It’s the perfect plant. You just have to figure out a way to make the management a little more economically and environmentally sustainable.” — Dr. Alec Kowalewski, Oregon State

Golf course turf managers could not ask for a better antagonist than Poa annua. Annual bluegrass is, at times, just another weed or the ideal putting surface, depending on climate. In terms of hardiness, it can come close to Terminator-levels of coming back, each time seemingly with a new resistance to whatever came closest to taking it out.

The superintendents treating it like a common weed are constantly looking for a better mousetrap, and those encouraging it on the course are always in need of support.

Superintendents are often eager to ask turf researchers about the newest mode of action to manage Poa, but approaches to working with one of turf’s best-known villains have started to shift. Turf researchers shared their origin stories about Poa, and how their views have evolved.

From a biology perspective, I don’t think we’ve unlocked it. I don’t think we have a great understanding of it, which is why it continues to be an area of active research. The vast majority of work still goes into ‘Who cares why it’s adapting? Let’s just control it.’ I think there’s lots of questions to be answered, and I don’t think a lot have.” — Dr. Scott McElroy, Auburn University

Unlocking secrets

Dr. Scott McElroy, professor at Auburn University, got his master’s degree working on Poa, but he didn’t go out of his way to seek it out as an undergrad. His advisor at the time told him that he would be working on it, and that was that.

“I really didn’t have any opinion. I thought, ‘This is a weed, this is research, this professor says he’ll pay me a stipend to work on this project,’” McElroy says. “It was really no more than that. And it’s come to really kind of define my career in many ways.”

When McElroy started studying one of most widely distributed plant species on the planet, he found a wealth of interesting sources of study, he says.

“My interests more reside in the diversity and genomics of it as a species, and why is it so prolific? What makes this species special that it can grow in Antarctica and then Orlando?” he says. “As a researcher you look for problems, and it’s a constant problem.”

McElroy still thinks of annual bluegrass as a weed, as there’s still a lot of call for control methods, but he’s also trying to convince those in the biology and research fields that Poa is worth taking notice of, not only in how it adapts to change, but also in how it has evolved over time.

Even with the amount of time he’s spent with Poa, McElroy thinks research hasn’t even started to really understand the plant.

“From a biology perspective, I don’t think we’ve unlocked it. I don’t think we have a great understanding of it, which is why it continues to be an area of active research,” he says. “The vast majority of work still goes into ‘Who cares why it’s adapting? Let’s just control it.’ I think there’s lots of questions to be answered, and I don’t think a lot have.

“It obviously has the ability to adapt and survive, either in managed or unmanaged ecosystems. So the question arises, why is that occurring? Is there something special about its species that allows it to adapt? And can we manipulate that in some way to stop it from invading?”

McElroy has lots of plans for future research, but one particular area he finds interesting is dealing with Poa via cultivation techniques. For example, using fraze mowing to remove the weed seedbank could help control its growth.

Another angle is looking at how resistance in Poa begins, whether it moves from different locations or starts fresh in each place, he says.

“If it’s jumping around, we can correlate these populations, and that tells us what that what we need to do is a better identification and containment type of management across a broader swath of geography,” he says. “Whereas if it’s arising de novo (anew) in each of these individual sites, then our emphasis should be on continued training of people to prevent the rise of new herbicide resistance in individual locations.”

Changing minds

Dr. Jim Brosnan, associate professor at the University of Tennessee, was surrounded by Poa when he went to Penn State for his undergrad work. At the time, he just thought of it as another type of turf. But he was intrigued when, during his first job as a faculty member at the University of Hawaii, he found Poa out on the islands.

“It was surprising to me. It wasn’t everywhere, but in different microclimates on different islands, particularly at elevation, you could see Poa in fairways,” he says. “That was kind of an eye-opener for me.”

But things really kicked up when he was on a 2010 USGA extension visit to a golf course in Tennessee, and a superintendent mentioned in passing that his Poa just wouldn’t die until the high heat of the summer kicked in.

“We turned around, went out there, I got cup cutters and sampled some plants, and went through the confirmation process of confirming that it was glyphosate-resistant,” he says. “At the time, that was only the second case of glyphosate resistance in turf.”

He began talking about the resistance in extension settings, and more and more superintendents came forward to ask him to check out their Poa for the same issue. And that has spurred almost a decade of research for him.

“It’s so multifaceted from a biology standpoint,” he says. “It’s just amazing, the adaptability of this species. Not only its adaptability to different microclimates, but also what we do management-wise, its ability to resist different modes of action and strategies.”

But what Poa has done most for Brosnan is offer a window into what turf programs miss as educators, he says. “We see this adaptability, and the solution that everyone wants to deal with that is something that comes out of a jug,” he adds. “We have enough data to know and indicators from other crops to know that that’s not the solution.”

