Lessons from the #BlockParty

Michael Wolpoff arrived at Colonial Country Club last month with half an hour to spare. Plenty of time to find his favorite group and follow them into the evening.  

Like many golf fans at the Charles Schwab Classic, Wolpoff wanted to be part of the #BlockParty and follow Michael Block, the longtime PGA club professional who entered not just golf and sports headlines but — for at least the proverbial 15 minutes — the national conversation after finishing 15th a week earlier at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club.   

Unlike many golf fans, though, Wolpoff wanted to follow Block because he knows him, and he knows him quite well: The two have worked alongside each other for the last five and a half years as the superintendent and the head professional at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, a daily-fee course in Mission Viejo, California.  

This is not the first time Wolpoff or other Arroyo Trabuco team members have traveled to cheer on Block. Less than six months after he started at Arroyo Trabuco, Wolpoff was part of the team that joined Block at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, and earlier this year, both general manager Matt Donovan and club manager Geoff Cram joined Block at Oak Hill. A family commitment kept Wolpoff from joining them, but he was not going to miss his friend tee off in Texas.  

“Knowing that the club was willing to bring me along for the ride was very endearing,” says Wolpoff, who arrived at Arroyo Trabuco in January 2018. “You just realize the kind of people you’re working with and working for. Early on, that let me know I might have landed in a really special spot, … and it’s been that way pretty much ever since, the same kind of family scenario. It all still feels real special to be part of it here.”

How have Wolpoff and Block developed such a strong professional relationship when so many other turf pros and club pros seem to be engaged in epic cold wars? According to Wolpoff, trust is paramount.  

Wolpoff and Block drove around the course almost every week after Wolpoff started at Arroyo Trabuco. That lasted about five months before Wolpoff remembers Block telling him, I think you got it. Unless there’s an issue, I don’t think you really need to do a whole lot. Now in his sixth season, Wolpoff still talks regularly with Block and Cram. “They see me every day,” he says. “I’ll stop in Michael’s office, I’ll stop over in Geoff’s office, once or twice a day, just to stay abreast of what’s going on and see if there’s anything they’ve seen that they’d like to have addressed.”  

Block runs interference for Wolpoff, fielding suggestions and complaints from golfers and passing along the most important. “It is a great relationship, but it’s not one where it’s like, OK, we need to go move the mowing lines here because I don’t like how this hole sets up, nothing like that. When Michael comes to me with something, I trust what he’s bringing me. I think he filters out a lot of what he hears and doesn’t come to me until there’s something we have to talk about. But that doesn’t happen very often. Two, maybe three times a year. It runs pretty smoothly.”  

Trust and regular communication create unison, too. “When both parties are open to the discussion about ways to make the facility better, it just works out better,” Wolpoff says. “These are our goals and this is what we hope we can do. What can you do to help us get there? What can I do to help us get there? You don’t have to have those discussions all that often if both parties are actively trying to achieve those goals. That’s how it’s been here for five and a half years. All the stakeholders are on the same page and the ship is pulling in the same direction. It takes a lot of stress out of the job.”  

Wolpoff likes to arm Block with as much information as possible, prepping him for potential golfer complaints. Weather patterns and forecasts, how recent rainfalls have affected the course, upcoming cultural practices, on and on.   

“When you can provide the pro shop and the pro with as many answers to all those questions well before they are asked of them or complained to about, they are going to be more opportunistic in helping the relationship, by kind of staving off some of the verbiage that’s being used around the club. Just be proactive and get in there.   

“And if you can’t do it with the pro, especially on the private side, then you have to do it with the members and be visible in and around the pro shop, especially when those key groups are going off. You’re not just a dirt guy.”  

And if the pro at your club has no interest in developing that relationship? “I think too many times, it can become a strained relationship,” Wolpoff says. “You’d love to have equal effort from both sides but sometimes somebody’s got to be the person to lead the way. If it’s not happening for you, just be that person, because it does make a world of difference for your job experience.”  

Not every club is like Arroyo Trabuco, of course. Few club pros have recorded rounds like Block — who, far from the glare of television, set the course record with a 59 — and few will budget travel parties like Wolpoff, Donovan, Cram and the rest of the team have enjoyed during recent years. But the template is there to at least develop the kind of relationship shared by Wolpoff and Block. Flights and cheering sections not included.  

Matt LaWell is Golf Course Industry’s managing editor.