Superintendent Series: Steve Cook on Medinah and Major Championships

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Fried Egg podcasts in our Superintendent series. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Toro. Two things tour prose hate leaking oil down the stretch and their caddy having to quiet spectators. Golf course maintenance pros are the same, except they worry about literally leaking hydraulic oil and waking up the neighbors with early morning mowing routines. Toro's new greens Master e Triflex series riding greens mower solve both problems. The engine generator model is amazingly quiet in operation, while the lithium ion battery model is virtually silent. Both e Triflex models carry no hydraulic fluid on board, using all electric components for traction, steering, lift and cutting. This means not only our potential leaks a thing of the past, but noise complaints are too. Follow at Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor to schedule a demo. All right, I'm really excited about today's episode. I am joined by Medina's Director of Grounds, Steve Cook. Steve joined Madinah a couple of years ago. He came from Oakland Hills, where he held the same role as director of Grounds, and before that he was at the Wakanda Club in Iowa.

00:01:17
Speaker 2: Steve has had a ton.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: Of tournament experience and obviously a lot of experience managing big teams, so it was fun to talk to him about leadership in his career, which has included stops in even France. So, without further ado, here is Steve Cook. I miss a.

00:01:34
Speaker 3: Green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a.

00:01:40
Speaker 4: Brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg fridagggg Frida egg bride egg.

00:01:46
Speaker 3: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: You manage, and you've managed a lot of young superintendents through your career at you know, Oakland Hills and now here at Medina, I come across a lot of superintendents with widely different backgrounds, Like you see some of the Michigan State, Penn State turf guys that are you know, they're basically like, you know, this is what I'm going to do, and this is I'm going to do this, And then you see people with all different types of backgrounds that become great superintendents.

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Speaker 2: In your experience, have you seen it?

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Speaker 1: Do you do you notice differences in people with different backgrounds when when you're working with them.

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Speaker 5: Yeah? Sure, I mean I have no engineers in turf. A lot of the people that I know or somehow tied to agriculture. It came from a farm background or somehow they were outside and wanted to be outside. Some of them were golfers, right grew up, their dad played golf with the family, played golf, and they gravitated. Instead of the golf pro route, they went to superintendent route. But I would say most of my circle of guys, somehow, most of them were rural. You know, I know guys assistants who grew up in North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, throughout even in the East Coast in New York. I think the rural part of it was a big deal. They wanted to be outside, or they's somehow tied to egg somewhay.

00:03:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: And then I mean you see guys that are machine guys that are you know, yeah, that start as you know, they just fix the motors and then they become superintendent. It's it's really one of the things that you know, you you think, oh, you know, there's a lot of science that goes into what you guys do. And obviously the education aspects are important, but the work experience is also so important.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we're a lot like chefs. If you look at what a chef does at a club, so we're like technicians in a way. The chef is a technician, right, so he's got to get he's got to get the recipe of the burnet sauce exactly right. And so I have always I had like minded relationships with the chefs because what we do for the for the client tele, the product that we provide is something that the clientele touches and with the chef, they obviously ingested it and put it into their body. But I think superintendents are detail oriented in the same way that a chef is. A good chef is detail oriented. So I see a lot of similarities between between that and just as a personal preference, I was gravitated towards a chef because they had a product that I want that I wanted to partake in.

00:04:50
Speaker 1: That's a good I never have thought about that analogy, but it makes a lot of sense because the other thing is like your cooking environment changes and like that, just like with the weather. And you know sometimes, like great chefs, you ask him for a recipe and very rarely are they like this much of this this much. It's like there's so much feel that goes into it. And maintaining a golf course, like you need to have like your hand at like your finger on the pulse, so much of what the golf course needs at that time, just like you might need if you're you know, grilling something. You know I don't when I grill, I do it all based off of feel.

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Speaker 5: But like right, so it's more art than science. So what we do in turf is far more art than it is science. Right. The science undergirds what we do and it's like the basis of what we do. But it's the same thing as a chef. You know, he's not putting in the exact amount that the recipe calls for. He's dipping his spoon and what he makes and tasting it that says it needs a little more basil or whatever. We're doing the same thing. You know, we're looking at the spray program and say I'll bump that up by a quarter of an ounce because the dew point was up by two degrees last night or whatever.

