Rivers of Talent

A flowing river naturally begs three questions. Where did it start? What is its path? How far does it go? These questions can be asked about the river of talented individuals flowing through Sand Ridge Golf Club in Chardon, Ohio, built in the late 1990s.

Successful elements of golf course development during this time included a healthy budget, design by a highly regarded architect, and focus on strategy. These elements contributed to the property significantly, but motivated people were the strength of the current carrying Sand Ridge.

The club gave John Zimmers his first head superintendent job. Now at Inverness Club on the other side of Ohio, Zimmers has hosted multiple major championships and developed dozens of industry leaders. Saucon Valley Country Club’s Jim Roney is one of those leaders. Zimmers hired Roney as his first Sand Ridge assistant superintendent. Chad Mark took time off from college for an internship at Sand Ridge, encouraged by his father, Alan, who had an inkling something special was happening. Mark is in his seventh season as the director of grounds at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

The humble team transformed raw potential into something quietly legendary within the golf maintenance community. They cared for each other and the work. They laughed along the way. The results were extraordinary.

In rural northeast Ohio, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, picture a property filled with wetlands fostering the headwaters of two rivers, the Chagrin and the Cuyahoga. Trickling quietly, one flows west and one flows east. Where a glacier slowly moved across the land over 20,000 years ago, there is a moraine marking the terrain. A blasted sand quarry is adjacent and visible north of the property.

The owner of the property was the family of Bill Conway, chairman of Fairmount Minerals. Fairmount Minerals was the parent company of Best Sand, which was already providing topdressing and bunker sand for courses throughout the country. The land beside the quarry was purchased and explored but determined unsuitable for its intended use. There wasn’t enough sandstone south of the moraine for it to be practical to mine. The land needed a purpose. “Some wise-cracking executive said, ‘we can always build a golf course,’ and that’s what we did,” Conway says.

At the time, there were many fine private golf clubs in Cleveland, but a market study indicated room for a first-class, golf-only facility designed by a top-rated golf architect. Conway was friends with Dusty Murdock, who was a former PGA Tour rules official, worked with Mark McCormack at IMG and was then working with Van Cleef Fairway Properties executing golf course construction and management. Tom Fazio was the most sought-after architect at the time and Murdock had worked with him previously.

Fazio visited the property, was offered, and took the job. Tom Marzolf, who has been with the Fazio firm since the 1980s, became the lead architect under Fazio’s direction. Marzolf recalls, “Mr. Conway said, ‘I have this whole section of the property and it’s more than we need. Put the golf course wherever it fits best.’” Together, over more than 300 acres, they figured it out.

The stars were aligning. “It was time to get a greens superintendent and I convinced everybody that we should hire one before the first tree came down,” Murdock says. “They didn’t know why, but I did, and they believed me, which was great. This is one of Bill Conway’s best attributes.” Conway knew how to hire people. He knew how to encourage and develop the instincts and abilities of others. And Murdock knew the superintendent had to be invested in the property from the very beginning.

Murdock called Paul R. Latshaw, who was then the superintendent at Congressional Country Club. Congressional had just hosted the U.S. Senior Open on the Blue Course, won by Tom Weiskopf, an Ohio native, in 1995. “If you’re looking for something and you don’t know what you’re looking for, but you know someone who does, listen to them,” Murdock says.

Murdock asked Latshaw who the best young superintendent in the country was and qualified that he had to be under 30 because he was going to work exceptionally hard for a few years. Latshaw replied that he knew who it was. It was John Zimmers.

After Zimmers left minor league baseball with a broken elbow, he worked for Latshaw at Wilmington Country Club, attended Rutgers, and became Latshaw’s assistant at Congressional. “John is a special guy,” Latshaw says. “When I hired him, he had no knowledge of golf course maintenance, but I knew he had great potential. He learned quickly, made my job easier and was always ready to make improvements. He has a knack for construction. I take great pride in knowing I played a small role in his success.”

When Zimmers came to Chardon to see the property, he spent the night at The Country Club, where Matt Shaffer was the superintendent. On the morning of his interview, Shaffer greeted Zimmers and asked if there was anything he could do to help him. There are more wonderful, small, meaningful moments and memories throughout the Sand Ridge history than it is possible to share. People taking care of and connecting with people. Zimmers got the job.

