Show & Tell

I have always thought that superintendents could help themselves by being more upfront with members and golfers. It might be more difficult at a conventional daily-fee layout to call a meeting, but at a municipal course or a private club it’s possible to gather the occasional audience for an educational Show & Tell.

My hunch was put to the test in early August at Burl Oaks Golf Club in the Twin Cities suburb of Minnetrista, Minnesota, 21 miles due west of downtown Minneapolis. The club is considering an ambitious master plan by architect Jay Blasi; it would address the half-century-old facility’s infrastructure deficiencies while rerouting some holes to make ideal use of the terrain. The plan will create space for a new 9-hole, par-3 layout and expanded practice area. Full disclosure: I’ve been hired to help the club in its planning.

But this isn’t about the virtues of the proposed plan, or even whether the membership will embrace it. What’s relevant here is that during member education sessions devoted to explaining the proposal, superintendent Nathan Peters stepped up and put his expertise on the line to explain the club’s present condition. He was not there to sell a particular version of the plan, nor to advocate one way or the other. That’s the responsibility of the board.

Now in his 10th year at Burl Oaks, Peters has been concentrating on improving cultural practices. He had previously made a few hands-on presentations to the board showcasing his work, but never to the membership.

It’s one thing to bring in hired experts to explain infrastructure and agronomic issues. But there’s nothing like having your locally trusted, well-known, trained professional get up there and explain to members what he or she does every day. Which is why it is so effective having the superintendent do a Show & Tell.

The members at Burl Oaks know very well who Peters is. That’s obvious from members calling his name with a wave or grin during his tours of the course. They know he is out there working hard. What they don’t — and cannot know — is what he is dealing with.

It’s one thing to tell an audience that the club has greens of three completely different structures and that only some of them fully work. It’s quite another to stand up there with core plugs and show the differences between a USGA spec green, an old push-up green, and a poorly constructed “modified” putting green with heavy thatch and a black layer. The first plug showed roots of 5 to 6 inches and held firm in Peters’ hand. The second sample crumpled right there in front of everyone for lack of structure. The third sample looked like it was sitting in black pudding.

Peters was equally effective in showing what a blown irrigation joint looks like. “We’re dealing with this throughout the golf course,” he said. “It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole.”

His 10-minute share of the hour-long presentation was by far the most effective segment. It focused on issues the master plan was addressing and seemed to impress upon the audience the extent of the infrastructure challenges. The beauty of his talk is that he simply showed what he’s been dealing with and left it up to the members to decide what to do about it.

That doesn’t guarantee a particular outcome or plan will be implemented. But the club now has forged a better understanding between everyday golfers and their superintendent, one that’s based on respect, professionalism and evidence of technical expertise.

Too often, highly qualified superintendents end up — inadvertently — being their own worst enemy. Their skill, dedication and willingness to drive the crew that extra yard or two masks underlying infrastructure issues and ends up making the golf course appear problem-free. The costs of compensating for degraded irrigation, drainage or turf conditions get hidden. Those costs are considerable in terms of money, labor hours and sleepless nights.

Ironically, at many clubs, the case for needed renovation would be easier to make and more evident to golfers if the superintendent were less skilled and more apt to let the decay show. But as I pointed out to the folks at Burl Oaks, would you really trust a superintendent like that to manage you through the renovation and to function well with new equipment and pipes?

When you have a highly skilled superintendent like Peters on board, someone capable of making the best with less-than-ideal infrastructure, imagine how much better the facility would be with the proper hardware in place.

Show & Tell goes a long way toward opening eyes to what the superintendent can do and is dealing with. Anything that achieves that is a plus for the facility and the industry.