Anxiety, timing and mentorship

As our mighty Golf Course Industry team scampered between booths on GCSAA Conference and Trade Show Wednesday, while greeting enthusiastic visitors to our show base, personal intensity transformed into anxiety.

Around 2 p.m., wearing our matching mint green adidas polos, we would begin our trot into the unknown. I’m sure the former caddie in me — walk briskly, ahead of others — peeves coworkers. Casual gaits, at least in this warped work world, waste time and demonstrate outward vulnerability. The strut to The Aquatrols Company booth for the inaugural Excellence in Mentorship Awards had to demonstrate swagger to our team, because I was an internal mess.

Only two months earlier, in collaboration with The Aquatrols Company, we shifted from celebrating industry social media usage to honoring mentorship. Turning intention into execution, around the holidays, with show activities looming, appeared daunting. Our December and January to-do list for the awards: introduce and explain the concept, gather thoughtful nominations, select award recipients reflective of the theme, establish a concise agenda featuring a panel discussion, contact honorees and produce meaningful content about them, and encourage everybody in the industry to attend an event many didn’t know existed.

Anybody who works closely with The Aquatrols Company realizes they employ empathetic people. A company doesn’t last 72 years in this industry without supporting and empowering others. They’re one of our many five-star partners responsible for the free magazine you’re reading.

But we don’t aim to simply satisfy partners and readers. We strive to enrapture and inspire. Perfection, if such an idea exists, can’t be achieved in two months.

The quantity and quality of nominations we received exceeded expectations. We obtained more than 30 fabulous candidates by promoting the event through our digital channels. The abundance of nominations confirmed we picked the right topic and reaffirmed the power of our reach. It also created an unanticipated dilemma. Determining our first class of honorees proved tougher than a northerner trying to regain his or her golf game following a winter layoff. Informing respected people that their mentor wasn’t being honored this year sucks. Mentees nominating mentors who weren’t included in the Class of 2026 handled the situation like pros. Their understanding means we already have some tremendous 2027 candidates.

Senior editor Matt LaWell joked that our selection committee felt like the group responsible for curating the first National Baseball Hall of Fame class in 1936. Cy Young, after all, wasn’t a first-ballot selection.

Ansley Golf Club’s Courtney Young, Bryn Mawr Country Club’s Brian Bossert, The Alotian Club’s Justin Sims, TPC Network’s Collier Miller, Inverness Club’s John Zimmers and the late Clemson University turfgrass pathologist Dr. Bruce Martin comprised the first Excellence in Mentorship Awards class. Six remarkable people. Six more reasons for the pre-event anxiety. We expected their names and legacies to attract an influential crowd.

When Young, Zimmers and Tim Moraghan joined LaWell for an educational panel discussion, we surveyed the scene and recognized many familiar faces, including numerous industry icons who personify the spirit of mentorship. We also started making mental notes of how we can improve the awards in 2027. The anxiety morphed into appreciation — for our team’s sacrifice to make Year 1 work, for The Aquatrols Company’s belief in Golf Course Industry, for the quality and character of our audience, for being associated with a pay-it-forward industry.

At some point this year, nearly every golf course superintendent will be forced to execute an unfamiliar event or task on short notice. The ideal time to begin something new doesn’t exist. Anxiety emerges because motivated professionals care deeply about dazzling stakeholders without overtaxing their teams. The unfamiliar induces doubts and questions.

Waiting for the perfect timing and circumstances in life guarantees stagnation, a debilitating condition any decent mentor will tell you to avoid.