00:05:53
Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 5: So there's so much feel and art that goes into what we do. I think that and you know, also right or wrong. Chefs and superintendents tend to take the criticism very personally, right, like, very sure the greens are slow. It's like the chef, you know, the guy says the spaghetti's to l Dante. You know, it's the same, it's the same reaction. What are you talking about? You know, I just spent two hours preparing the spaghetti. Right, So I think we have a tendency if we're not careful to get a little too worked up about we approach the complaints and the feedback of the same. And I think so we have this shared commonality of how we deal with our client tele you know. And if you it's really if you ever have a chance, go listen to a superintendent and a chef at a bar complaining, right, bitching about.

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Speaker 2: Something might have to do a chef, you should guess.

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Speaker 5: That's exactly Just let them. Let them start talking about their product and you'll they'll they'll talk over each other, but what they're saying the theme is the same. You know, they're complaining about my product or my product was good yesterday. It's really kind of funny.

00:07:02
Speaker 1: Well it's easy to I think, like there's a vocal minority, and I get it the same way with when you have an opinion that maybe some people disagree with, like the small percentage disagree with are going to be allowed, and then like you immediately take it personally, which is sometimes like just you have to learn to like take a deep breath and be like, you know what, that's fine, It's okay if not everybody likes.

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Speaker 5: This, you know, right. You have to be able to compartmentalize it a little bit. And if you've got a strong sense of who you are as a person, I think it particularly as you get older, you're able to say, okay, that's that that issue is important and that issue isn't instead of running around with your hair on fire with every single including the positive feedback too. I mean, you get more positive feedback than you get negative for sure, and you have to be able to put that in check also and be able to you know, know what is important and know what's not. So if somebody's complaining about the salad that you served. You can't, you know, you can't get all worked up forward. You have to be able to recognize whether that matters or it doesn't.

00:08:09
Speaker 1: So you grew up in central Illinois, you went to the University of Illinois. How did you get to France.

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Speaker 5: Well, that's interesting. So I was single at the time. I was working at Madina here at the time as one of the core superintendents, and I was just kind of, you know, wanted to move at that part of my career, and I thought I'd be kind of neat to live overseas, and I just happened to apply for a job that was in Paris, and I never really gave it much more thought than that, you know, I just thought I would be cool live in France for a while. And lo and behold they called me. And then at the same time, Robert Trent Jones was consulting here and I met him here. He was doing the job in France at joint Ball and so I met him here and when asked him questions about it, one thing led to another, and next thing, I know, in New York for the interview, they offered me the job, and I kind of had to make a choice of what I was going to do, and I had no business taking that job. I was completely unqualified for it. I couldn't speak the language. I was a young guy that really wasn't set on my skills yet. But I did, and man, what an experience. I mean, just just awesome culturally and personally. It was just fantastic.

00:09:28
Speaker 1: You don't speak the language, right back up, you move over there, and then I'm assuming you're managing a team that you can't communicate with.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:09:37
Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 5: So we had is a small crew. So luckily I had an assistant who spoke perfect English, no accent or anything like perfect English, and he ended up going to Michigan State to get his degree in turf And we had I think eleven nationalities on the crew out of a crew of like fifteen. I mean they were from Mauritania, in Africa, Algeria, Portugal, France, Spain, and they all spoke some level of French, right, so it was extremely difficult for me to even from the south of France, I couldn't understand what he was saying. So I took a French course here at the College to Page and just learned the basics, learn how to count numbers, pronounce the alphabet and the pronouns. Was basically what I learned in six months or six weeks, and then went over there and I just tried to immerse myself in the culture. I made it. The one good thing I did is I made a commitment to try to become French while I was there, to immerse myself in the culture and not be the American. So I read the paper every day. Well, I take that back. I would buy the Sunday paper and by Friday I would have the like the first two pages done, like, I'd get the headlines down with a dictionary. And then I had no choice but to speak French. Nobody spoke English because when my assistant went to Michigan State he was gone, so I had no translator. So I was forced to learn the language. And it was just the greatest thing for me. You know. They always said I spoke like a six year old. You know, six year old knows about five or six hundred words. That was about my limit. So within Golf I could communicate with the crew, I could order food at the restaurant, I could get a taxi, I could get a hotel. But if you and I were talking like this in French, I would be lost within thirty seconds.

00:11:19
Speaker 1: How did that experience kind of shape as your management when you went forward? Was there was there an aspect of being essentially limited of with how you communicated with your staff that changed the way you would have managed people.

