Jumping in with two feet

It’s not often assistants get the chance to move into a superintendent’s position, but this past July I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to become Mauh-Nah-Tee-See Country Club’s newest superintendent at its course in Rockford, Ill.  I was an assistant for the past 10 years and eager to make the move into the position, but I never planned to make such a switch in the middle of summer. Luckily, I was working for an understanding superintendent and friend, Mark Thibault at The Links at Carillon in Plainfiled, Ill., this fact made it all possible.

I am the first one to admit leaving your superintendent in the heat of the summer is not the nicest thing to do, but five devoted years and thousands of hours of blood and sweat given to Carillon earned the blessing to apply for the Mauh-Nah-Tee See Country Club job.  Little did I know at the time, but the interview was the easy part.

I started July 1 with an hour and a half drive from Plainfield to Rockford, I had plenty of time to plan on the way. The first few weeks went well, the weather was beautiful and the golf course looked great.  I put my great ideas to the test, for a big impact I decided to borrow a couple walking greens mowers from fellow superintendent Grant Rundblade and began walking greens and tees.  The change was huge without expending too much time because MNTS has only 2 acres of greens and 1.5 acres of tees.

Everything began to roll with the exception of a few of the normal crew issues, then after three weeks I lost my assistant superintendent to a change in career and dream of playing golf professionally.  I was soon to realize that this was only the beginning of unfortunate things to come. On Aug. 6, three days before the club’s premiere event, the rain began to fall and it did not stop.  Eight inches later the golf course was devastated and so was the city of Rockford with major flooding.  Record rainfalls washed out the bunkers and blew out the banks of Keith Creek, which runs through six holes of the golf course.

However, soon the water started to recede and the crew, who I barely knew, went into action.  After spending a four hours cleaning up it barely seemed to put a dent in the devastation.  After discussing a few concerns with my young crew, I came up with a plan to call and recruit every friend they had to help us out.  Armed with shovels and energized by pizza, eight young men volunteered to help put the bunkers back together over the next two very long days.  We restored the golf course back to excellent playing conditions for the challenge event only to have it rain again. On a positive note, the members and guests were impressed and it was very rewarding to see the crew come together in this time of need. 

Unfortunately the crew had more chances to show their wonderful dedication, the rains came again and again and before I knew MNTS received 18 inches in 18 days during August. It was difficult to mow, spray, or keep the golf course playable during the stretch.  The greens were hit hard by Anthracnose which resulted in spraying three times with three products over 7 days to regain control. 

After four weeks of soggy feet, the golf course finally started to dry out and I decided to turn a cycle of irrigation on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend.  The system ran through about 80 percent of the program before the central computer crashed due to an earlier lightning strike, compliments of the rainy season. Without NSN and having RDR’s in the satellites with no programs I spent the holiday weekend manually watering the golf course.  I was beginning to seriously think that I was becoming the black cat of Mauh-Nah-Tee-See. 

By the time November rolled around I realized I survived five months with no assistant, no central irrigation computer, and a house still for sale in Plainfield in a declining housing market. The hour and a half commute was wearing on me and this horrible housing market was beginning to rob me of any sleep, but things were starting to look up.  The insurance claim was settled and the new irrigation computer was ordered and would be installed soon.  And everyone knows how good it feels to have the irrigation blown out and put to bed. 

Like everyone else I struggled to time the snow mold preventative applications, but I finished those too.  I started to relax a little and the house finally sold, the commute would soon be over. Oops, wait! Did I say our house was sold? I almost forgot the house sold twice in December.  The first time fell through on moving day and I was lucky enough to unpack the moving truck. After reloading the truck, Kari and I finally moved in the new house on the Friday before Christmas at 5 o’clock at night.  Without a Christmas tree, it was a miracle Santa still found our 3-year-old son Jackson. 

Undoubtedly we enjoyed Christmas, but the thoughts of the 1-2 inches of ice which had formed on the greens were beginning to make me a little restless.  Without a hard frost before the first snowfalls a large amount of ice developed and it was nearing 40-plus days of ice cover. After much discussion with fellow Forest Hills superintendent Don Altman and general manager Mike VanSistine, we decided to remove the 10-plus inches of snow after the New Year and before the small warm up which was forecasted. Acting in our favor temperatures were warmer than expected and hit 61 degrees, two days later the snow and ice were gone, but only for a few days. 

We soon found out that the snowfalls would not stop and Rockford is nearing an all time record amount of snow.  This is after the wettest month in history, which was this past August.  What a crazy first year. I have made it through record climate events and disastrous golf course problems.  It can only get easier from here.

For those of you who may have the opportunity to advance by taking a superintendent’s position in the middle of summer, I say jump in with two feet and grab hold with two hands – it can be a wild ride.  I would not change one experience I had this past season and I have become a better Superintendent because of those experiences.  I do offer these three suggestions to anyone making a job change in any season.

1. Get to know your neighborhood superintendents they can be a valuable asset if you run into problems and need an extra hand or piece of equipment. 
2. Communicate to your membership or golfers of any course conditions or problems occurring, and after all, the weather is out of your control. 
3. Work hard and keep your focus.  Your past experiences and education will pull you through. 

I was once told “remember you don’t have to know all the answers you just need to know where to find them.” (Troy Shattuck-Oakwood Country Club, Coal Valley, Ill.) We work in a unique field, the networking and relationships we make are the most valuable tools we have on which to rely.  It’s not only important to be a member of your local superintendent associations, but also to be active and stay involved. 

Good luck out there and cheers to a great 2008 season.

Scott White is superintendent at Mauh-Nah-Tee-See Country Club in Rockford, Ill.