All Stars of Turf: Mark Hoban, Rivermont Golf Club, Johns Creek, GA

For more than 15 years, Mark Hoban has built a career of promoting a sustainable and minimalist approach of managing golf course turf at Rivermont Golf Club in Johns Creek, Georgia. At age 67, he insists he is only getting started.

Hoban, who prepped under Palmer Maples at the nearby Standard Club, uses biologicals, homemade compost tea and other organic nutrients to promote healthy turf and soils that require very little fungicides and are naturally resistant to disease pressure. 

Through the use of several species of native grasses he has eliminated 30 acres of irrigated turf. Those native areas attract wildlife and he manages bees with the recent addition of an on-site apiary.

Hoban first became interested in sustainability while working for Maples and has further developed his practices largely through research conducted in the agricultural industry.

Hoban's work was brought into the public eye in 2014 through Randy Wilson's video series "Chasing Rivermont" that appeared on TurfNetTV. His work has since won acclaim at the state and national level, and Hoban says none of what he has accomplished would have been possible without the support of Rivermont owner Chris Cupit.