00:11:35
Speaker 5: Well, nobody's ever asked me that question about that part of it. Well, you know, I learned from mistakes, I would say, in dealing with people throughout my career. It's more of the mistakes that stand out than anything. But I think what I learned there, The biggest thing that I learned there was to calm down and to slow down, and that you know, it's just a slower pace of life. And you know, the French and probably Europe in general, they work to live when Americans lived the work. That was a big difference I took away over there. You know, I would work through lunch when I got there, and I found out in short order that just doesn't work, you know. So lunch has started to be two hours and three hours, and that's a pretty good lifestyle, you know. I mean, So it taught me that this this strive for perfection isn't maybe the best for your health. And for your life that they're you know, work hard while you're there, But then if you want to take a two hour lunch, take a two hour lunch, and did you think there's a lot of positives about that. It wasn't for me necessarily. I don't know that I would want to do that forever, but there was some great lessons about that.

00:12:45
Speaker 1: It's I've I've worked, you know, with with this, people are always you know, like I'm doing what I love. But one of the things that I get hung up on sometimes is I can work from like six a m. Till midnight because like it doesn't always feel that much like work. And especially during this stay at home time, I've found like I've worked probably more hours than ever before in my life. But one of the things I've started to do is like in the middle of the day, I take like three or three hour breaks, and it's incredible because you it resets you, and you come back and you're able to have a much more productive afternoon than you would have if you didn't take a break. If you work through it, because like, no matter what, if you start to you know, as much as you even love it, it's going to your ability to be creative and really put out high quality work. Diminishes the more time you spend on it.

00:13:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's no question. I mean I remember it took a trip to They actually made me take time off because at that time in France you could only work thirty nine hours a week, and there were like twenty five.

00:13:56
Speaker 2: So there's a mandate you could only work thirty nine hours.

00:13:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I I worked more because I was a salaried person, but you couldn't work the crew more than thirty nine hours unless you had an agreement with the local community. So I would work, you know, long hours. And the guy who owned the company, Gayton, he finally said like, look, you got to take some time off. This isn't working out. You gotta take some time off. So we went on a trip to England and went to the Old Course. And I'll never forget walking on the eighteenth Green at the Old Course. It was closed that day, but I walked out onto it and they had just terrified it. And for whatever reason, this epiphany occurred and I realized that nobody knew how many hours that guy worked. The superintendent the place had been there for four hundred years, five hundred years, it was still there. It wasn't going anywhere no matter how many hours the guy who was currently there was working, right, And I don't know why that thought occurred to me, but that was kind of a breakpoint for me about the number of hours I was working, Like, wait a minute, all this stuff is going to be here two hundred years from now. You know, I'm one small part of it. And we're better just like you said, we're better when we're fresh, when we have interests outside of what we're doing, makes us some more rounded individual.

00:15:11
Speaker 1: That's a big thing is how life experiences and doing different stuff can really bring fresh ideas and perspective to work where you can get so down into a rabbit hole that having balance in your life is so important to keep perspective on stuff.

00:15:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, balance is a great word. I mean, I just think that's that's just a great word that every superintendent should have on their desk, you know, written on the wall. Balance, because I think it's so easy to get wrapped up into this perfectionism of what we do and then you start, you know, counting how many molecules of boron are going into the tank, and it really doesn't make much difference and that's why I developed. Part of the reasons why I develop, you know, interests outside of greenkeeping, because.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: What are your interests outside?

00:16:01
Speaker 5: Well, I like to be outside and in general, so I've always been like a biker and a hiker, backpacking, climbing, anything in the mountains. You know, I think. I think it has for sure made me a better, better superintendent without question.

00:16:18
Speaker 2: Do you walk the course regularly?

00:16:20
Speaker 5: I do. I don't play golf, so I used to a little bit, but I was never really that good. But I don't play golf anymore. So I try to take a putter or a wedge with me and walk, you know, I can. I've got a loop here at Medina that i can see all three golf courses. It's about six miles. So I'll take a putter or a wedge with me, hit some shots, putt around and see I can see six greens on each golf course on my route, or I can walk one golf course. I try to do that a couple times a week.

00:16:44
Speaker 1: What are some things that you've kind of picked out up on from just walking around that you wouldn't have maybe noticed otherwise.

