When the job takes over

For a long time, the life Chris Allen aspired to was right under his nose. But it wasn’t until he was called out — called an “idiot” — by a virtual stranger that he began to see things as clearly as they were close.

It was July 2019 and Allen had barely sat down at a dinner hosted by John Deere at the company headquarters in Moline, Illinois, when the guest beside him asked how many hours he worked in an average week. Just a few years into the superintendent role, Allen admits he was feeling “all proud” of himself when he answered, “Oh, probably 70 to 80.” Without hesitation, not even the blink of an eye, Allen’s dining partner shot back: “You’re an idiot.”

The ensuing conversation changed Allen’s life.

At that time, he was a divorced father of two working his golf course — Eagle Lakes Golf Club in Naples, Florida — not like it was the only thing that mattered, but certainly first in line. It had been that way since he landed the job in October 2015 and was a major reason why, just a few months post-promotion, his wife told him to leave.

Things unraveled quickly for a couple that had been married five years and together for a dozen. Allen and wife, Emily, a schoolteacher, had yet to start a family when he became superintendent, but they were building for one.

“When I got the role and went home and told her, we were all excited,” he says. In that context, setting a goal of working 15 or more hours a day for his first 100 days in the job seemed like an investment in their future, more than the insanity he sees it as now.

“I said, ‘Listen, the next three months, I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can to get this place back on its feet,’” he recalls. “I accomplished that goal, but it caused a lot of heartache. I was never home. I would be in at work at 4:30 a.m., work until 5 p.m. when the course would be too busy to do anything out there, eat dinner at the club, do office work until dark, then go back out and spray until 11.”

Yes, there was a payoff. The golf course did get better, and Allen shaved more than $40,000 off the budget in those first three months by “pinching pennies in all the right spots, being organized and forecasting.” Naturally, his general manager and his single owner “loved it.” But there was a price, too.

“I definitely, 100 percent, put work before home, which is a very common occurrence in our industry,” Allen says. “For most superintendents, our work ethic is through the roof, right? And we’re all very proud of that. I’d come home thinking I’d done this great day of work and Emily was ready to shoot me because we weren’t spending any time together. I thought she was insane.”

Idiot.

“To me, I was doing what was right, doing what I should do to prove myself in a new position. And the job was going well, the golf course was doing great. But I was oblivious to the fact that everything outside that was crumbling around me. It led to arguing and fighting, then separating and divorce.

“I got so sucked into the daily operation of the club, and every square foot of grass and all these drainage projects and this and that. I became blind to the more important things. It was a very toxic situation. There was nothing she could say that would convince me I was putting work ahead of her.

“Even after she told me to get out of the house, that we were going to separate, I still thought she was being crazy and not understanding my side of things. But in the grand scheme, she was the one being rational.”

Blinkered by “how the job can create a self-sabotaging mentality without you realizing,” Allen kept working at a fearsome pace. Then just two months after the divorce was finalized, his general manager, who he respected and learned a lot from over four years, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 46, leaving behind three young children.

“It was brutal. That was the first major wake up call for me to the realities of life and it triggered a period of reflection on life in general,” Allen says. “I can remember spraying the fifth fairway shortly after and randomly crying at like 5:45 a.m. Part exhaustion, part regret for choices I’d made.”

Then Allen got a phone call from his brother, Scott, up north. Scott and his wife had been talking and they felt strongly that what Allen and Emily shared was worth fighting for. “It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Allen says. “Still gives me goosebumps to think about it. It was one of those moments when you hear these things, and they just make sense.” He texted Emily later that same day.

Subsequent conversations steered them toward counseling, as individuals, then as a couple. A little over a year later, their first son, George, was born. Eighteen months later, Emma followed.

“The counseling was phenomenal,” Allen says. “We ironed out a lot of things. Even though I was mostly at fault, the counselor explained that it’s never just one person’s fault. And I needed to hear that because, to be honest with you, I felt like the biggest piece of crap in the world.”

The fault, or more accurately, the fault line running through the fracturing of their relationship was largely one of communication.

“Whether it’s the way you’re raised or whatever, nothing good comes from not verbalizing your feelings,” Allen says. “Otherwise, things fester and build up and there will be a blow-up at some point. For couples who can’t say what they need to say to each other, I really recommend getting help. I know a lot of us are from that era where guys don’t want anything to do with that counseling ‘nonsense.’

“Well, that’s nonsense. If you care about your family and your kids, and yourself, go get some help if you need it. There’s no shame in that. Once you go through it and you’re on the other side, you realize you should have done it a long time ago.”

For all that healing and all the new tools, in addition to their two children, the Allens were still divorced and Allen himself was still pulling crazy hours. Perhaps not surprisingly, “due to the previous experience,” Emily “never really wanted to get married again.”

Then, John Deere invited Allen to Moline for the John Deere Classic and a tour of its headquarters.

Although they had never met, Allen immediately recognized the superintendent he was about to sit next to at dinner. He’d seen him at local and state chapter events in Florida, not to mention in the pages of various industry publications. It was Rafael Barajas, at the time the president of the GCSAA.

“In my eyes, he was at the top of the game. I knew he was at a really nice facility, someone with loads of experience,” Allen says. “I definitely looked up to him.” All the more reason why Allen was “taken aback” by how things went soon after shaking hands.

“You’re an idiot.”

Of course, Barajas didn’t leave it at that.

Allen explains, “He says, ‘Listen, you’re not actually an idiot. But you’ve got to understand that it’s very easy to get sucked into that way of life in this industry. You need to understand that at the end of the day, no matter what, this is just a job. You can always get another job, but you can never get another family.’ He didn’t even know I was divorced or anything like that.

