Summer reading guide

Powerful mentorship guidance

By Lee Carr

Who are the people who have changed your life? It’s likely to be the ones who have shown you some tough love but who have also been willing to stand beside you and provide encouragement and guidance through many years. Another safe bet is that you have been a mentee and that paying it forward, naturally, you are also a mentor.

Whether you are new to mentoring relationships or you have experience, there are so many refreshing truths in “Who Believed in You,” a book about how purposeful mentorship can positively change the world.

The jacket cover tells you what lies ahead. The book “unpacks the four critical elements of transformative mentorship — mutual trust, shared values, meaningful commitment and the importance of instilling confidence — and offers guideposts and powerful illustrations from actual mentorship journeys.”

Co-authors Dina Powell McCormick and David McCormick are known for their public roles, as a former deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, and as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, respectively. Collectively, they have held prominent roles in finance, business and the military, leading well and often.

The book is not political but shares mentorship relationships from people who span the political spectrum. Most important, it covers “helping people become their best selves, and how that action has a powerful compounding effect in our society.”

There are three parts of the book: The Four Pillars of Transformative Mentoring, Transformative Mentoring in Practice, and Transformative Mentoring for True Change. Scanning the index will help locate the stories that might interest you most; the appendix compiles data from three surveys designed and conducted for this work, and key takeaways are highlighted throughout the main text.

Interestingly, the surveys show that in a mentor, women were more likely to seek authenticity and someone who is a good listener and men were more likely to seek someone who conveys power and prominence. The survey also revealed that those earning more than $100,000 indicated a greater likelihood of having a mentor than those earning less.

Mentor relationships can affect educational choices, career opportunities and life decisions but the mentee must be willing to do the work and has to want to build trust and be receptive to honesty. There must be a commitment on both sides and the idea is for the relationship to be not just transactional, but transformative and based on values. Great mentoring relationships can be formally established but most develop organically.

What Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and also a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says in the book resonates: “We need to encourage and even push mentees to do things they might not want to learn — at least not at first. We have to teach them to do things they are unfamiliar with. We have to challenge them to be great. That’s how people develop confidence. I challenge everybody who works for me, and I do it in the name of trying to make them better.”

This book is worth absorbing critically. One of the cool, dynamic things about mentoring is that like so much of life, you can’t always be sure about results when you are putting in the work. You must trust the intention and the process. Looking back, you can enjoy what a positive difference you are making.

Name you should know

By Guy Cipriano

Perhaps Tom Bendelow’s name rests on the scorecard, within the archives or on a locker-room wall of the course where you work or play golf. It wouldn’t be surprising considering his vast portfolio.

Bendelow, according to Dr. Michael Hurdzan and the late Geoffrey Cornish in the foreword of Stuart Bendelow’s “Thomas ‘Tom’ Bendelow: The Johnny Appleseed of American Golf,” was involved in more than 700 golf course design efforts from the late 1890s through the late 1920s. The startling total makes him the first prolific architect in a country with more than 40 percent of the current global course supply. Bendelow’s work impacted courses in 40 states and five Canadian provinces.

He linked the primitive era and the Golden Age of American golf architecture. But Bendelow’s contributions to golf and course design are overlooked compared to contemporaries such as Donald Ross, Charles Blair Macdonald, A.W. Tillinghast and Alister MacKenzie, thus the reason his grandson Stuart researched and wrote the book.

Superintendents and other industry professionals might be maintaining a course initially routed by Bendelow and not even realize it. Hundreds of his courses have undergone numerous life cycles and iterations. Golf shifted immensely between 1892, when Bendelow emigrated from Aberdeen, Scotland, until his death in 1936. The game has changed numerous times since his death.

Early in his career, Bendelow delivered rudimentary layouts to clients for a practical reason: golf was still being introduced in the United States. His role extended beyond designer. He also taught the game and touted its benefits. Bendelow was an early proponent of public golf, and he’s the designer responsible for expanding New York’s Van Cortland Park into America’s first 18-hole municipal layout.

“In the beginning Tom’s function was more as a teacher than as a designer,” Stuart writes. “His layouts were training grounds to new players.”

Bendelow’s bosses at A.G. Spalding & Bros. Company in the early 1900s had a business interest in introducing golf to the masses. Equipment sales spike when participation rates increase. For a company such as Spalding, employing Bendelow helped expand the course supply, a necessity to increase participation rates.

Spalding was based in Chicago, so Bendelow settled in the Windy City. Chicago’s public golf prowess — no region supports more public facilities — can be traced to Spalding’s and Bendelow’s presence. Bendelow, according to a course listing in the book, worked at more than 120 Illinois courses. His Chicagoland included the region’s most well-known municipal course, Jackson Park, and the original designs of all three courses at famed Medinah Country Club.

Inexpensive and accessible courses dot other Midwest states where Bendelow helped introduce golf. Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana and Iowa also possess an abundance of layouts created or modified by Bendelow.

Another way to gauge Bendelow’s impact: the Midwest is a fabulous incubator of golf course superintendents and turf talent. People who contribute to making golf a better game need places to learn the game. Bendelow helped expand the course supply to meet growing golf demand. Many readers of this magazine have played or maintained a course where Bendelow worked.

After leaving Spalding in 1916, Bendelow shifted his design focus to providing more nuanced layouts, because he had more time to devote to each project. But course volume remains a huge part of his legacy. Reading about his life and heavy workload through a familial voice provides an understanding of a historic name still frequently mentioned.