“I was so blessed that starting out in the golf business I worked for Mr. Latshaw, the best mentor and the best superintendent,” Zimmers says. Taking the Sand Ridge position at 25, working with a renowned architect and for a single owner was a dream. Murdock’s timing was perfect. “I didn’t have a job trailer, nothing,” Zimmers says. “My office was in the conference room of the quarry at Fairmount Minerals.”

Twenty-three different layouts were imagined. With exuberance, hole after hole and route after route was staked to create an experience with the best green-to-tee connections. No. 1, Overture, is a right dogleg par 4. No. 2, Plateau, has a two-tier elevated green and wetlands down the right side. When the third green is reached on Craters, looking back, the numerous bunkers precipitously avoided are no longer visible. No. 4, Vista, requires a carry across tall fescue. The angle into the diagonal green becomes more receptive as you move forward on the tees. It’s artistic.

By September 1995, the property plans were agreed and work began. The clearing company was from North Carolina and a number of trees were down by mid-October. Then it snowed. Heavily. Chardon is in the snow belt and the lake effect creates monumental snowfalls. Zimmers was concerned. Construction was delayed and priorities had to shift. Conway and Murdock sat down with him and discussed a way forward.

Zimmers started working on power requirements, environmental objectives, drainage, irrigation, clubhouse placement and landscaping. He traveled to Florida to research maintenance facilities. He photographed and observed everything, including the wash pads and containment units and, as a result, when spring arrived, plans were sharp and ready to go.

That winter, Zimmers also got to know Dick Bator, who was the superintendent at nearby Kirtland Country Club. Bator mentored many people, and during evenings and weekends, Zimmers would help him plow, though he joked he was no good at it. He hit a number of things. Superintendent networks are essential for problem-solving and the weather that started as a setback allowed time for relationships and plans to develop.

Zimmers needed an assistant and Roney visited to interview for the position. Roney had been working at Merion Golf Club with Paul B. Latshaw and though he could have stayed, Paul B. suggested he consider Sand Ridge. Roney spent the weekend with Zimmers and his wife, Tracey, and they walked the property, covered in laths. Tracey made her famous tacos. Roney took the job.

“We hired John but the credit and development of the rest of the team go to he and Tracey,” Conway says. “She took care of the office activities and was kind of a mother hen, too. What John and I had in common was to find the best people, give them instructions and set expectations at a high level. Then let them go do it.”

“John is a great golf course superintendent and a great developer of people, which goes hand in glove,” Conway adds. “When you talk about Sand Ridge employees, you have to give credit to John for sizing them up, hiring them and leading by example. Give credit for the meticulous care that John took, his attention to detail and his absolute love of the work. The people on the mowers and repairing divots are the ones that make things happen and John took good care of them, too. He trained them and gave them a lot of advice. That’s why some of them have gone on to develop. That is why John has been so successful. It’s why we had such a great golf course and why we have such wonderful alumni.”

Roney graduated on a Saturday and arrived in Chardon the next evening. “I pulled into my apartment complex driving a U-Haul, towing my car, and there stood John and Tracey,” Roney says. “I wasn’t expected to be at work until the following morning and I didn’t expect to see John until then. He and Tracey were there to greet me and spent several hours helping me unload and set up my apartment. That says everything. That’s how our friendship began and that’s how the team started.”

The Zimmers family had a yellow lab named Diamond and Roney had a border collie named Riggs. The dogs were good buddies. The first year was amazing but difficult. The property was huge and to protect the wetlands, the team had to drive the perimeter of the property and walk with their equipment to the areas they were working on. They built bridges, nearly a dozen of them, to promote efficiency.

In the fall of 1996, the maintenance shed was constructed and with all the pre-planning, it was incredible. Also incredible: A short while after construction was completed, 69 inches of snow fell in four days and the red iron was buckling in the shop. Marzolf was due for a visit and saw Chardon featured on The Weather Channel. Before he left for the airport, he called Zimmers and, to paraphrase, Zimmers suggested it wasn’t the best time for a visit. The team literally had to shovel snow off the roof.

“We had a very young staff that only knew one speed,” Roney says. “There was no job beneath us or above us. We jumped right in and performed, working dark to dark every day. That was how we approached the project. It was special from the very beginning.”

Zimmers remembers working with his grandfather — his namesake — and Roney one weekend. “We staked the clubhouse on a Saturday afternoon, all three of us,” Zimmers says. “It goes deep, deep into your family and your friends and the employees. I wouldn’t even say it was a job, it was an institution for all of us.”

