Jennifer Torres

When the 77th playing of the United States Women’s Open Championship commenced earlier this summer, Jennifer Torres was where she wanted to be, standing alongside her “turf sisters” at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina.

Torres, the superintendent at Westlake Golf and Country Club in Jackson, New Jersey, was one of 32 women who traveled to Pine Needles that week to assist director of golf course maintenance and grounds David Fruchte and his team with preparations for and the execution of the championship.

Their contributions were essential. Fruchte and superintendent Chris Mintmier were working with a crew of no more than a dozen in the weeks leading up to the Women’s Open. Torres and her female colleagues stepped right in.

“By Day 2, David was basically telling the rest of his guys ‘Just follow the girls,’” Torres says. “This group just injects energy. We were infectious, some of the guys were saying. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for his crew of eight to 10 to get ready for such a big event and they did it. We were just there to put the polish on the diamond.”

Roughly half the group also volunteered at the 2021 Women’s Open at the Olympic Club, a watershed event in terms of the impact of women on the turf industry. While Torres could not be on hand for that tournament because of her responsibilities at Westlake, she spoke of its significance with Rick Woelfel on the Wonderful Women of Golf podcast.

“Those women who had the opportunity to be there said, ‘We broke the grass ceiling,’” Torres says. “And they did. It was a monumental step for women in this industry. It’s not that we weren’t accepted before (but) it’s given us an MO to get out there and be seen and try and invite more people into an industry that we all love and are encouraged to bring other people into. That event definitely kicked things into overdrive.”

For the women who volunteered at the Olympic Club, the 2022 Women’s Open was a reunion, an opportunity to spend time with other women who shared their passion for turf. The corps of volunteers was both a workforce and a support group.

“It was the goosebumps, the feelings,” she says. “Getting that many people in the same room that get it. We go home and we talk to our spouses, and they think we’re all nuts. But you have a room with 30 other women that get it, and don’t get together very often, and for the longest time didn’t even know that each other existed. Now we know that they’re out there, we talked about everything.”

The veteran professionals in the group took time to counsel their less-experienced colleagues. “We were there for one another to lift them up,” Torres says. “We talked to some of the younger women. Some things were going on that they were talking about possibly leaving the industry, and the week that they spent at Pine Needles made them realize that they had this support system they never knew they had and changed their decision. It was a great place to bond and encourage our relationships to grow.”

In order to make the time for the trip to Pine Needles, Torres had to be sure everything would be in order at her club. Fortunately, she has a support system in place that takes care of situations that arise when she’s not on the property. Her crew includes her son Ricardo.

“I’m fortunate to have a couple guys that live within five minutes of the course,” she says. “They’ve come to me and said, ‘There’s no sense in you having to drive 45 minutes to come in and turn off a head or something really simple, so could you show me how to do it?’ They’re eager to learn and I said, ‘No problem.’ It’s monumental, having staff that gets it, that I can trust and that gets things done. That allows me to do the things I want to do to further my career.”