“When I flew back to Florida, I was kind of shaken to my core. All my fundamental beliefs just got destroyed in 10 seconds by Rafael. I was thinking I’m doing all this great work making so many improvements and it’s making a difference. But when I sat back and looked at the operation, I came to the realization all those extra hours there weren’t really paying off like I thought they were.

“While you’re giving the club those extra hours you’re taking twice as much from yourself. We’ve all seen a lot of guys burn out. Guys who choose a different career path even though they might be the best superintendents in the world. You can’t blame them, because emotionally, it takes a toll.

“You can be just as effective, even more effective, working 50 hours instead of 80. There has got to be balance and at the end of the day, the product is going to be better if you have that balance. It’s always going to be better if you’re coming to work with a clear mind and a good attitude. Your staff feeds off that. I’m not sure I would have that mentality, even now, if I didn’t have that dinner.”

Returning to Eagle Lakes, Allen was, if not a new man, at least a new manager, of his crew and his life.

“My first year as a superintendent, I probably hired and fired 50 people because we were just a factory. Cutthroat,” he says. “We didn’t pay a lot, so we were kind of getting the bottom of the barrel from the labor pool. I reassessed the pay scale and took a different approach to become more flexible with schedules and focused on positive reinforcement. The response was tremendous. Tremendous.

“After that conversation with Rafael, I created a really nice environment and culture for the guys. It got to a point where we had solid employees coming by looking to work for us. For good employees, it’s not just a job. They want to be taken care of, feel like they are appreciated. They want that culture. The labor shortage is tough all over the country. So, you’re not doing yourself any favors if you’re not taking care of your staff.”

Aware that several staff members were working other jobs to take care of their families, Allen came up with an alternative. In order to not spread them so thin, he helped them establish an after-hours landscaping business in the neighboring community. To get them started, he let them use tools and equipment from the golf course.

Since relocating to Pawleys Plantation, on Pawleys Island near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in September 2021, Allen helped some crew members in similar circumstances secure a contract to manage a wild hog population pestering homeowners. That work evolved to include a fencing contract. Opportunities like that, so close to their main job and so conveniently scheduled around it, Allen says, can make a huge difference helping hourly employees stabilize life at home.

“And things like that also create a bond and a loyalty aspect,” he says. “People understand that you care about them and that you don’t see them as just a tool for your job. To me, that’s been a huge thing. Rafael drove the point home that family should be the most important thing in your life and that I should be empowering my staff to feel the same way.”

After his trip to Moline, Allen’s crew members weren’t the only ones who picked up on his new perspective. Across the board, he “pulled back and reassessed.” It didn’t just change his management style. “It changed my entire life and perspective on work-life balance,” he says. He trimmed his own work week closer to 50 hours.

“It’s just grass. I tell my guys that all the time now,” he says. “We’re not pulling people out of fires. We’re not saving lives. We’re just growing grass. That’s all. And all I want from them is communication. It’s family first. If you have something going on outside of work you need to take care of, you’re not going to lose your job, it’s not going to be held against you. Just communicate and I’ll try and be as flexible as I can. No assistant who has worked with me since (the conversation with Barajas) has ever worked more than 40 hours, except in an emergency.”

Emily also saw the change in Allen and in May 2020, about 10 months after Barajas dropped the idiot bomb, they remarried, on a small boat off the coast of Naples. It was at the height of the pandemic, so the captain — the sole crew member — served as officiant and George, 2½, and Emma, just under a year old, were the only witnesses. Later that year, a second son, Oliver, was born.

He wasn’t done.

The South Florida golf market, Allen believed, was not conducive to the life he wanted for his family, not if they were truly to be his main priority. Often super-fueled by the deep pockets of escapees from northern winters, golf there can be intensely competitive. Golfers sometimes wear their club membership like a badge of honor, a status symbol. Perfection isn’t the goal in course conditioning as often as it is the expectation.

“Those guys and girls in South Florida, the amount of pressure that is on their back on any given day to provide top-notch conditions is incredible. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them,” Allen says. “And it’s 24/7, non-stop. It’s almost like members are more concerned about having perfect conditions than the enjoyment of the game. That’s not the case at Pawleys. The membership is unbelievable. There is this real Lowcountry vibe. Sure, everyone wants great conditions, but their focus is on everyone enjoying the place, and they want the staff to be happy, too.”

The Allens knew what to expect in South Carolina. Nearly 20 years earlier, they shifted from Massachusetts to the beach so Emily could attend school at Coastal Carolina University. Allen had an environmental science degree but jobs in the field were scarce, so he took an hourly position on the golf course maintenance team at TPC Myrtle Beach. They spent five years in town, marrying in Murrells Inlet in 2011, before a family health issue drew them back up north soon after.

Today, Allen says, they couldn’t be happier. “It’s fantastic. Pawleys kind of reminds me of being back in Cape Cod, a small, beachy town,” he says. “It’s a lot less busy than Myrtle Beach and the golf course is absolutely beautiful. We were living in a townhome in Naples but we both grew up with yards and we wanted that for our family, so the kids could run around, play sports and games and have fun. That just wasn’t financially possible in Naples, unless we moved two hours inland.

“Since coming here, I’ve actually had guys from South Florida ask me how I got out. How did I escape? For me, I wasn’t escaping anything. I was going towards what my wife and I wanted. It was a positive move for our family.”

Trent Bouts is a Greer, South Carolina-based writer and a frequent Golf Course Industry contributor. This article first appeared in Carolinas Green.