"In this day and age, a golf-course superintendent must be an educator, scientist, agronomist, economist and a good people manager. If you put all this together with a love for a piece of earth, then you've got a good golf- course superintendent."
- Tom Watson
There was a time when the most overlooked individual at a golf club was the course superintendent.
He would be up before dawn virtually seven days a week to mobilize and assign a crew to myriad tasks before the first of the day's golfers arrived. After a round, some golfers would be known to complain that the condition of the course wasn't up to par - especially after a bad round. And it made no difference if the fickle hand of Mother Nature had been responsible for spoiling things more than anything else.
But times have changed. A course superintendent's life, in most instances, is no longer a thankless existence because of the acknowledgement of their importance to the care and well being of Tom Watson's "piece of earth."
A survey by Golf Digest in 1997 showed 48 per cent of 500 subscribers to the magazine listed the course superintendent as the most important person at a golf facility. Twenty-five per cent said it was the club's head professional, while 14 per cent gave the nod to the club's manager and 11 per cent to the person in the beverage cart or at the canteen after the ninth hole.
"Thankless job? It's not the case anymore," said Doug Meyer, course superintendent at Beaconsfield Golf Club in Pointe Claire. "At Beaconsfield, I've never been more respected. The membership basically handed the golf course over to me to look after it and provide the best conditions possible. If the good conditions are there, the respect is there. If things are falling apart, well ... that can be another issue."
READ THE REST OF THIS STORY>>>