The plant’s adaptability challenges educators to approach it from a human psychology perspective: Researchers know that if turf managers don’t diversify, treatment is just selecting for resistant populations, but that can sometimes mean passing over a quick herbicide fix.

For Brosnan, the best turf managers working with Poa are planning out two to three years, developing a program that bakes diversity of mode and active ingredients before resistance ever becomes a problem.

“We need to do more to change our approach as educators to help superintendents solve this problem, because the standard stuff we’re doing is clearly not working,” he says. “I’m giving talks about sitting down and building a plan to approach how you’re going to handle this weed, because it’s so adaptable. That is so far removed from our standard approach of, ‘Here’s this weed and here are the seven herbicides that work well on it.’”

To help build these plans, researchers just need more data on the biology of the weed to build effective, sustainable programs.

“Can we better model Poa germination, and have models of soil temperature, soil moisture and daylight, and daily light integral and day length? All of these meteorological parameters that are out there,” he says. “Can we use that to build a model to predict what this weed is going to do, so we can use the tools we have in the most effective way possible, by understanding the biology of the target?”

Joining In

When Dr. Alec Kowalewski, associate professor at Oregon State, started grad school at Michigan State University, annual bluegrass was considered a weed. That is, until a researcher called Joe Vargas helped start a change in how people thought about annual bluegrass in Michigan, he says.

Annual bluegrass takes about 90 percent of his research, as a perennial biotype that is most susceptible to disease like microdochium patch for about six months of the year, he says. As one of the fewer researchers working toward building healthy stands of annual bluegrass, it’s changed his perspective on approaching it.

For instance, using lighter, more frequent irrigation helps annual bluegrass stay strong, and Kowalewski has taken that principle on to research home lawns, resulting in collective less use of water.

He’s also looking for ways to use pH to manage pathogens in annual bluegrass without using fungicides, as several West Coast regions have tight restrictions on pesticide use. One issue is that bringing the pH to a level that reduces disease activity can make conditions more favorable to creeping bentgrass, putting Poa in a vulnerable position that it’s typically not used to.

“So we’re trying to figure out the perfect balance of pH where it reduces disease activity but not promote creeping bentgrass,” Kowalewski says. “There’s tons of social pressure in the far western states to reduce pesticides. We’ve got golf courses in California that have to manage with no pesticides at all.”

But it’s a great plant for the environment of the western states, and golf course superintendents can turn its adaptability into a benefit by just keeping it happy, he says.

“It’s the perfect plant. You just have to figure out a way to make the management a little more economically and environmentally sustainable,” he says.

One downside to trying to work with Poa rather than against it is that it’s not commercially available, he says. Growing annual bluegrass in on a course means planting a fine fescue or creeping bentgrass, and then cranking up the fertilizer to push it toward annual bluegrass. “And then in about five years, you’ve converted it over to annual bluegrass,” Kowalewski says.

Seed companies say that the West Coast market is too much of a niche to make annual bluegrass seed sales worthwhile, not to mention that as an annual, Poa’s genetic diversity is very high, Kowalewski says. If a superintendent wants to get aggressive about building an annual bluegrass stand, collecting cores from another golf course might be the easiest way to go. But its trouble finding a place in the market doesn’t change his opinion of its usefulness on the golf course. “I think because you can’t go buy a bag of annual bluegrass, that’s the biggest deterrent to it,” he says.

Sharing knowledge

Dr. Jay McCurdy, assistant professor at Mississippi State University, looks at annual bluegrass from a global perspective. “It’s one of the most cosmopolitan grass weeds in the world,” he says. “It’s on every continent, including Antarctica.”

Growing up in west Tennessee, dealing with Poa was an ever-changing, moving target. His first experiences with it were just as a problem to be solved, and as resistance began to rise, he had to start putting his education to use to find new ways to approach it. But the root of the problem with Poa was something a little tougher to grasp, he says. “It’s existential to the way we think about weed control, because it’s a weed we can – I wouldn’t say ‘tolerate’ – but we can mow and play on it. It sucks, but we can do it,” McCurdy says.

But even working with other researchers and superintendents, there don’t seem to be any easy solutions to the problem, at least not without creating even more problems that take up more bandwidth, he adds.

“A lot of places, your entire year revolves around what applications you’re putting out for Poa,” McCurdy adds. “It is vertically integrated to the point that we put out a pre-emergent and a post, and then you’re putting out a growth regulator to manage seedhead production. There’s nothing else I deal with that’s like that.”

McCurdy is committing to spending even more time on annual bluegrass, working with a Poa project through a USDA specialty crops research initiative project bringing together about 16 universities to collect samples of annual bluegrass for study. The project (which can be found on Twitter @ResistPoa) shares those samples from states including Alabama, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Texas to find new ways to manage Poa in new, sustainable ways, he says.

“That’s where this project is really headed,” McCurdy says. “It’s not about resistance, it’s about how we can best manipulate the environmental situation so that we can minimize the amount of Poa, then clean it up with herbicides if necessary.”

