When he's not busy overseeing the St. John's golf program, Frank Darby spends much of his time working for the Met PGA as its tournament operations director. Essentially, he is in charge of getting golf courses ready for competition. Darby recently spoke with Paul Suwan about his jobs and having the best of both worlds.
You're a hard man to track down. When does your Met PGA season start and how many events do you typically work each year?
"It starts probably the first week in April. That overlaps with St. John's, but I get weekends off with the Met PGA, and our events at St. John's are mostly weekends. So it kind of overlaps a little bit. Plus, not this year but the last few years, I've made it to the NCAAs, which takes me into May. This year, I didn't make it, so I had a little bit more free time.
"But I've got something going five days a week during the summer, whether it's (a course preparation) or I do a lot of scoreboards as well. I bet you I do 60 events during the year. We have two travel pro-ams during the year with the Met PGA; one of them is at Pinehurst, which is a week. So I'm sure I'm on the course 60 or 70 days a year."
More specifically, what does the Met PGA job entail?
"I'm in charge of golf-course setups and everything to do with the actual golf course for a tournament date. You're communicating with the golf professionals, you're communicating with the superintendents, setting hole locations and just prepping the golf course for the competition."
Do you set up a course differently for a field with just professionals as opposed to one with some amateurs?
"Usually we're dealing with the premier amateurs - them and the club professionals, mostly. So they're pretty good caliber players. But I really wouldn't set golf courses up that much different (for an amateur). You try to give them a good look. A lot is dictated by what the superintendents are doing. Some guys really go crazy for a big event coming in, like they'll build a deep rough, and other events not so much. You're always battling with superintendents a little bit. They don't want their golf courses chewed up, and I like to see good scores, and so do all my club officials. So we kind of battle a little bit over that, but not a lot."
How much grief do you get from players about course setups?
"These guys are all my buddies. I'm a PGA member and I was a head pro for a while, so I have a pretty good relationship with all these guys. These guys know that I give them a couple doozies once in a while, but we're friends. And I give them some heat as well, so it's a love-hate relationship, which is what the tour guys are dealing with as well. They deal with the same bunch of people every week, as we do. So (the players) kind of know what you're going to do. They kind of know what to expect from you. They can pretty much tell where I'll put things, but it's fun. It's nice being in the middle of everything. It helps my coaching at St. John's as well."
What's the hardest part of the Met PGA job?
"I don't really think there's anything really, really, really hard. It's just sometimes it's long days. I mean, you're there from 6 in the morning to 7 at night sometimes, and with playoffs it can be (even longer). But you know what? It's nice being outside. It's not having to be behind a desk with a computer."
And the best part of the job?
"It never really becomes rote because too many things can happen, so it's not like you ever really get bored."
Between coaching college players and working with the area's top pros, do you feel like you have the best of both worlds?
"No doubt about it. I just like being in the middle of everything, and I am in the middle of everything. I'm in the middle of too much stuff. It's like I'm trying to hide sometimes, and I can't hide. But it's great. I have no complaints." "
Source: The Journal News (Westchester County, N.Y.)
