Out of the ashes

The acrid odor of smoldering embers was not the welcoming that Dave Parson was hoping for when he applied to be the superintendent at Wampanoag Country Club in West Hartford, Connecticut. But a few days after an initial conference call confirming he had been shortlisted for the job and would visit the course the following week, the club’s 34,000-square-foot clubhouse burned to the ground.

His interview would be postponed by only a few days. Otherwise, he was free to make a site visit and gather the information needed to build a strong case. When he made his way from the club parking around the bend of the roped-off ruins to look out from the patio onto the golf course, the enormity of the moment struck him viscerally. And yet he was also encouraged by what he saw.

“On the one side was the awful sight and smell of the burned-out clubhouse,” he recalls. “But I also realized the course was completely untouched and they’d soon be playing golf, and if I got the job, it would still be my responsibility to provide them with the best possible conditions under really difficult circumstances.”

That was last April. Wampanoag, a 1924 design by Donald Ross, had just been through a multimillion-dollar restoration by architect Tyler Rae that had reopened to rave reviews the previous Memorial Day. Then early one Saturday morning, a fire started in a corner of the clubhouse, and while local firefighters thought they had it extinguished, it flared up surreptitiously and consumed the building the next night. A total loss.

Luckily, the maintenance area and equipment were spared. Following a short closure, the golf course reopened, with club services like food and beverage and pro shop staffing shifted to temporary quarters. Meanwhile, Parson impressed the interview committee enough to land the job. Since starting on May 28, he’s barely had a day off.

Parson, 39, is a native of Hibbing, Minnesota — home to Bob Dylan and the Greyhound Bus Museum. It’s also where his dad has been the longtime superintendent of Mesaba Country Club. At the age of 4, when his playmates were pulling around red wagons, Parson was riding about on SandPros and triplexes. He played on his high school golf team and studied business at the University of Minnesota before getting hired at The Wilderness at Fortune Bay in Minnesota’s Iron Range.

He worked his way up to assistant superintendent. The seasonal nature of employment proved limiting, so he headed east to The Apawamis Club in Westchester County, New York. He worked his way up to first assistant and earned his associate degree in turfgrass at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

After seven seasons at Apawamis, he became superintendent at The Orchards in western Massachusetts. He then went to Twin Hills Country Club in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where his skill operating bulldozers, excavators and backhoes came in handy on in-house renovation projects.

Now at Wampanoag, Parson enjoys the company of his two white miniature Eskimo dogs, Shiya and Hadley. Back home, he and his wife, Jillian, have their hands full with two young boys. They’ve already relocated to a new house, and Parson has become active on the Connecticut Association of Golf Course Superintendents board.

While Wampanoag club officials have been spending many hours dealing with the insurance claims, new clubhouse designs and financing, Parson and his crew are focusing on giving members the best possible golf experience. He pays particular attention to scientific data, relying on ISTRC testing of organic content in the soil profile to help him decide whether and when to undergo invasive aeration — rather than relying on a traditional calendar of punching greens at the same time every year. He’s also focused on greens rolling to enhance smoothness rather than close mowing of Wampanoag’s newer putting surfaces.

“Don’t aerify unless you need to aerify,” is Parson’s motto. “We’re in the consumer service business, not just turfgrass management,” he adds. That’s also why he spends a lot of time communicating to members the steps he’s taking to upgrade conditions. He also plays the golf course a few times a month while walking and carrying his bag — something he says enables him “to see the course from a vantage point where I see things I’d miss if I were just driving by on a cart.”

New plans have been approved to proceed with a replacement clubhouse. Parson knows that the anticipated year-plus of construction will entail considerable rerouting of maintenance traffic. If that’s what it takes to get the club back to full operation, it’s an inconvenience he can handle.

The initial shock of those embers has worn off. Wampanoag is rising from the ashes, and Parson is part of the recovery.