No. 5 is named Twin for two separate greens embracing a wetlands area. No. 6, Ledge, is a par 5 playing into a prevailing head wind and an elevated green. For a while, Zimmers lived in a house just off No. 6, purchased to make life as a dedicated superintendent easier. Roney lived there later. The green on No. 7, Draw, slopes back-to-front. No. 8, Orphan, is a par 3 with a lovely little pond and No. 9, Snake, has a generous fairway landing area. Beware the second shot.

Other team members early in development were Mark, Chad Lewanski and Brent Palich. Mark started working for Zimmers at his father’s suggestion. Mark’s father worked at Lofts Seed, and helped select the grass varieties for Sand Ridge. Mark started with an internship and is grateful he did.

“I had no idea golf course conditioning could reach the levels that I was exposed to at Sand Ridge,” Mark says. “I was addicted to the intensity and never grew tired of the hours or difficulty of the work. We lived it and we were invested in the standards set forth by John and Jim.”

Many alumni — there are references to “Sand Ridge Academy” — have stories “not suitable for print” though the word “fun” has been used as often as “difficult” and “challenging.” There were eight-hour Easter Sundays and frequent touch football games. The maintenance facility has a substantial amount of asphalt suitable for a field of play. Reflecting alumni wondered how they had the energy.

These alums keep in contact and support each other at tournaments. They catch up at conferences and other industry events and casually get together. And it’s not just one or two of them; members of this group communicate all the time. The connections are strong. Sacrosanct.

From Sand Ridge, Mark became the superintendent at Kirtland, where, coincidentally, the Chagrin River meanders through Nos. 11 through 15. He then went to Inverness and now leads the maintenance team at Muirfield Village Golf Club, which hosts the Memorial Tournament, an annual PGA Tour stop.

“I grew a lot during my time at Sand Ridge, and, like others, worked to be the best I could be,” Mark says. “The talent on that staff was deep and you never wanted to feel like you weren’t pulling your weight. The internship shaped my trajectory in the industry. I pour a lot of time and effort into our internships and the growth of our young professionals, hoping we can have the same influence.”

Lewanski started as an arborist at Sand Ridge in 1997, went to Kirtland as Mark’s assistant in 2006 and headed to Sleepy Hollow in suburban Cleveland to lead the team in 2010. “Sand Ridge was a great experience. It’s astonishing the number of focused individuals that came out of that group who have become incredible leaders in this business,” Lewanski says. “1990s Sand Ridge was the school of hard knocks for those that could endure the culture.” Zimmers was very close in age to a lot of his crew and that youthfulness yielded drive and camaraderie. They were learning to excel.

“John was demanding and would push the crew,” Lewanski adds. “He would also go out of his way to say thank you and praise your efforts when you met those expectations. A heartfelt thank you goes a long way. Takeaways were to push to do more than the norm every day and build a team so strong that no one could tell who the leader is. We had an all-star staff and there was a lot of competition amongst the crew to outperform one another. It got intense in a good way.”

Palich worked as an intern in 1998 and 1999 as the grow-in was in its final stages. Sand Ridge opened on May 18, 1998. “Everything at Sand Ridge was brand new,” Palich says. “The grasses were brand new, the equipment was new, the shop was new, everything seemed perfect.” It was ranked No. 52 among Golf Digest’s America’s Top 100 courses and stayed there for several years. Sand Ridge earned many club and course accolades.

It was trendsetting. About 90 percent of the Sand Ridge members belonged to other clubs as well and there was a difference in the conditioning. “The golf course was quietly notorious because of the quality and pureness of the turf, wall to wall,” Marzolf says. “It was gorgeous turf. The way John takes care of a golf course, not too many people can do what he does.” People noticed. Sand Ridge was upping the game. “It was a beautiful golf course and elaborate,” Marzolf adds. “We did linear sandscapes to buffer the wetlands and a lot of waste bunkers. It’s probably the most sand on a golf course in Ohio, ever.”

There were so many natural blessings. “Because of the sand quarry and the pit, we never left the property for our greens mix, our tees mix, our drainage gravel, our topsoil or our bunker sand,” Zimmers says. “All the resources were there.”

L93 bentgrass was used tee to green, blended with Southshore on the fairways. The roughs are bluegrass, and separating the fairway from the rough is a strip of ryegrass that acts as a bellwether for disease. This saves on chemical applications and the combined aesthetic is striking. Fescues and other native grasses beautify the course.

