I’ll never host a major…

Heritage Oaks is a little 18-hole municipal course in Harrisonburg, Virginia, right in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. The Valley is the place I’ve called home most of my life. Golf is booming again post-COVID, and the local courses (including ours) are no exception. It’s great to see the numbers and we are seeing a new influx of the twenty-something golfers who will be the future of the game.

This renewed interest in golf takes me back to the time I started, the “Tiger” effect on golf and the explosion following it. I became a superintendent at the ripe old age of 24 (and I was so not ready for it). In my career I’ve had the pleasure of running a public course, a private course, a resort course, and now a municipal golf course, covering the gamut of golf, if you will, and I’ve spent close to 30 years in and around golf. And I learned something about me early on, but first this ...

I took a minute recently to look up the amount of golf courses in the United States and that number sits right around 16,000. Approximately 75 percent are public courses, and there are about 3,000 municipal facilities. Of those 16,000 courses, a small percentage host or will host professional events and an even smaller percentage welcome a major PGA or LPGA event.

Those numbers lead me to this: In this industry you can do just about anything you want if you make the commitment to do so. Jeremiah Mincey, a Class B golf course superintendent, is someone I follow on X. Being one of the few African Americans in this industry (his words), I enjoy reading what he posts. He recently said, “One of the best parts of the turf industry? It takes you places you’d never thought you’d go. From new golf courses to tournaments, to traveling across the country, every opportunity brings a new experience and a new lesson. It’s more than a job, it’s a journey.”

I knew early in my journey that I had no desire to be at a high-end facility, or a facility that would host a PGA event, an LPGA event, or any type of professional golf event. Why, you ask? Did I not have dreams or aspirations of bigger and better things?

I actually didn’t.

First of all, I have the utmost respect and professional admiration for the guys and gals who have hosted and continue to host big events. Close to me in Virginia, fantastic superintendents like Scott Furlong at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club and Pete Wendt at Congressional Country Club host HUGE events and put out a product second to none. I am in awe of what they do, the pressures they are under, and the final product that appears come game time. As Dick Vitale would say, they are the PTP’ers — the Prime Time Players.

But I never had that in me. There are folks who I started with in this business who had those aspirations, and they followed those desires. They knew what they wanted from their career. Their goals were much different than my own. But I never wanted that. I started young and meandered through the profession, learning from some great superintendents like Corey Haney and Jeff Thompson in Virginia. I picked up experience along the way and continued to grow. My professional desire all along was to be something different: I wanted to run the whole show and be a general manager.

My bachelor’s degree is in education. I wanted to be a teacher and actually was for about three years in the 2010s. But the golf bug hit me early and I made this industry home. Along the way I began to work with some fine people who showed me other parts of the golf course life: the restaurant and how it could and couldn’t work, the clubhouse/pro shop/front of the house and how that worked, and finally a couple great general managers who were willing to talk with me about how they found successes and share their failures as well. I ended up running a Moose Lodge and firsthand ran a food operation there to get that experience. I came back to golf in 2020 and was given the opportunity I have now as the general manager and golf course superintendent, the job I always wanted.

I fulfilled my dream, and I continue to enjoy it every day that I am here. Nothing touches it for me professionally. It’s the pinnacle of my 25-plus-year journey in golf.

As I enter the twilight of my career, I’ve noticed that I have become the older guy in the room now. Several longtime industry guys have said if you hang around long enough, you’ll become “that” person. But as I enter this time in my life, I also look back on the “journey” that Jeremiah talked about. I watch the PGA Tour regularly and look at those courses on TV. I’m just blown away at what those places do. Again, huge respect for them and for this industry as a whole as we continue to improve and upgrade course conditioning. However, I will never be that superintendent, that general manager or at the course that begins to prepare years in advance for that upcoming PGA Tour event or major.

And I don’t think it makes me less of a professional.

I’m OK with it and always have been. I don’t look at being at one of those courses as the pinnacle of what I wanted my career to be. What I am doing today is that to me. It was my path, my journey, and I reached my destination.

And what a great ride it has been and continues to be …

Charlie Fultz is the general manager and golf course superintendent at Heritage Oaks Golf Course in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This is his sixth Turfheads Take Over contribution.