Again and again and again

For most of his eight years at Addison Reserve Country Club, Josh Fleisher has adhered to a simple motto: The path to success is under construction.

Those words have been especially true the last three years.

Fleisher and his team worked through a 19-month, 27-hole renovation, split into almost consecutive phases, from May 2023 to November 2024. Veteran architects Rees Jones and Steve Weisser provided the vision and were on site at least one and two days per week, respectively, and shaper Steve Crotty moved plenty of Delray Beach, Florida, earth. Fleisher and the rest of the 26 men and nine women on the maintenance team handled the rest.

“I think down here in South Florida, all superintendents and assistants are going to go through at least one or two projects,” says Fleisher, who also worked on the 2016 renovation at Frenchman’s Reserve, just 35 miles north along I-95. “You really learn how to maintain a golf course once you’ve done construction from the ground up.”

The renovation was filled with challenges, most notably a wetter and cloudier 2023-24 winter thanks to one of the more powerful El Niño events in recorded history; five weeks without typical Florida sunshine nearly withered new TifEagle greens. A community storm drainage project around the same time delayed the reopening of the first nine from December 2023 to January 2024. And the lessons learned from the first eight months prompted Fleisher to push for an earlier start to the second phase, abbreviating the rest time from about three months to barely one. For good measure, every hole switched from Celebration Bermudagrass to Platinum TE Paspalum — a switch suggested by general manager Michael McCarthy after he spotted the grass at The Club at Mediterra in Naples.

“We did some things differently,” says Fleisher, who was promoted three years ago from superintendent to director of golf course maintenance. “We sodded 63½ acres of Platinum instead of sprigging — we only sprigged tees and greens in Phase Two. It will ruin you as a superintendent if you ever sod a fairway versus sprigging.

“But to be able to go directly off the cart path with no restrictions for our first full season, I don’t even know if there will be a number you could put on that. Ultimately, we opened on time and we had no restrictions. This was one of the best seasons I’ve ever been a part of.”

Fleisher is passing along everything he learned about Addison Reserve during his first five seasons under former director of golf course maintenance Mark Heater to superintendent Kieran Glavin, second assistant Harry Robishaw, AIT Dariel Perez, third assistant Pedro Lopez — a 20-year course employee who started as an irrigation tech — horticulturalist Dave Ringheiser and the rest of the team. “Kieran and Harry call me sir,” Fleisher says with a laugh, “and I tell them all the time, ‘I’m not exactly sure when I became the old guy.’”

Among those lessons learned are controlling the turf. Fleisher subscribes to nine ounces of SePRO Cutless MEC plant growth regulator every other week across 65 acres of short grass, which, he jokes, adds up pretty quickly.

“The paspalum right now is tough to keep regulated. Even still with heavy rains you get a huge flush of growth,” Fleisher says. “Cutless helps us maintain our color and gives us great residual week to week.”

He also uses SePRO SeClear algaecide and water quality enhancer and EutroSORB filters on a waterfall constructed during the second phase of the renovation. SeClear, he says, controls algae and EutroSORB “keep it clean and not so fishy-smelling.”

Fleisher likely won’t need any SePRO products for his next construction project: A new maintenance compound — five new buildings in place of the current two, which will expand the maintenance footprint about 50 percent to 13,500 square feet. A new employee parking lot. Two new locker rooms. A proper break room so team members no longer need to eat lunch in a golf cart or atop equipment. And every piece of equipment will be stored under a roof.

“These buildings are original to 1995,” Fleisher says. “In 1995, our staff size was 12. It’s just not a welcoming environment for them. We’re trying to make everyone more comfortable.

“There’s going to be no shortage of work over the next couple of years.”

More construction. More success.