No. 10, Pulpit, is a blind, uphill tee shot. No. 11, Long, is a 483-yard par 4 from the double-diamond tees. On No. 12, Rockside, play moves north of the main wetlands system and is bordered by the sand quarry. Early on, rocks would sometimes reach the fairway after a blast. Conway was playing one day and one of his partners heard the whistle signaling an impending explosive charge. Questioning the noise, Conway smiled and quipped, “That’s the sound of money.” A waterfall gently greets players on the tee at No. 13, Falls, and No. 14, Dilemma, is a high-risk, high-reward Fazio classic.

“The Conway family was all involved and they are tremendous people,” Palich says. “They took care of us and would make time to speak with the staff. It started because of Mr. Conway and we wanted to live up to his expectations. When you know someone cares, you put that little extra effort in. We do a lot of this because we have a sense of pride. We want to do a good job. Whenever it’s recognized by somebody, especially when that someone is Mr. Conway, it makes it that much more meaningful.”

Conway’s son, Peter, became general manager in 2002, working at Sand Ridge through 2006, succeeding his father and continuing his emphasis on providing the highest quality golf experience supported by the highest quality maintenance and service staffs. 

Zimmers left the property in 1999 and moved to Oakmont Country Club in western Pennsylvania before returning to Ohio to lead the maintenance efforts at Inverness Club. Leaving Sand Ridge was one of the hardest decisions he had made. Conway was supportive and encouraged him to reach for his dreams. Roney became the superintendent. In 2004, Roney moved to Saucon Valley Country Club, a highly regarded 54-hole club in eastern Pennsylvania, and Palich was offered the job to lead the staff at Sand Ridge.

Palich had gone to Oakmont as an assistant with Zimmers in 1999 and then took the head position at Potowomut Golf Club in Rhode Island. Having been there for 18 months, he wasn’t sure it was the right time for another career shift. Conway contacted Zimmers and asked him to get involved, saying, “We need someone from the family.” Zimmers called Palich and caught him at the airport in a fortuitous moment. Palich came home.

“A lot of the people from Sand Ridge could have big egos because they have been successful in the industry but each and every one of them is very caring of everybody,” Palich says. “They help people they have worked with and people they haven’t. That’s our industry. When I was hired in 2005, I wanted to make sure I hired people like that. People like Lewanski and Justin Sudo and Tim Huber. We continued to have good, good people.”

With the recession looming, the economy in and around Cleveland started to decline and, in 2006, Sand Ridge merged with Mayfield Country Club, one of the oldest clubs in Cleveland. Conveniently, it’s located 30 minutes west on the same road.

Sudo worked at Mayfield during the Sand Ridge grow-in and then went to Oakmont. He joined Sand Ridge in 2006 as an assistant. “John and Jim are both very empowering,” Sudo says. “Neither of them micromanage. They don’t say anything unless they have to.”

Sudo adds, “I remember having new employees and they were supposed to be at a specific location on the course. I couldn’t find them. There had been a blast on the property maybe 15 minutes earlier. I went back to the shop and they were hiding underneath the lounge tables. They thought there had been an earthquake! It was the funniest thing. Blasts shake the entire property. It’s part of the uniqueness. People are playing and we are having small weekly earthquakes and you feel it and it’s wild. It was a good time. It was fun.” Though blasts are always signaled, if ear protection is in use or if work is taking place on the far side of the property, the whistle might get missed. The blast is not!

Sudo is the superintendent at The Kahkwa Club in Erie, Pennsylvania, and plays Sand Ridge every October for the Pro-Super event, bringing an assistant, the pro and an assistant pro. He’s still in touch with many crew members from Sand Ridge, including Huber, director of agronomy at The Club at Carlton Woods, which now hosts The Chevron Championship, an LPGA major.

Huber worked at Sand Ridge from 2007 to 2010. “Justin is one of the most solution-oriented people I have ever worked with and Brent was so patient,” Huber says. “He spent time explaining his plan and was right there working with us. Sand Ridge is an amazing place, lit up in spring and summer with contrast and when the leaves change in the fall, wow. My time at Sand Ridge was a great experience.”

