Evidence of things to come

Sometimes when visiting a golf course for an article, a consult or simply to enjoy a round of golf, I end up feeling like a detective stumbling upon clues. Not exactly a murder case, more like a slow death — or, on more memorable occasions, a chance to celebrate that things are going fine and the golf course and club are in reliable hands.

I got tipped off to this phenomenon when forced to engage in a conversation with a security guard at the front gate who asked me who my host was. When I named the emeritus golf professional, he immediately launched into a mild smear of his character. Not a good sign.

At another facility, my parking lot arrival was slowed because the spaces were full — except for two front spots reserved, as per the signage, for the men’s and ladies’ club champions. Now here is a place, I thought, that takes itself too seriously. As did the club where, on the way to the driving range, I spotted a sign that listed the day’s Stimpmeter speeds for each green.

Of course, there are municipal counterparts to such entitlement: like the parking lot where all the spots closest to the clubhouse (besides the handicap spots) are taken by employees.

I know I’m headed for trouble when the bag drop folks automatically put arriving golf bags on golf carts — which are lined up by the dozens outside the pro shop and you have to tiptoe around them to get to the clubhouse

Out on the golf course, my heart sinks when I see red-white-blue flags arrayed for front-middle-back positions on greens. Or tombstone hole indicators on the tee sporting not just hole number, par and yardages, but also the blessings of a local mortician or haberdasher.

There are deeper pathologies evident at some clubs. Golf members at private clubs who flaunt the first starting time by insisting on going off early and then must wend their way through maintenance crews doing early setup. Or courses so jammed with Monday outings that the ground never recovers and the maintenance crew hardly has free run for topdressing, aeration and repairs.

The best-run courses find their general manager, golf professional and superintendent in sync and conferring regularly. The worst have a person nominally in charge who is one step up from a wine steward squabbling with the board. Or a pro who is more invested in placating his friends among the membership than enforcing rules about cart-path only and five carts to a fivesome. Or an overworked, underpaid veteran greenkeeper saturating the Poa annua fairways and greens in a desperate effort to keep his job long enough to see his kids through college.

At well-run golf courses, the management team coordinates matters up and down the line. The green committee, for example, meets at the maintenance facility and channels facility needs to the board. At poorly run clubs, the board functions like a personal fiefdom, with lots of turnover, committees appointed (or ignored) at the whim of a one-year president, and decisions about the course made to fit the golf event schedule and the playing habits of a green chairman — whose only familiarity with agronomy are the two articles he read that morning on Google.

Turning around the culture of a degraded facility is a topic that gets very little industry attention. At most stagnant facilities, the biggest obstacle is a senior membership (or playing cohort) that plays all of its golf there, enjoys low rates, doesn’t spend beyond a bare minimum of fees, and threatens to resign if any changes are made that will cost them financially or in terms of access.

By contrast, healthy facilities have an active churn of new members: generally younger, more monied, more traveled, more golf-worldly and thus understanding of what it takes to keep a place competitive. If progressive board members can align themselves with a truly professional senior staff, then the facility has a very good chance of adapting to our rapidly changing times, usually by investing in infrastructure upgrades.

Otherwise, the club will languish and lose ground. The signs of that will be everywhere.