The project blends backgrounds and approaches in looking for solutions, going past an approach of chemistry alone, he says. But the project won’t make much headway without support from superintendents who supply samples. “We need people who are volunteering annual bluegrass populations that are resistant,” he says. “If they have them, we need them to get in contact with us.”

Kurt Kleinham is a contributing editor from Akron, Ohio.

Brickyard Crossing resides within the hallowed grounds of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a sprawling complex in a flat, densely populated Heartland neighborhood. Even those responsible for maintaining the course understand matters involving engines, tires and concrete, not irons, drivers and turf, dominate decisions.

A.J. Foyt and Jeff Gordon established legacies on the complex’s 2.5-mile oval racetrack, which includes four golf holes inside the legendary loop. The race to enhance an amenity in the ultracompetitive high-end public golf market took a wild turn when Pete Dye renovated the course in 1993.

Dye designed six deep, sod-stacked hazards, known as revetted bunkers. In non-golf terms, think intricately constructed decorative brickwork. Every two or three years, the Brickyard Crossing agronomy team resembled a pit crew as they scurried to fix the bunkers. “About the time you got them finished and had them looking really good, it was time to tear them up and redo them,” says superintendent Jason Stewart, a prideful Hoosier and full-time Brickyard Crossing employee since 1999.

Just like racing, technology evolves in golf course design, construction and maintenance. Preserving links golf features within the design became less nettlesome following an in-house project that has, so far, restored all six of Dye’s original bunkers and added three new revetted bunkers.

A booming bunker business created through the industrywide hustle to offer enhanced, easier-to-maintain course features and the emergence of United Kingdom-developed synthetic edge technology is making revetted bunkers feasible options for U.S. courses. Durabunker and EcoBunker list numerous American courses as clients and both companies sell into the U.S. market. PermaEdge, a system developed by EcoBunker inventor and CEO Richard Allen, is being old directly into the U.S. under the EcoBunker Advanced brand.

Natural revetted bunkers struggle in most U.S. markets because warmer climates promote microbial activity that “eats up” stacked layers, causing sod to compress and eventually collapse, says architect Dave Whelchel. Trips to Scotland through the years introduced revetted bunkers to Whelchel and curious colleagues. But architects strayed from widespread implementation because natural faces proved expensive and labor intensive.

Take away the frustrating build-rebuild cycle synthetic edges prevent, and revetted bunkers become serious options for American courses. “I’m very happy to have it as a tool,” architect Lester George says. “Where I did it with real sod before, I didn’t like the outcome because it was costly to keep looking right and functioning right. Now we have a function for it that’s reliable and therefore it’s back in my mental palette if I want to use it. You don’t have to look far for examples of it. There are some magnificent ones out there.” Since encountering synthetic edging at the 2017 Golf Industry Show in Orlando, George has designed revetted bunkers on multiple sites, including Vestavia Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., which reopened last year following a massive renovation.

Stewart, who says Dye’s original revetted bunkers had become “dilapidated and unplayable” because of maintenance reductions sparked by the Great Recession, first associated synthetic edging as a possible long-term solution at Brickyard Crossing before the technology reached the U.S. Then, after becoming head superintendent in 2017, Stewart pushed to elevate the course’s overall conditioning, with work commencing on the first revetted bunker toward the end of the year. His crew juggled regular maintenance with the start of a bunker renovation last spring and the course restored had nine revetted bunkers with synthetic edging in time for LPGA’s Indy Women in Tech Championship in August. Blending links golf aesthetics and strategy within a parkland setting makes Brickyard Crossing a Midwest golf anomaly.

Scottish flair in Appalachia

The rooms in the stately Old White Hotel and surrounding cottages are the only spots where the ocean can be observed at The Greenbrier, a venerable resort in wooded southern West Virginia. Following a historic and tragic flood in 2016, director of golf course maintenance Kelly Shumate led a redesign of the resort’s Meadows Course.

The Meadows starts from the same clubhouse as The Old White TPC, site of the A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier PGA Tour event. The Greenbrier steers outings to the Meadows, so the course receives more group play than its PGA Tour brother, Shumate says. Besides various mountain views, the course lacked visual punch and the presence of greenside bunkers as far as 40 feet from putting surfaces bothered Shumate.

Presenting a memorable product to complement The Old White TPC led to a thorough evaluation of bunker design and function. Demonstrating superintendent practicality and architect creativity, Shumate designed just 39 bunkers, all of them using synthetic revetted edges.

“I go to a lot of courses, and I just think there are way too many bunkers,” he says. “If there’s an ugly patch of ground or if they are trying to steer your eye toward something else, they’ll stick a bunker in there and it really doesn’t come into play. Being a superintendent and being on the design side, I wanted to eliminate that. The best bunkers are hazards and very strategic.”

