students possibly getting training abroad.

YI experts are now propagating two of the most common grasses being used in golf courses namely dwarf bermuda for the greens of the golf course and the green and apple paspalum which are used in fairways. Grasses which are abundant in the country such as carabao grass, will also be used in a model golf course in the campus.