Along with the Pro-Super event, Sand Ridge hosts the Conway Cup and Egg Invitational each fall, and recently added a Korn Ferry Tour qualifying event. The team is led by Ian Gallagher, who took the job when Palich shifted to Brookside Country Club in 2019, and there are now three assistants, an equipment manager and two other full-time crew members in addition to seasonal staff.

Fazio designed the course to be walked and the caddie program is robust. Nearly 18,000 rounds were played at Sand Ridge in 2022, its highest annual total. The split was nearly 50-50 between members and guests, including outings. Forty-seven percent of the rounds were walking and on weekends, and playing with caddies is the norm. The course continues to be Audubon certified and management places a high priority on environmental stewardship.

At Quarry, No. 15, longer hitters will find a drivable par 4 but it is one of the most difficult greens on the course. No. 16, Cape, is a dramatic challenge, and No. 17, Headwaters, is where the Chagrin and Cuyahoga rivers begin. Frequented by soaring hawks, No. 18, Split, is a closing par 5 with two fairways and a generous green nestled into picturesque wetlands.

Gallagher has an MBA from Cleveland State University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in turfgrass science from Ohio State University. Raised in Ohio, he started working in turf for a friend’s dad at Sylvania Country Club in the northwest part of the state. He then worked as an assistant at Barrington Golf Club in suburban Cleveland before becoming a superintendent at The Philadelphia Cricket Club in Pennsylvania. He appreciates living in northeast Ohio and being close to family.

“There are those eight or 10 clubs you always hear about when you’re in turf school and this is one of them,” Gallagher says. “Courses don’t often look good in northern Ohio in April, but that’s when I first saw Sand Ridge . I loved it immediately. The people before me, they’re amazing. It’s cool to be at the same property and try to hopefully do something good.”

Devin Leggett helps the property and the people he works with. He was a friend and classmate of Lewanski and was hired by Zimmers in 1999 as an arborist. Zimmers had moved by the time Leggett gave his notice and started at Sand Ridge and Leggett is still there. Gallagher says he is the “go-to” guy, and is grateful for the memory Leggett has of work that has been done on property. Leggett sees a lot of visiting crew who make it a point to say hi. “Sand Ridge team members are everywhere. I like to think I have taken a little from everyone and have grown that way,” says Leggett. Iron sharpens iron.

There are more stories. Zimmers does not like snakes and “perfected the snake dance,” according to the crew. Snakes were in abundance in those early years, particularly by the wetlands. Murdock says he has “millions of stories,” and laughs just thinking about them. Mark says Murdock stories are epic.

Several couples graced the operations of Sand Ridge. The Conways led, and in addition to John and Tracey, Palich met his wife, Gina, there. She was a business manager for the club, although he didn’t meet her until he came back as the superintendent. Ron Skok was another team member, and his wife, Cindy, took over for Tracey when she and John moved to Pittsburgh. Families were important and former staff get together and swap tales for hours. “It was just all about the people,” Palich says.

The people are what make a difference, but they have to engage with the technical aspects. In the maintenance profession, the chemical balances and applications, the machinery and technology, it has all evolved and continues to do so. One reason great superintendents excel is because they embrace the progression of agronomic practices and make time to understand and leverage the tools available to them. Coupled with their work ethic, they simply go farther. Zimmers, Roney, Palich and Gallagher all demonstrate this.

Sand Ridge was not only good for the people who worked there but for the community. A lot of jobs were created among the maintenance crew, the club staff and the caddies, and environmentally it offered a lot also. Appreciation in the town for everything happening at Sand Ridge has always been heartfelt and Conway was cognizant of giving back to the community.

It’s hard to know where life is going to lead. When people are empowered, visions manifest into tangible treasures. Such is the joy of Sand Ridge. Zimmers and the crew members continue to lift each other up and they are elevating the industry as well. Zimmers is close with and still sees Conway, Murdock —who, by a stroke of fate, lives in Toledo — and many others, attesting to the strength, affection and joy of the Sand Ridge family.

Just as a river starts in one place and cascades to another, and talented and dedicated employees find their way, part of the river and part of the employees’ lives will always be at Sand Ridge.

“I’m forever grateful that Mr. Conway, Mr. Murdock and Sand Ridge provided me with this opportunity. Boy, was it a good one,” Zimmers says. Like a river flowing onwards, Zimmers knows, “It’s a wonderful thing. This story doesn’t end.”

Lee Carr is a Northeast Ohio-based writer and senior Golf Course Industry contributor.