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Green Section
Life on a Green Committee
Serving can be a challenge and a chore, but still rewarding
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Blaine Newnham
Columnist |
Well, I'm back on the green committee, saving the course for the members.
One of the rights and responsibilities of a member of a golf club - I belong to Wing Point on Bainbridge Island in Washington - is to be involved.
If you love golf, there is nothing better than being involved at the ground level, deciding how short the greens ought to be mowed, when a tree has outgrown its usefulness, where the new bunker should go on No. 10.
For three years in the '90s, I was chairman of the green committee, or, other than the president, the most influential member in the club. I watched-dogged the spending of $500,000 a year to maintain the course.
Mostly, I was the course ombudsman, the flak catcher, worrying about everything from goose poop to moss, from broken sprinklers to broken mowers, from drainage to dandelions, even though I couldn't personally do anything about them.
In the end, what I learned was what I didn't know. I learned golf courses shouldn't be run by the members. There are professional people to do that.
We trust doctors and dentists, but as golfers we don't trust golf course superintendents and architects. We want to remake the course in our own image.
I've come back to earth the second time around. Instead of thinking I'm the next Robert Trent Jones, I listen to the members who say we're missing a scoop in the sand-and-seed bucket on the 17th tee and we need a new one.
That's my job, represent the masses who care about the grasses.
The main problem with green committees is that they come and go, generally with board elections. The prevailing country club methodology is that the committee chairman ought to be on the board even though the life of a board member is generally three years. There is too much changing of the guard.
At Glendale Country Club in Bellevue, Wash., they've had less movement than the old Soviet politburo. Three committee members have been on the job more than 20 years. The chair has held the role eight years, and attends board meetings even though he's not on the board.
"You don't want to be re-inventing the wheel every couple of years," said Steve Kealy, Glendale's superintendent. "You don't need someone new asking the same old questions. You need old heads who have been through it before, who can say, 'We tried that a few years back and it didn't work.'"
Kealy doesn't think a green committee ought to worry about when the rough is mowed, or even how low the greens are cut.
"Sure, they care about the course's playability,'' he said, "but the need is for a long-term vision for the club, you know, where do we want to be 20 years from now and how are we going to get there."
What each club needs is an architect to turn to, someone who knows the course, appreciate its history, and in whose steady hands changes in the course will be made carefully and faithfully.
Glendale has a working relationship with John Harbottle III, the Tacoma, Wash., architect. The club goes to him for guidance on course changes.
Doug Doxsie, the golf professional at Seattle Golf Club, shares Kealy's views.
"The successful green committees see the big picture," he said. "They are invaluable in supplying feedback from the members, which, unfortunately, is mostly negative. They prove to be a filtering mechanism for the superintendent."
Who makes a good green committee member?
"Experienced golfers who play a lot of different places. Golfers who are more interested in questioning than directing," Doxsie said.
One thing is for sure, your game goes to pot while you're chairman of the green committee. If you're not in motion for 20 seconds, you're hit with questions, or more often, with complaints. You don't practice as much, or sleep as well.
But, what the heck, you're making the world safe from goose poop.
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