Reopened toward the end of the resort’s 2017 golf season, the Meadows bolsters The Greenbrier’s post-flood golf business by introducing Scottish flair to Appalachia. The challenge of playing a shot from a style of bunker rarely seen in the U.S. removes angst from a wayward shot entering a tricky hazard, Shumate says. “It’s going to catch their eye. They are going to think about it more, and they are probably going to get a little more excited and think less about the bad shot they just took to get in there. Instead, they are going to be excited to get it out.”

Shumate shifts to superintendent-speak when discussing the impact of the bunkers on agronomy. The flat-bottomed bunkers include an aggregate liner beneath the sand, and preparing a course averaging slightly more than two bunkers per hole, even after rain, yields less than two hours of labor on heavy play days. Occasional weed removal by hand is the only form of maintenance Stewart and Shumate have encountered on synthetic revetted faces. Moss pockets and weeds, coincidentally, give the bunkers a natural look.

“I think you’re going to see more and more of it,” Shumate says. “But the revetted look is not for everyone. If I’m designing a course for a membership where that membership is playing the same course over and over, I’d probably not go with it. For here and what the Meadows is, it was a very good fit for us. We don’t have a lot of repeat play.”

Perfecting the process

A call from former Fieldstone Golf Club superintendent Damon DiGiorgio sparked architect David Whelchel’s interest in the long-term possibilities offered by synthetic edging. Fieldstone, a 20-year-old private club in Wilmington, Del., designed by Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry, boasts an 8 ½-foot high sod-stacked bunker called “Lisa’s Heart” on its par-5 18th hole. The bunker, a memorable course feature, crumpled every two to three years and rebuilding it cost the club more than $10,000 each time, says Whelchel, who was involved in Fieldstone’s original design.

When DiGiorgio explained he discovered a synthetic solution to keep Lisa’s Heart intact, Whelchel flew to Wilmington and spent four days with a Southeastern Golf crew learning how to install synthetic edging on the 800-square foot bunker face. Sore from cutting tiles, laying sod and dispersing backfill, Whelchel returned to his Arkansas home thinking, “Yeah, that’s something I can use.” Whelchel has rebuilt multiple bunkers using synthetic edging since Fieldstone fixed Lisa’s Heart and colleagues now view him as a revetted bunker guru.

Whelchel has provided revetted bunker guidance to multiple fellow architects, including George, who was looking for a solution to restore a pair of dynamic revetted bunkers he designed at Kinloch Golf Club, a renowned private club in Richmond, Va. “They only lasted about three years with the inherent problems of trying to grow cool-season sod stacked up in Virginia, because we are not sand-based like Scotland and Ireland,” George says. “You just end up spending too much money rebuilding them every 36 months.”

At Vestavia, George used synthetic face technology to design multiple revetted bunkers, including a 6-foot deep hazard on the drivable par-4 9th hole. Whelchel trained the contractor working at Vestavia on how to build the bunkers. Once trained, Whelchel says a crew of five or six can install around 120 square feet of synthetic face per day. Steps, according to Whelchel, include: constructing a “firm and unyielding” base, packing the base with a plate compactor, cutting tile, and stacking layers horizontally and vertically to desired widths and heights.

The Greenbrier used a crew of six to construct bunkers on the Meadows. Work started with Shumate painting lines, followed by excavation, drainage installation, sod stacking, aggregate liner installation and sand dispersal. The crew completed a bunker every two days.

Brickyard Crossing experimented on its early bunkers, even disassembling one twice before crafting a suitable hazard. A three- or four-person crew installs bunkers at 70 degrees angles, using what Stewart calls “a two-stack” method and a 60-20-20 sand-soil-peat backfill to support the synthetic sod. Stamping is a methodical layer-by-layer process. “It’s time-consuming at first,” Stewart says, “but by our second or third one, we had a process down and moved pretty quick after that.” Positive feedback from the Midwest golf community and LPGA players will likely result in Brickyard Crossing adding more revetted bunkers as the renovation progresses.

“More than anything, it just adds visually to the golf course,” Stewart adds. “I now have a robust enough operating budget and a staff where we can maintain the course back to the level it was. That’s what I wanted to push for – restoring the conditioning that we were known for. Redoing all the bunkers will be a part of it. These faces are crisp, intimidating and very noticeable. I definitely think it will enhance the experience.”

Revetted bunkers: Use judiciously

By Tim Liddy

What do superintends want? Less maintenance. What do architects want? Steep slopes adding contrast, more shadows typically adding to maintenance. The answer? Revetted bunkers using artificial turf.

What is a revetted bunker? The “Merriam-Webster” dictionary definition of revetment is: “a facing (as of stone or concrete) to sustain an embankment.” It comes from the French word “revetir,” which means “to put on, wear or don.”