00:16:51
Speaker 5: Well, I think if you don't play golf, you got to get out of the golf cart. I mean if most superintimes play golf, so I think you either got to play golf. You have to understand the game from a member perspective, from a player's perspective, that's like critical. And since I don't play, I got to get my feet on the ground. So it's really important to have boots on the ground. It's just different than riding around on a golf court at ten or fifteen miles an hour. You just don't see everything. So you might trip over a hole in the ground that you just think as a hole and turns out it's an eight inch drain tile that have been buried over for you know, ten years, and you dig around and you find a new drain. And then I like to walk the edge of the property, along the fence line in the woods. Just I like to walk where places that people don't typically walk, so I can learn the property line, learn where there's a wet area, you know, where's their sun, where's their shade, and you know, walk in a bunker and see where it's thin or whatever, just to try to get it feel from what are the members seeing from six feet above ground? The members not seeing it at fifteen miles an hour on a cart, members seeing it on the ground. So I think it's just really important to walk or play one of the two. If you don't play, you gotta walk, got any choice.

00:18:01
Speaker 2: I agree with that.

00:18:03
Speaker 1: I think I pick up more when I walk off courses, though when I play them. Playing is like an endless like chase her from one shot to the next, and walking you just are always looking around and you see so much more stuff. It's it's really I think I love walking off courses sometimes I like it more than playing.

00:18:22
Speaker 2: Well.

00:18:22
Speaker 5: I think I make the case that the speeds uply. Yeah, I think there's a strong case they made the walking speeds uplight.

00:18:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:18:28
Speaker 2: Have you seen that with uh?

00:18:30
Speaker 1: With I've got a buddy who's a who's a member at Olympia Fields, and he spent texting me.

00:18:35
Speaker 2: He's a lawyer.

00:18:36
Speaker 1: He spent texting me NonStop about how much he's loved this twosomes walking because he can al sudden play in two and a half hours and it's usually four and a half. Have you guys seen the same thing with the with the restrictions here with the pace of play.

00:18:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it just causes you to be a little more direct. Is not driving around everywhere looking at this or that or going over get a sandwich. You're like walking to your ball and hitting it, you know. And I think, I don't know what the pace of play is here since we've been walking, but I think I'm hoping that that's like a semi permanent thing, right that more people will go, oh, wow, this this is pretty cool getting out of the golf cart and find a way to walk more.

00:19:19
Speaker 1: I'd love if the pace of play thing holds too, where people realize, wow, it's a lot nicer to play golf when it takes three hours than five. You know, that would be a great, great change in the game, because I think that's something that people have seen across the board during this whole pandemic. So you had a really small team in France, it was it when you came back and worked at Wakanda, Was it a smaller team or a bigger team?

00:19:45
Speaker 5: Progress No, we had we had a bigger team at what kind of I want to say, you know, it's probably twenty issues something like that, low twenties. But coming from here at the time. Even then, back when I worked at Dina back in the eighties we had pretty good sized crew, not like what we do today, but there's probably fifty guys here then, so I was kind of used to the growth and staff numbers that come along with taking on bigger operations. At least I had seen the organization of it. But you know what kind of was just a great opportunity for me. I mean, just wonderful, wonderful people. Number one, And as you know we talked earlier, you know, just a great old Langford and Mourea golf course. It hadn't been changed much and beautiful piece of property. There were twenty seven blind shots, as I recall, I think you had twenty seven blind shots on that golf course, which people today, you know, might complain about. But whenever did.

00:20:34
Speaker 1: They do the I know there's some new holes out there, some changes, right well, I think Rule.

00:20:41
Speaker 5: Of Witch did some work there post me. I mean I didn't do any work there when I was there, so I can't. I'm pretty sure there was a double green in the ninth hole because of the pool was put in so that there was a new ninth hole that was built back in the eighties, I think, But pretty sure it's your original routing. Most of the green sides of the original green sites. They just you know, you could tell they just perched them on all the high spots where greens and te's and then down below where you couldn't see anything was the landing zone.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: What was it like maintaining lane from I've heard, I've talked to some superintendents that talk about how difficult the steep slopes are down into bunkers or around green Was it something that required different maintenance from your perspective than say the Trent Jones Course in France or Medina.

00:21:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there was you know, there was more fly mowing and push mowing on those bunker banks. But I want to say they only had thirty or forty bunkers. I can't remember the number now it's been so long, but I don't recall it being you know, outrageously difficult. But obviously the features up around the green sites were a little more vertical and severe because of how they were building them back in that day with a steam shovel. I just remember what a cool piece of property it was because everything was so natural and it hadn't been changed much. Right, the greens are all perched on high spots, and it was just like they showed up on the property and looked at all the high spots and so don't give we got to put a green or a tea here and then routed it around that they had to.

