When a grow-in is done right, a superintendent isn’t appreciated. Grass is supposed to grow, right? But when things go wrong, the superintendent pays for years to come – that’s if he’s not fired in the meantime. I know. I’ve seen it. I’m not a superintendent, but I was a day laborer on a course built in Tennessee in 2002, the tail end of the last construction boom.
I saw things from the bottom up. It was 6 a.m., and the superintendent was mad. “And one more thing, no more 30-minute dumps in the port-a-pots. Do that kinda crappin’ on your own time.” The crew doesn’t laugh.
Some of the skilled crew members don’t come around until the real work is done. Me and the rest of the unskilled workers, we set up silt fencing, haul off tree limbs, throw sod, spread sprigs – back-braking stoop work.
First, there was Jimmie. He smoked and spat incessantly. He’d spit on the floorboards of vehicles. He’d spit on the tools, on gloves left on the ground, on the piece of sod you were about to pick up. “Don’t do that,” I told him. He didn’t come back for a second day.
Then there was Jerry. The crew was stringing heavy cable for a fence and the wire cutters were dull. “The hell with this!” he yelled. “I can make 15 dollars an hour delivering pizza!” He walked.
Then there was Davey, the skinhead who threw empty Skoal tins at passing traffic. He lasted all of two hours. “I’ll have to mail him 14 bucks minus taxes,” the superintendent laments.
And then there was Double Gee, who was a jokester. “Supe, backhoe me a 6-foot trench. I’m gonna plant you inside.” Double Gee had his own lingo. Doing the “perch and lolly” meant hiding from the superintendent in some secluded, well-protected spot. Doing the “slow mo” meant executing a long, contemplative pause between picking up a branch and discarding it in the woods. Doing the “literal” meant whacking at the weeds, not necessarily decapitating them. Digging up silt fencing meant snapping off the stakes at ground level, leaving jagged pieces to ruin the mowers later in the season. “We’re not paid enough to think,” Double Gee reminds me solemnly.
I try to do a good job. “Man, why you workin’ so hard?” Double Gee asks me repeatedly. I shrug. But I finally get on his nerves. One day, the superintendent sends us out to throw some sod, and I see the ground needs preparation. So, I hustle to the shop and come back with a trailer full of tools. Double Gee wants to do a “literal,” but I insist on pruning back the roots and digging up the rocks. Exasperated, he pinches his nose and says, “Bringing out the pruners, oh what a smashing idea!” I crack a grin. The afternoon is a “literal” success, and the sod dies “slow mo.”
The construction guys – the shapers, ditchwitchers, backhoe operators, irrigation contractors – are the aristocrats of the job. They’re nomads and travel from job to job, state to state, living in company-paid condos. They’re weary of it all, but can’t give it up. The money’s too good, and they’re allowed to hire the girlfriends they pick up on the way.
The superintendent inspects what they’re doing and points out some errors. The green on six isn’t graded right. The irrigation valve for 10 through 16 shuts off 15 through 18 instead. The next big rain is going to wash out the rocks underneath the bridge on nine. The construction guys look at the superintendent blankfaced, telegraphing the obvious: “The long term, that’s your headache, baby. We’re outta here in another three weeks.”
Mother Nature doesn’t care either. The course erupts in army worms in late July. The superintendent frantically put down some Delta Guard, but the damage is done. Every piece of sod turns a dirty brown or moldy black. The superintendent suspects the sod was already laced with eggs when delivered from Georgia. He’d like to prove it but doesn’t have time to pull a Perry Mason. He has to disc the dirt in between the holes and plant rye. It’s bone dry, and the ground is baked concrete, but if he waits for good weather, the grow-in will never happen. The seeding takes a week of bone-jarring tractor and Bobcat work, and the superintendent is praying for rain all the while. It comes all right, all at once – four inches in two hours. The course is washed.
The sod the crew was supposed to staple slides down the slopes and collects in vast rotting heaps. The hillsides are eroded down to the hardpan. The bunkers and other low places are silted three-feet deep. The seed? It sprouts nicely but in massive clumps around the culverts and against what’s left of the silt fencing.
The course looks like hell. It’s difficult to get up in the morning now. The superintendent longs for the days when he worked at a real course instead of a mud puddle. He vows he’ll never do a grow-in again.
That’s when they start coming. The superintendent’s so-called friends to see how the course is fairing. The other course superintendents in the area, board members checking up on things, an old boss where the superintendent used to assist. “You’re watering too much,” one says. “You’re not watering enough,” says another. “I always put down Delta Guard whether I see worms or not.” “Issue your crew orange Day-Glo hats so you can spot them hiding in the woods.” “Fire everybody.” “Keep everybody you can.” “Police the grounds. It looks trashy out here.” “Don’t bother with the trash, concentrate on the grow-in.” So on and so forth.
The second-guessing, the armchair quarterbacking, it all gets on the superintendents nerves. The snickers, the “I told you so’s” make him want to scream. But he can’t hide. Every idiot in a car who drives by can see his handiwork in progress – everything he does and every mistake he makes is on display for everybody to see and pass judgment.
It’s fall now, and we’re concentrating on the greens. Double Gee is history, and things are slowing down some. As I mow, I think about how I would’ve seeded the greens more densely and put more fertilizer down. But what the hell, it’s your ass, not mine. GCI