The history of revetted bunkers starts in Scotland as a tool to stop wind erosion, to shore up the faces of deep bunkers when there was nothing else more practical. In golfing terms, a revetted bunker is one where sods (grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by roots or a piece of thin material) are stacked to create a layered effect. Layers of sod have been used for this purpose for ages and have been a feature of Fife Golf since the 19th Century.

Greatly influenced by his visits to Scotland and early in my career with Pete Dye, we tried several times to build a revetted wall bunker on the third green at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Ind. Our mistake was building the revetted wall using locally grown sod planted in heavy clay soils. The revetted wall would invariably collapse from the weight of the soil after only a few rains. But we both loved the look with its strong shadow and textural contrast against the green surface as well as surrounding turf. He also liked the difficulty and intimidating view from the tee on this par 3.

Now let me explain how a modern revetted bunker adds contrast from a golf architect’s point of view. Notice the sketch on the following page. Let’s highlight the three hole locations on this green by using contrast: the left-front, the middle and the back-right. By adding a steeper slope at these locations, they highlight the required golf shot. The problem in the past has been these steeper slopes require additional hand maintenance and increased labor. But if these areas were constructed with artificial turf, it will actually reduce maintenance as no mowing will be required. With sustainability a major theme today, the timing for this artificial turf bunker face seems appropriate.

Conversely, revetted bunkers built with artificial turf are a great solution, but also a great worry by this architect. It is wonderful in small doses but can be overdone. Let’s Look at the Old Course at St. Andrews. Close to 90 percent of the bunker shots played on the Old Course now are sideways or backwards. The golfer who has hit into one of these has no hope. They become water hazards exacting a one-shot penalty. They should be hazards, of course, but where does hazard end and sacrifice on the alter of appearance begin? Aren’t we supposed to give a golfer hope that he can extract himself from the hazard with the potential to save par?

And let’s talk aesthetics. Do you think bunkers on the Old Course look natural? Of course not. Peter Thomson absolutely hated the bunkers on the Old Course, not so much because of the revetting, but because they are virtually all just cylinders in the ground. Don’t get me wrong. I think the judicious use of revetment is ideal, but if every bunker is revetted, it can provide an unnatural geometric appearance.

While we are on the Old Course bunkers, it is interesting that many are mostly hidden from view not for any architectural reason but mainly because they developed when the course was played in the other direction. That's why so many players who don't know the course get in them. They can't see them. On the other hand, the latest additions on the Old Course – most obvious at the 2nd where the original bunkers have been moved nearer the green – are obvious and the famous Road Hole bunker itself, which is now a pit compared to the rather shallow affair it was back in Bobby Jones's time, now stares you in the face. Is this good architecture or just making the golf course harder to keep up with tournament play?

The use of artificial revetted bunkers has many advantages, including less maintenance and improved sustainability. But let’s not get too carried by using them on every bunker of the golf course. Used judiciously, they provide interest and artistic contrast. As John Mayer sings in Gravity, “Oh twice as much ain’t twice as good.”

Tim Liddy, ASGCA, founded Tim Liddy/Associates Inc. in 1993. He has collaborated extensively with Pete Dye, designing and renovating some of the most acclaimed golf courses built in the last three decades.

When I last interviewed Armen Suny in 2010, he had already reinvented himself from teenaged turfhead to working for Richie Valentine at Merion to major championship host at Cherry Hills to suit-wearing general manager at ritzy Shadow Creek to golf course designer partnering with a Tour player. At every step along the way, he had blazed his own trail.

You will be unsurprised to learn that, in the intervening decade, he has reinvented himself again … and in a most unlikely way.

Suny, for many years the industry’s leading outsider, has now become one of its top insiders. He has become The Man for superintendent recruiting at Kopplin Kuebler & Wallace, the club industry’s leading search firm.

Suny has managed the search processes for some of the industry’s elite clubs who are all seeking elite superintendents. Suny and our friend, Tim Moraghan, account for many of the big-time superintendent jobs that have been filled in the past four or five years. And, as Baby Boomer superintendents begin to retire in earnest, more of those jobs will open for the first time in decades. In short, business looks good for those who help clubs find key personnel.

For those who want to know more about a man helping fill those positions …

Suny is a Philly guy. He grew up in the cradle of golf between Aronimink, Rolling Green and Merion. He played as much as he could and caught a job working for our pal, Mike Rothenberg and Steve Campbell, at White Manor CC, who helped him get into the Penn State turf program. That’s where Suny met Dr. Joe Duich, the legendary – and curmudgeonly – head of the program. The two would be lifelong friends.

Incredibly, after graduation, he was offered the assistant’s position at Merion, where he understudied with Valentine. If you’re younger, you may not understand that Valentine was Paul Latshaw before Paul Latshaw was Paul Latshaw. He was the pinnacle of our profession and Suny learned much from him. He stayed through the 1981 U.S. Open.

