Hey, you’re in the hot seat!

Colbert Hills director of golf course operations Matt Gourlay has continued a program his father and a colleague started in 2000. “Superintendent of the Week” allows the interns at the Manhattan, Kansas, facility to act as the real superintendent of the course.

“We try to build our internship so that when they leave this internship they could potentially be a golf course superintendent anywhere in the country,” says Gourlay, who started his version of the program in 2007.

Gourlay’s father, David Gourlay, and Paul Davids created the program more than 20 years ago. David Gourlay served as Colbert Hills general manager from 1993 to 2013. Davids worked as the course’s superintendent from 1999 to 2003.

“Now obviously, you know, leaving a 12-week internship, it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to run Augusta National, but they could run theoretically a 9-hole operation or an 18-hole, mid-level golf club,” Gourlay says. “We’re building individuals who would excel at being a first assistant golf course superintendent anywhere.”

The interns, who this year all come from Kansas State University’s turfgrass management program, are each given one week to act as a full-time superintendent would. For Logan Waite, a Kansas State senior who has completed two prior internships, the program was an opportunity to take on more responsibility.

“I think what makes this one a little bit different than the rest of them is the amount of responsibilities that most interns get to experience throughout the summer,” Waite says. “I’m not saying at the previous two internships there weren’t responsibilities, but there wasn’t a week where it was like, ‘Hey, you’re in charge.’ You don’t get that at very many golf courses or at very many internship programs, so I think it’s really cool of how Matt has done this at Colbert Hills.”

During the week, the interns are tasked with everything a full-time superintendent handles. They are responsible for making sure employees don’t work overtime, knowing when to spray fungicides, insecticides or wetting agents, and making task lists for the team that week.

“I’m just there to make sure they don’t make any detrimental decisions that affect the individual’s feelings, their performance on property or anything that’s detrimental to the operation, is what I’m basically there for,” Gourlay says. “I’m always conversating with the superintendents of the week. We communicate all the time, but I would always catch something before it would be bad. If he wanted to go spray a fungicide for dollar spot and there’s a chance of rain in an hour, I’m not going to let him do that.”

Every intern prepares for their week as superintendent differently.

“There’s some of them who plan beforehand and they ask questions the week prior to their superintendent of the week,” Gourlay says. “And then there’s others who just show up that day, and just kind of come in blind without tasks ready to go.”

Waite used a combination of prior experience from working at Colbert Hills as well as the mindfulness that not everything may go as planned during his week.

“I actually worked at Colbert Hills in the past, so I’ve kind of seen other interns go through it before and I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do,” he says. “I can always plan for it and stuff like that but plans obviously change. You can go in there with a game plan and with this industry, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

“That was the challenging thing for me because I was like, ‘OK, I want to get this, this and this done today,’ and then something happens and you have to readjust. Always be adapting to the conditions and being able to change plans one week. That was probably a challenge at first, but I think throughout the week I learned how to manage that and really adapt with the challenges that I’ve had.”

Some additional challenges Waite faced included keeping employees under 40 hours a week and placing them in the strongest roles.

“We have to keep everyone under 40 hours a week,” Waite says. “So that was kind of a challenge to keep track of everyone’s hours. It’s not stressful, but a little nerve-racking at times because we needed to get stuff done for the weekend.

“It was a good type of pressure. … I couldn’t sleep at nights. I was always thinking of it, worrying about ‘if this doesn’t go the right way, if this doesn’t happen,’ but you just kind of form a game plan of how you can manage everyone in the most efficient way possible. It was really a nerve-racking challenge but also an opportunity at the same time.”

The rest of the crew has been supportive when the leadership structure changes during weeks when the interns take over.

“They’re very receptive,” Gourlay says. “Our oldest individual is semi-retired. He loves working with them. I make an announcement to let them know what’s going on and (the interns) give out their own cell phone in case there’s questions or concerns. Our team has been very receptive and are understanding that these individuals are given an opportunity to be superintendent for a week.”

Colbert Hills also has a par-3 course just for the Kansas State University men’s and women’s golf teams. During Waite’s week as superintendent, the teams held a camp and he was responsible for making sure the course satisfied attendees.

“I was really pleased with how the par-3 course looked,” he says. “I really focused just that Thursday and Friday, really making sure that whole area was really presentable. I was really proud of how the staff worked and how they took everything seriously. They were really good to me that whole week.”

Waite hopes to graduate in December and obtain an assistant superintendent position. For Gourlay, he hopes to continue the internship program and help develop the new wave of future superintendents.

“It’s definitely something I want to continue because it’s just a tremendous opportunity for golf course management students to further their career and help them build the skills to succeed as golf course superintendent at another facility.”

Cassidy Gladieux is a Kent State University senior participating in Golf Course Industry’s summer internship program.