With six months here at Golf Course News under my belt, one observation sticks out more than others – running a golf course is a lot of hard work. From keeping the course green and healthy to managing the grounds crew and clubhouse staff, much more goes into the business than the average golfer sees.
I’m not the only one of my group to “see the light” when it comes to the golf industry. A friend of mine, Greg Andrego, is the head golf professional at Ellsworth Meadows Golf Club in Hudson, Ohio. Growing up, I played baseball with his brother Rick. Now there are two Andregos who are better than me at sports I love.
Another friend of mine, Joey Huang, is part of the group that bought the former Ashtabula (Ohio) Country Club over the winter and turned it into the semi-private Harbor Golf Club. Instead of complaining about playing conditions at the course, he now gets to hear the complaints from others. Sounds fun, Joey.
Having been the average golfer, it’s easy for me to see what Joe Q. Public sees when out on the course. Golfers often rate bunker sand, speed of the greens and difficulty of the course when speaking with other golfers.
From this side of the business, I now realize many factors go into maintaining bunkers, maintaining green speed and presenting a challenging, yet fair layout. Yet I know well I still have only scratched the surface.
To me, having good sand and a rake should suffice. Superintendents and those who maintain golf courses realize those two features are important, but are only a pair of items on a long list of things that go into a playable and aesthetically pleasing bunker. I laugh at people who complain about bunkers. They see Tour players make sand saves more times than not and expect the same from their game – hollering about a double bogey and blaming the trap. Remember, it’s a hazard. If you don’t want to pay the penalty, avoid hitting the beach.
I’ll admit, until January, I was one of the guys who would berate a course for slow greens. I grew up on a course with slow greens and would always feel cheated when I got to experience a course with faster putting surfaces. My buddies and I would always pose the question (to each other): Why doesn’t (insert course name) just mow the greens lower? Now I know it had to do with the health of the turf and the number of rounds pushed through that busy course every day.
The layout of a course never really came to mind before reading Jeffrey D. Brauer’s columns every issue. I’d just play the course and try to score the best I could. Now, I look at a course and actually have (semi-intelligent) opinions about where bunkers are placed, tees are situated and water comes into play.
On a scale of 1 to 100, my golf-course-operations knowledge might be at 15 now, but that’s a long way from the 2 I was blissfully, ignorantly enjoying prior to joining the Golf Course News staff.