He ended up at Cherry Hills just four years later, hosting the 1985 PGA Championship. It was a landmark event for two reasons: Suny’s unapologetically tough setup for the Tour players, and the fact that he demanded and received the first bonus paid to a superintendent for hosting a major. He later moved south to Castle Pines GC, where he annually hosted the cool and quirky old International, which was the only Stableford scoring event on Tour.

His next stop was Shadow Creek CC, the ultra-exclusive course outside Las Vegas which, at the time, was owned by the iconic Steve Wynn. Suny was GM under one of the canniest businesspeople in the world. Much was learned. Eventually he headed back to Monument, Colorado (the man loves to ski), and began doing architecture work with Richard Zokol. He remains happily married to his wife Christy after 31 years. And, in another crazy Golf Course Industry connection, Christy introduced our friend, Terry Buchen, to his wife as well.

When I interviewed him in 2010, we covered his entire career and he seemed perfectly happy doing what he was doing. Little did we know that he had yet another career in store.

What’s an average day like for you now?

I have two kinds of days. I have the ones at home and I get up 6:30ish, drink coffee, and plan out emails and calls. Then I do a lot of phone interviews. I also look at Twitter. I love to see how superintendents are using Twitter. I’ll obviously look at the Twitter feeds of potential job candidates. It tells me a little about how guys and gals are using it, and what they think is important.

The other days I’m getting on a plane. I do about 50 trips a year, usually just for a couple of nights. I’ll be talking about proposed searches with clubs or doing interviews with prospects.

How do the searches usually work?

There is no typical arrangement other than we always work directly for the club. We’re not a placement service for people looking for jobs. It’s interesting that I do as many general manager searches as I do superintendent searches.

With superintendent searches, sometimes the GM is driving the bus, but usually I’m working with the GM and the search committee. We spend our time trying to figure out what kind of candidate would be best. I survey the group, visit the site, talk with the staff – try to get insights from every angle we can.

For some searches, I’ll narrow it down to six to eight really good candidates. I send out a questionnaire that’s maybe 10 pages or more. It’s a lot to digest so I tell the search committee they don’t need to read the whole thing but instead focus on the questions they care about and believe to be the most important. From there, we reduce it to a manageable number for interviews, probably three to five. GCSs like to visit the course and sometimes come up with extensive reports. During the interview, though, I want face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball discussions, not a presentation. That’s where we figure out the personal and cultural fit. There are lots of talented agronomists out there. Finding that fit between the candidate and the culture is where we really know we’ve done the job.

Seems like, with the Baby Boomers retiring, your business should be strong for quite a while.

True, but what’s scary is that I think we’re going to run out of talent in three to five years. Yes, kids are going to turf school, but also clubs have raised their expectations and there aren’t nearly enough to fill that demand. We also aren’t recruiting from communities and local kids anymore. It’s gonna be a crisis unless we begin to find different ways to bring young folks into our business.

Do you just focus on the Top 500 or so facilities?

No, we work with a pretty wide variety of clubs. We maybe have 3,000 potential clients.

A lot of leads come from our reputation in the industry. That started with Dick Kopplin, then Kurt Kuebler, then Tom Wallace. We’ve all been at great clubs so we get it. And it’s not just GMs and supers. We do golf pros, tennis and fitness, chefs, and assistant GM searches. We are the largest firm in the club world that does recruiting. We are big on education scene which really helps us build relationships.

Why are more clubs using search firms for supers these days?

Why wouldn’t they? It always fascinated me that clubs felt they could do super searches on their own. To me, it’s one of the most technical searches out there. They don’t know what a good answer is to the questions they’re asking candidates, so they ought to get assistance with the search. Plus, it takes a lot of time and they’re volunteers. They have way too much on their plate already.

How often are you placing a super at a club where KKW has already placed a GM?

A pretty high percentage – maybe half – are places we’ve already done a search. That said, I think that if they don’t retain us to help with their search, that they hire someone else to assist with their search. Clubs really need professional help.

What’s the biggest benefit to clubs?

Our finalists are often people who are not looking for a job until we go knock on their door. We look for the best talent, not just who’s available.

What should candidates do? I’m always surprised at how reticent they are. Sometimes they just don’t get it or sometimes they don’t want to appear disloyal.

Everyone asks, “How do I get on the radar scope?” One of the first things I do is tell them there are two kinds of people that look at applications: the ones who look at cover letters and the ones who look at resumes. You have three or four seconds to get their attention, so you need to make the most of the first few sentences of both the letter and the resume.

Remember that, ultimately, clubs hire you because of the person you are. You have to tell them why you’re the right person for them. I think of one guy who listed his three top personal values. Not his objectives or successes … his values. That’s great. Most people put their career objectives at the top of a resume. No one cares what your objectives are. The bottom line is they want to know what kind of person you are and they are busy people, so you better get their attention fast.

What are some typical mistakes?