Always something more to know

By Kelsie Horner

Did you know you can play golf aside lions, tigers and giraffes? Do you know where the sand wedge originated? Or who invented the first golf tee? David McPherson’s “101 Fascinating Golf Facts” provides an easy, lighthearted read filled with historical and unique facts about the great game of golf.

It’s clear through his writing that McPherson has devoted decades to studying golf as a culture and a hobby. McPherson, author of Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Massey Hall and 101 Fascinating Canadian Music Facts, is a veteran golf journalist with features in numerous prominent golf publications, including Golf Course Industry.

The book features golf facts formatted in numbered chapters in a conversational and educational tone, making for a straightforward, understandable read. The book can be enjoyed by players, trivia lovers and beyond, whether one section at a time or in one sitting.

McPherson provides insight and surprise, as he takes the reader through golf’s history. He dives into the beginning of the game in Scotland, and how it spread to become a worldwide hobby … how tees developed from sand piles into wood and plastic … how Augusta National became so prestigious.

Odd facts are shared, intriguing the reader and urging them to continue. For example, the first set of golf rules were scripted in 1744, featuring 13 guidelines for the game. There are now 24, with subsets included among them. Rule 23-6 forbids a player from moving a live snake if encountering one during play. If I ever find myself in this position, I’ll take a penalty stroke and forget the ball. The snake can be relocated if it’s dead.

McPherson also reveals comeback stories of intense tournament play, and legacies of players’ perseverance through accidents and tragedies.

Superintendents may read this book and gain an even deeper understanding of their role on a golf course and how golf course maintenance has evolved, from wooden hand rollers to robots. The book unearths decisions, stories and history made on the course — and there would be no golf if someone wasn’t working each day to care for the space.

Documenting the golf dream with candor

By Guy Cipriano

Joseph Bronson experiences many golfers’ dreams.

He resides in California’s Monterey Peninsula, a dreamy seaside location packed with memorable courses. He also takes frequent excursions to places with dreamy courses.

His zest for sharing experiences and perspectives led to him creating a golf blog. Bronson’s writing ambitions expanded, and he recently released his third book, “PARdon Me,” a candid collection of stories, reflections and wisdom from 50 years of playing golf. Retired from the corporate world, yet still highly active in the golf travel and writing realm, we spoke with him to gain insight into how a golfer blessed to visit elite courses views the game and industry.

When you arrive at a course, especially one you haven’t played, what are you looking for in a golf experience?

I look for the terrain and the playability of the course. I love these courses that are so neatly shaped. A lot of the East Coast courses, particularly East Coast private clubs, are like that. You have brilliantly mowed fairways, which they can make as wide as they want and as short as they want, and then they have first and second cuts of rough. You look at bunker positioning. You also look at the par 3s. Where do you have to hit it and where do you have to aim the ball? Or do you have to bail out? Do you have water and bunkers to avoid? The visual nature of it, to me, is really important and fun. I just played Woodway Country Club in Darien, Connecticut, which was really fantastic, and Patterson Club in Fairfield. Those courses were in immaculate condition.

How do you want to be treated when you visit a property for the first time?

You want to be treated with respect, and you want it to be welcoming. But I can tell you that’s not 100 percent of the gig. It is for the most part, but I write about some experiences, particularly in the United Kingdom, where you are treated like dirt basically. There’s signage all over the place telling you what you can and cannot do, which I find terrible. It’s just a turnoff.

What’s more important to you: playability or aesthetics?

I like the playability.

And has that changed since you started playing golf?

I like good fairways and consistent bunkers. There’s nothing worse than playing a course where the bunkers are inconsistent. And greens really differentiate courses. Some greens are really fantastic; others are very ordinary. I like fast greens. Our greens at Monterey Peninsula are 13, so they present quite a challenge. When we bring guests, we heavily warn them that nothing will be conceded. I have won matches watching a guy miss a 2-inch putt. It’s just crazy.

How have your golf experiences changed since 2020?

I’m a little privileged because the places I play haven’t changed that much. The book has a great chapter on slow play, and I take Pebble Beach to task. There’s a story in the book about how I thought I was going to beat the six-hour round at Pebble Beach, and I ended up playing 17 and 18 in darkness. It’s ridiculous. They just don’t enforce the rules. There’s no reason for the six-hour round of golf. Slow play is really a problem. It’s not for me. Bandon Dunes, for example, commits to the golf time and respects the players. Pebble Beach doesn’t. Pebble Beach is a bucket list item. If the 1 handicap playing behind you is miserable, then too bad. I find that horrible. To me, it’s the responsibility of the course. If the players don’t know any differently, they need to be pushed along.

Where is golf headed at the elite courses you visit?

I’m pretty positive about it. I spend a lot of time writing about how the pandemic revived the game and made it acceptable to the current generation. The current generation for the most part was stuck in video games and not really reaching out. I’m seeing a lot of people are now reaching out. I think the game is in a positive state. I spend a lot of time with colleges and universities. All of our proceeds of the books go to university golf programs and The First Tee. I love playing with the kids, because they are hitting it 100 yards past me. It keeps me going. I play with the Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount golf teams. I think collegiate golf is really on the rise, and it’s going to continue to turn out a great product.

How glad are you that you found this game as an adult?

It’s fantastic because it gave me something I can do for the rest of my life. I’m one of those guys who no matter what I’m doing, I’m always trying to get better. I’m trying to be a better golfer, trying to be a better writer, trying to be a better grandfather. I’m always trying to be better at something. Golf is never ending. If you talk to Rory McIlroy, he’s trying to get better. They are all trying to get better. That’s been the cornerstone to it.