Renee Geyer, CGCS, superintendent at Canterwood Golf & Country Club in Gig Harbor, Wash., and former intern Brianna Foster, second assistant at The Country Club in Pepper Pike, Ohio, caught up this week while volunteering at the U.S. Women's Open at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Photo by Abby Olcese
Reuniting with friends and colleagues is one of the highlights of volunteering at a tournament like the U.S. Women’s Open. For some, including Brianna Foster and Renee Geyer, CGCS, It’s a reunion of a different sort. In 2025, Foster, now a second assistant at The Country Club in Pepper Pike, Ohio and three-year GCSAA member, was Geyer’s first-ever collegiate intern at Canterwood Golf & Country Club in Gig Harbor, Wash., where Geyer, a 19-year GCSAA member, is superintendent.
“I got to do everything. It was awesome,” Foster, who interned while a student at Ohio State University, says. “Renee just put me into everything. I did irrigation, sprayed, topdressed, I even lead the crew on some projects.”
Foster says her experience working with Geyer was an eye-opener. “I loved the creative freedom she gave me. Everything was guided, she’d always start me off with something and then ask me, ‘What you do in this situation?’” Foster says. “She’d make me answer questions like that to think like a superintendent should. I’d never been put in that kind of role before. In other jobs, it was always ‘Go do this, do it like this.’”
The internship was a learning experience for Geyer, too.
“Bri was a fantastic intern. She put faith in my experience to help teach her something new and new ways of doing things,” Geyer says. “Every three weeks we’d have a check-in where she could report on what she’d learned, and what I could do better for the next person who came through. We talked about what things were beneficial that I hadn’t thought about, and what things didn’t work as well.”
Geyer says their experience together helped her grow as a leader as much as it shaped Foster as a rising turfgrass professional.
“It was an opportunity for us to grow in our respective roles,” Geyer says. “Me trying to help the next person in line, and for her to learn from somebody who has had more experience, not necessarily someone smarter, just someone with more experience.”
Like many in the profession, Foster fell into turfgrass maintenance completely by accident, while working a summer job as a valet at a country club between semesters studying civil engineering at the University of Cincinnati. This year marks her fourth time volunteering at a tournament.
“My favorite part is making all the connections, hands down. All the memories we’ve made, meeting people from different places and making friends all over the country,” Foster, who found her internship with Geyer through a tournament connection, says. “You never know where it can lead you.”
Geyer, like Foster, is a veteran of the women in turf volunteer group at the U.S. Women’s Open. She says watching Foster’s career evolve from year to year has confirmed the value of staying connected to women in turf.
“It’s proof that this group of women can come full circle and those circles keep going,” Geyer says. “The knowledge you gain from others’ experiences make you brave enough to put yourself out there and help someone else.”
Abby Olcese is GCMOnline's editor