Dumb stuff like spelling mistakes or factual errors about club. Also, if they have a hard time reaching you or they try to call you and your voicemail is full or you haven’t set it up. Not good.

I also see lots of candidates pitch their renovation experience. That’s really secondary to most clubs. They are far more interested in the championship conditions you provide every day.

But I’ll tell you the biggest mistake is not asking for the job. Imagine that, you get the interview, have a great interview and don’t close by asking for the job and explaining why you believe that you are the right person. Mindboggling.

OK, what are some tips for winners?

In your cover letter, show you did some homework. You’ve read between the lines of the job description and added something you learned that’s special about the club.

Also, Ritchie Valentine always said lots of guys could grow grass, but few were good communicators. I think that almost always comes up in superintendent searches.

We don’t offer services to candidates – we’re only compensated by the clubs – but I get calls from guys all the time and I coach them the best I can. One thing I always says is that if there are two equal candidates, the passionate one is gonna get the assignment.

Hmmm … that suggests the job might be open because the previous superintendent lacked that passion.

Every super should take this to heart. When you start driving by little problems you would have never driven by when you were younger, it’s time to reassess. When you stop playing your own course, it’s time to reassess. When you lose that passion, it’s time to reassess.

What do you think has changed most about the qualifications to be a good super over the years?

It’s interesting with golf being less of a draw for clubs than it used to be – it might not be the No. 1 or even No. 2 amenity for members – supers who have a global vision of where they fit in the club and they’re part of the team become even more valuable. Those are the ones that fit in the organizations.

We grew up with the whole “man vs. nature” philosophy in our profession. That was the mindset of supers, to be rugged individualists. And that impacted their relationships with other managers, the us vs. them mentality. Plus, being geographically removed down in the barn didn’t help. The ultra-successful people today understand that they’re on a team and have great relationships. There’s no more room for curmudgeons working in silos these days.

I’ve interviewed three supers with MBAs in the past couple of years. That really grabs the imagination of successful business leaders on search committees. A turf manager who thinks like a businessperson!

How should a candidate talk about compensation?

A lot of clubs have survey information about average salaries for superintendents in their area via the CMAA or whatever, so that’s going to be par. The market is the market. If you think you’re worth X and the market doesn’t agree, the market wins. That said, superior candidates will always get a second look.

Super salaries are definitely starting to climb and they’ll be climbing quite a bit more. We’re starting to see some big increases and the market is very competitive.

What do you tell assistants who are looking to build their careers?

I don’t tell, I ask. What are your aspirations? What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? They get enamored with having big-name clubs on their resume, but that isn’t all that important in searches run by firms like ours. It might help you with clubs that aren’t using a search firm, but we try to educate clubs about what’s important and not important.

We’re getting back to the point where they’re coming out of school and they’re going to get assistant’s jobs right away. The questions is, “What kind of training are you going to have before that?” I was spraying greens when I was 14 and making chemical plans when I was 18. How much time do they spend on their tech know-how? A ton. How much on careers? Hardly any. That’s why I encourage mentorship for these AITs and assistants within the club to learn about the other aspects of the organization.

You mentioned Twitter earlier and I obviously agree it can be a great tool if you’re savvy. Does your firm check old Facebook pages or Tweets to see if candidates have said stupid things?

We check open sources. We also have a company that does background checks and occasionally they turn up something that’s a problem. You have to be responsible about what you post. It’s not a reason not to do social media, it’s a reason to do it wisely. One other thing for all searches: not having a particular degree or certification might not disqualify you but lying about it will.

Tell me the single most important thing that search committees from Top 100 courses really want.

They have to feel good about you and you have to feel good about them. It’s gotta go both ways. They have to believe that you can take them to the promised land.

What’s most underrated by superintendents approaching a job search?

Probably their mentoring and leadership skills. How did they go about the process of developing people? Give specific examples of how you’ve done certain things. Don’t just say, “I’m a great mentor.” Instead say, “Let me describe my program and how this works.”

How about presentations and portfolios and pictures of your current course?

Everybody knows that every golf course looks great when you take the pictures well. Pretty pictures don’t matter. If you’re going to do it, make sure it’s good information and it’s going to educate them. This is all for the pre-interview, too. The interview is about a conversation and for the committee to get to know you and to understand what it would be like to work with you

Towards the end of the process, the follow-up interview might include a 20- to 30-minute presentation on a specific topic. We’ll ask them to prepare a white paper or presentation on one topic that’s important to the club. After last year, one topic might be: “What would you do to prepare for a difficult summer?” Could be a soft topic or hard topic. Whatever the committee thinks is relevant.

What are some critical things about the relationship between supers and GMs you’ve observed in your recruiting role?

Again, it’s so important to have a global vision. They are part of the success of the club, but it takes a team to make it work. Cross-department exposure and training is very, very important. For example, an assistant pro shadowing a super for the morning and learning what life is like for the maintenance crew and vice versa. It creates one team going forward.

