The noisy ones

If you’re a turfhead and you’re on Facebook, you are missing out unless you’re a member of the “Golf Course Maintenance” group that’s a little slice of agronomic heaven on the world’s most popular social media platform.

The brainchild of the legendary Gary Grigg, the GCM group started with a few supers who wanted to privately discuss problems and share ideas away from the prying eyes of golfers, suppliers and media schmucks like me. It has grown … my how it has grown … to more than 3,400 members around the globe. It’s awesome.

Gary, though sort of retired, still serves as moderator and traffic cop. He has allowed more commercial folks and salespeople in over the years, but only with the caveat of no product pitches and no bashing of competitors. He even let a few writer types like me in, which he undoubtedly regrets. In general, everyone follows the rules and behaves themselves, but occasionally Gary has to remind people of the rules or even boot somebody out.

The GCM group is so good, we gave Gary one of our Super Savvy Social Media Awards for it a couple of years ago. It’s a treasure trove of good info and I think there are a lot of turfheads who only post there rather than sharing anything except pictures of their kids on the public version of Facebook. So, if you’re interested in candid conversation with some of the best turf minds in the world, you should ask to join.

I’m about to bend one of Gary’s rules by paraphrasing a recent post on the GCM page from a U.S. superintendent (which has apparently since been deleted). The super was bemoaning his next green committee meeting because the group was dominated by a few highly vocal low-handicappers who had specific agendas like faster greens, softer bunkers or particular things that didn’t fit their vision of “their” course. He hated the idea of having to sit through another bitching session and was looking for advice on how to handle these noisy clowns.

Lots of good minds chimed in to suggest solutions. Document the costs of what they were asking for and have the finance committee kill the dumb ideas. Talk privately with a few of the more reasonable members and have them lobby the idiots on your behalf. Develop a set of written maintenance standards that would require ownership approval to change.

One guy said, “What you’ve got to do is cut the hamstring on the back of (the dumbass green chairman’s) leg right at the bottom. He’ll never play golf again, because his weight displacement goes back, all his weight is on his right foot, and he’ll push everything off to the right. He’ll never come through on anything. He’ll quit the game.”

Wait, sorry, that was Spackler. Disregard that. But the rest of it was pretty solid advice.

My reaction to this complaint, being an old guy, was familiarity. Tension between what the committee or owner wants and what a superintendent can realistically deliver is as old as golf. Honestly, don’t you think Old Tom Morris probably heard the same crap back in his day?

St. Andrews Green Chairman: “Tom, we want ye to make the greens faster!”

Old Tom: “I canna do it with the few measly old sheep you give me now! I need new, younger sheep but you nae will open your purses to pay for them, ya flinty bastards!”

Old Tom famously used to swim in the Firth of Fife every morning no matter how cold or stormy it was. I secretly think he was hoping to drown himself instead of going to another green committee meeting.

There’s no question that respect for the superintendent and their level of autonomy within most operations have both grown in recent years. Yet, the age-old problem of satisfying the noisiest demands of a few of your best players will never go away.

The challenge of balancing the needs of the 95 percent who are likely perfectly happy with your course against the 5 percent who have an axe to grind will never completely go away. The only real solution is to sell yourself as an expert who should be given the authority to do whatever is best for the entire membership. That’s a daunting idea, but one you need to consider every day. Rather than griping about the gripers, focus on the support of the rest and you, like Old Tom, can outlast the bastards.

Pat Jones is editorial director and publisher of Golf Course Industry. He can be reached at pjones@gie.net or 216-236-5854.