During his first six years as golf superintendent at Somerset Hills Country Club, Ryan Tuxhorn focused on cultivating support for low-cost, high-impact projects. Time after time, the enhancements stayed within budget and maintained the unique character that keeps the course on the list of the top 100 in the U.S.
Every success built trust among members who now know they can rely on him to keep his promises and act in the best interest of the course. When all the possible small-scale improvements were successfully done, Tuxhorn was in a position to lobby for more aggressive projects that pushed the course to its next level of excellence.
The resulting windfall came last year in a series of projects at Somerset Hills, a course designed by A.W. Tillinghast and built in 1918. The club installed a new irrigation system, expanded fairways and rebuilt four tee complexes plus a new putting-green facility. Everything but the irrigation system was done with in-house resources.
“We have a mission statement here, and we can’t just do a project for the heck of it,” Tuxhorn says. “There has to be solid proof that we are restoring the golf course to how it used to be, maintaining the integrity of the course and trying to bring back all the little undulations that you can lose.”
With patience and time, Tuxhorn grew more confident in the club’s ability to complete projects with in-house resources and help from an architect, Brian Slawnik with Renaissance Golf Design. “We got hit really hard by Hurricane Sandy and lost hundreds of trees,” he says. “It was an example where we took on all the work in-house and saved the club about $200,000. Whenever we do things like that, they realize that we have the good of the membership in mind.”
One of the perks of a relationship built on trust is less stress when you make a proposal. For Tuxhorn, it has become a relaxed process of gathering member feedback that can shape a project, and educating members to fully understand the benefits. He often paves the way to approval by taking members into the field where he can explain how and why things will be done.
No one likes to see a project go over budget. That’s why Tuxhorn is meticulous about budgeting. “Showing before and after pictures of your projects, having the details right and finding ways that you can stretch a dollar by working with contractors to keep costs down can really build confidence,” he says.
