SUMMING IT UP
• The role of the superintendent has become multi-faceted—not just involving turfgrass management, but also environmental stewardship, research, personnel management, budget development, accounting, event management, inventory control, and communications. • This broadening of duties and capabilities can help raise the profile of superintendents who have traditionally been overlooked for advancement in club/resort management outside their specialized profession—and also help them advance within the field. |
As superintendents’ duties and skill-sets expand, they are in better position to present themselves as candidates for advancement-within their field, or beyond it.
To perform their duties successfully in today’s club environment, golf course superintendents must now have a wide range of skill-sets in their “career bags”—not only those of agronomist, but also accountant, personnel manager, inventory control chief, public relations specialist, and environmental steward, just to name a few.
For superintendents who aspire to take their careers from the course to the clubhouse, these expanded and multi-faceted roles can serve them well, by enhancing their visibility and promotability. At the same time, taking on all of these added duties can help make a stronger case for superintendents who want no part of larger management roles, but would still like to be promoted within their field, and recognized and rewarded fully for all that they now do.
Either way, the added duties and skills bring a new opportunity to raise superintendents’ profiles—but only if they are also carrying the key components for successful career development and advancement.
Overcoming the “Caddyshack Syndrome”
About 25 years ago, Certified Golf Course Superintendent Ted Horton applied for a position as a club general manager. Even though he was told he was the most qualified applicant for the position, Horton recalls, he still did not get the job.
“Things are changing, but sometimes still not as quickly as we would like,” says Horton, who now owns a consulting business in Canyon Lake, Calif., after spending more than 40 years in various aspects of golf course maintenance.
Superintendents cite a number of reasons why they think people in their field are still sometimes overlooked for advancement opportunities in other areas of club or resort management.
“People tend to think that if you are very good out of doors, it doesn’t translate to indoors,” explains Horton.
Ethan Lester, the General Manager and Superintendent of Maryland National Golf Club in Middletown, Md., agrees.
“It used to be very specialized,” he says of the golf course maintenance field. “We know grass. We know dirt.”
Sometimes, the roadblock is that superintendents are reluctant to promote themselves as viable candidates. Certified Golf Course Superintendent Mike McCall became General Manager of Casperkill Golf Club in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 2005. However, he says he never would have been considered for the position if he had not sent the facility’s management company a two-page letter outlining his qualifications for the job.
“It’s still that ‘Caddyshack’ syndrome,” agrees Chris Edmonson, the General Manager and Superintendent of Pine Dunes Resort & Golf Club in Frankston, Texas. However, the professional image of the golf course superintendent has come a long way from the unflattering caricature of the greenkeeper, as portrayed in the 1980 film.
“I believe that we’re now seen as business people and professionals with a whole lot more knowledge to offer than just how to grow grass,” says Lester.
McCall also believes the golf course superintendent’s image has improved. “I attribute that both to the quality of the individual in the profession, and to the [efforts to certify and promote the professionalism of superintendents by the] Golf Course Superintendents Association [of America],” he says.
Paths to the Top
McCall, a former naval officer who hopes to own a golf course one day, has been in the turfgrass field since the 1990s. He served as Superintendent at Casperkill—a daily-fee property featuring an 18-hole golf course, driving range and bar and grill—for three years before becoming its GM. He also took a course on preparing to be a general manager one year at the Golf Industry Show.
Lester says he cultivated a strong relationship with the Maryland National management team from the time he became Superintendent in 2002. He also took advantage of the 2004-05 off-season by serving as Superintendent and Assistant GM, to learn other aspects of property management.
“I could have easily laid back and done nothing over the winter,” he notes. “I took my spare time and made myself just as busy learning operations as I was in the summer [tending to the course]. I started from the bottom in the kitchen. I served; I bartended; I started managing the restaurant.”
The club’s management company then approached him about adding the GM position to his duties in September of 2005.
“After I put in the time, I saw that it was something I could do,” Lester says. But, he quickly adds, he could not handle both roles at the high-end daily-fee property—which includes an 18-hole golf course, clubhouse and restaurant—without “great people” on his staff.
Edmonson, who became Superintendent at Pine Dunes in 2002, says he added the GM duties to his resume in January of 2006. The resort features stay-and-play condominiums, an 18-hole golf course, a restaurant and a pro shop.
“I let [the owners] know that I was interested in becoming GM, and they ended up hiring me for the position,” he recalls.
Needing to Be Seen and Heard
Of all the tools superintendents need to increase their possibilities for advancement—or make a better case for promotion and proper recognition within their field—one stands out above all others: strong verbal and written communication skills.
“I have known good grass-growers who are unable to communicate upwards and downwards,” observes Horton.
In addition, Lester says, superintendents who want to advance either within or beyond the field need to show a willingness to learn new skills—and visibility is important as well.
Superintendents will be overlooked for higher-profile jobs “if they just stay down at the maintenance barn,” reports Edmonson. “The more you’re seen, the better, if you want to advance.”
The ownership and top management of club and resort properties will be more inclined to take a longer look at superintendents for promotion and advancement, Edmonson believes, if they are made more aware of the diverse duties that all superintendents—including those who aren’t in the top course maintenance positions—must now handle in their jobs. But the burden of creating this awareness falls largely on superintendents themselves.
McCall advises superintendents to “take action on their own now, so they’re prepared when the opportunity presents itself.” A voracious reader himself, he believes superintendents who want to advance should develop solid organizational and time management skills. “If you can master those, you can figure out the rest,” he believes.
In addition, he notes, “If you’re a good leader, you can pretty much lead any organization.”
Rising Through the Ranks
Some superintendents seek advancement opportunities to get new challenges, more responsibility or greater earnings. For others, pursuing a GM position might simply be a matter of logistics. “If you want to advance [out of the field], but don’t want to move, that’s one way to do it,” McCall notes.
Edmonson says he sought the GM position at Pine Dunes because he “wanted us to succeed as a club.” The pressures of both jobs will make it hard to sustain the dual roles for a 25- or 30-year career, he acknowledges. But for now, he says, “It’s worth it at the end of the day, or I wouldn’t be doing it.”
Finding Your Niche
The grass is not necessarily always greener on the other side of the fence, however. Many superintendents are content to stay on the course because they enjoy golf and the outdoors—the same reasons they entered the profession in the first place.
And there are plenty of opportunities for superintendents to challenge themselves in their own field. “You can either move to a larger club or you look for diversity within your capabilities, and grow in that,” Horton says.
“The definition of what is the ‘top’ is a matter of personal preference,” he observes. Some superintendents reach it at a successful municipal operation, while others thrive in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of preparing a course for a major tournament. Some prefer the service-oriented atmosphere of a private club and its repeat patrons, while others gravitate to resort settings, to provide one-time guests with the “experience of a lifetime.”
Another avenue of advancement for superintendents, adds Horton, who also serves as consulting superintendent to a company that oversees more than 50 golf properties, is to increase the number of facilities with which they are involved.
Whatever the chosen path, it is always important, Edmonson says, for superintendents to continue their agronomic educations and stay up-to-date on new grasses and technologies. But at the same time—just as general managers, golf pros, and food and beverage directors should learn more about turf issues, to be better prepared for today’s team approach to property management—superintendents should step up their efforts to improve areas where they are traditionally thought to be weak: communications and general management and business issues.
In the end, says Lester, where superintendents want to go—or stay—comes down to what gets them up in the morning. “You’ve got to love what you do,” he says. “I love not only the turfgrass, I love golf in general. If you see that you don’t love it, it’s probably a good idea to get out.”
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