If a young ambitious turf professional is reading this right now, what’s the ONE thing you’d scream at them to do in order to move up the ladder?

It’s not a thing the need to do. It’s a trait they need to establish. They must be CURIOUS. Joe Duich told us never to just drive by anything you think is interesting. Not just on the golf course, but anywhere. I’m inherently curious, but hearing that come from Joe was profound. I preach that all the time. Never stop being curious!

Pat Jones is GCI’s editorial director.

You may be wondering what this article is all about? Honestly, it’s two-fold. First, I must admit I’m repurposing my own writing as this article was published in our local superintendent newsletter. The feedback was so positive, and many colleagues requested I share it with a large-scale audience. So, here we go. Secondly, my hope is it’s something new for you to ponder or at the very least enjoy.

The purpose of this article is to allow myself to be vulnerable. Yes, you read that correctly. A person (in my case, being a man), admitting he wants to be vulnerable. My vulnerability centers around sharing with you my own professional secret that has allowed me to achieve great success in the area of building and developing teams (culture).

Am I able to grab your attention long enough to share with you my secret so you can apply it in a fashion that may fit you? Are you vulnerable enough to admit you want to read further and not get frustrated by a peer’s opinion on a sensitive topic? If so, keep reading.

There is a mighty ever-growing challenge in our workplace and it’s not turf related. It has nothing to do with erratic weather patterns or perfect greens. It has everything to do with the people. Yes, the people are the new age challenge. In my view, they represent our greatest opportunity to further cement our greatness as superintendents. Long gone are the days where folks were frustrated over who is assigned to mowing the rough and who is always favored to rake a bunker. Also, long gone are the days where you provided a uniform, lunch and benefits package to employees and you were in good shape. These basic employee benefits 10 to 15 years ago resulted in new applications overflowing our desks.

Believe it or not, the day has arrived where people will take less money for the right fit for themselves and a desire to work in a great culture. That’s right. A clash of the titans is occurring in our workplace. It is documented that currently in the workplace there are four different generations represented and working on a golf course at the same time: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z. It seems impressive until after careful review. Significant challenges are driven by behavioral differences of individuals representing each generation.

In more general terms, we are crossing old-school managerial expectations with the need for autonomy, more time off, connectivity and self-worth with the new school. All of us are experiencing this at such a rapid pace that we are either blaming a labor shortage on our labor issues or choosing to ignore the fact it’s hard to recruit and retain staff that are clashing without authentic leadership.

What might be happening is that we are having a trouble recognizing leadership skills necessary to change and meet the needs of the people, whether it’s Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y or whatever other great label attached to our lovely folks. And we still must deliver impeccable golf conditions! Honestly, let’s embrace it, because it’s not going away and gaining traction in the entire world outside of our golf courses.

So, how do you lead the various personalities clashing like titans at your facility and create a work culture that is cohesive, self-motivating, and produces extrinsic and intrinsic benefits for everyone on your team? How do you handle old school vs. new school workers?

My Secret

Remember I told you my purpose was to be vulnerable. So, my secret is vulnerable because it’s not conventional. I aspire to be a leader. My behavioral skill sets clearly define me as an organizational change agent and a hard driver for success. I have been blessed, like all of you, to be cursed by the love of turf and have established a reputation to deliver organizational workplace cultures that are transcending courses.

My success is in my secret. My professional secret is summed up for you as a four-letter word. Not the four-letter word you would expect, but the most powerful four-letter word in our world: love. Love has almost become taboo in the golf industry. But, love the old school – and love the new school. Love to manage or lead using your authentic being. Love yourself to know when you’re right, yet love yourself as much, if not more, when you are wrong. Love enough to recognize and educate to the world how hour industry is hard, but it’s rewarding. Educating the world isn’t so burdensome, as some like to communicate via social media platforms.

Love your staff and dedicate the appropriate time getting to know them beyond who is the best at cutting cups or mowing greens. Love team members enough to value their views and perspectives of your operations. Love in your own authentic way that grows a culture focused on people’s growth and conditioning as much as the turf receives growth and conditioning. Love to set your department as the example at the club no matter the staff size. Some of you are already loving in this way, although you may not term it love. I do, because it frees me to be different and it allows my team’s culture to feel distinctively different.

This a two-part secret. That love is not only mushy, gushy or a rah-rah speech, which I get accused of on social media. Love will deliver exceptional expectations and accountability in your facility. Love enough to terminate and free anyone who is a bad fit for your team. Love the lifer employee. Have faith in love in the workplace. Be a leader who loves. Love is the most powerful four-letter word. It’s an action that will develop. Most importantly, love will help tame the clash of the titans in the workplace. Let’s lead, be free and love.

Carlos Arraya, CGCS, is the director of agronomy and grounds at Bellerive CC in St. Louis, Mo.