00:22:07
Speaker 1: Really, I feel like when I go to Langford you can see the distinct way of draping fairways over slopes too. That makes it even feel more natural where you know, you're you're teeing off and you can see the green up here, but then you're teeing off over a you know, a big shoulder in the fairway and that fairway just kind of sits right on top of it.

00:22:28
Speaker 5: Now you're describing the sixteenth at Wakanda or the thirteenth on that golf course, the same same thing as the sixteenth of the whole entire golf holes on the side of a hill and at the end is a flat spot for a tea in the green, you know, And it's really pretty cool. It's just unique, you don't you don't you know. I remember Tom Fazio when he was building Glen Oaks in west of Mooine at that time, came over and visited it for an hour or so, and I remember him saying on that tour, I'd love to build a golf course like this, but I never could get away with it, just because of all the severe lack of earth moving. Number One, none of the landforms were changed, but just kind of dealing with what you had and putting the greens and teas on high spots and you play in between.

00:23:13
Speaker 1: So you've met, you know, spent time with Fazio, Robert Trent Jones, Rhys Jones.

00:23:20
Speaker 2: I assume he spent some time with Gil.

00:23:23
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about just getting into what you've noticed about golf architects. Are they, you know, in their personalities in general?

00:23:31
Speaker 5: Boy, there's a lot. There's just a lot of variation and personalities. Number One, I've just learned so much about golf course architecture from from the best. I mean, I remember when we interviewed Tom Doak at Oakland. I'll never forget that dinner because after the interview, we took him down and had dinner, and I just by sure chance I sat next to him at dinner. I didn't say anything, but listening to him for an hour, realized that that man is like a genius. The things he was saying. I had never heard before about land and landforms and green sights and the knowledge of architecture and how he saw land just kind of rolled off of his tongue. And I'll never forget that dinner, thinking if I could spend a day with him or read his books. I just thought that. I think at the end of the century, you know, for when this century's done, they're going to talk about two hundred years of golf, and they're going to talk about two people, Donald Ross and Tom Doak. I mean, I just think he he he. I mean, look at who's working in the field. They all worked for him. Yeah, I mean, it's it's everybody who's doing work. In my opinion, good work is doing what Tom Doak did when he started with High Point in Michigan. You know, this is starting point. Everybody is following that model.

00:24:56
Speaker 2: Did you see that golf course.

00:24:58
Speaker 5: Well, I interviewed there when they were when the Luckily I didn't I didn't get the job. But luckily meaning I wasn't qualified for that job either. When I say lucky, I mean lucky for them that they didn't hire me. But I just think that the way he needs he gets a lot of credit. I think he needs more. I think the tree removal is due to Tom Doak lowering costs, and golf course construction is due to Tom Doak. You know, people looking at just let me look at the land that I have, and I'm gonna put a golf course on this piece of property that I'm that I'm building on, right, I just think that thought process is due to him.

00:25:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's He's a brilliant guy. I've spent lucky to spend a lot of time with him.

00:25:42
Speaker 5: And well, I really enjoy listening to it when he's on because I turn up the volume.

00:25:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's a nugget.

00:25:48
Speaker 5: There's a nugget on every one of those podcasts you do with him, there's a nugget.

00:25:51
Speaker 1: I'm always amazed at, like the his ability to remember and recall, like, well, things they saw twenty five years ago.

00:25:59
Speaker 5: Well, here's a good stories. So during the same interview at Oakland, he comes, he's in the interview and the interview people are there other members and they were like, I don't know, there were ten of us in the room and the introductions are made and they said, well, you know, mister Doak, can you can you describe a hole for us what you might do on a given hole, and Tom said, well, pick a hole and they said, well one, you know, you tell us which one. And Tom said, no, pick a hole, any hole, just pick a hole. So the Green Committee chairman said, okay, how about number one. Now he hadn't been there, admittedly since nineteen ninety six in the open, and when I saw him on the golf course, he was in a golf cart, driving as fast as a golf cart would go before the interview, down every hole. He just drove all eighteen and he described the first hole in intricate detail, and I mean each He said, that little dip one hundred and twenty yards out on the first hole to the left, we need to work off that little dip because it flow. I mean, he described the whole hole. And I thought that was amazing to me that a guy could see that in a fifteen minute ride around on the golf course. And I think you're right. He My impression was an I don't I don't know, but my impression was that it seemed like a very good memory.

00:27:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very very very good memory. So now for a quick word from our sponsor, Toro. For more than a century with cutting edge turf equipment and irrigation solutions. Toro has had your front nine covered and your back nine two. In fact, Toro's always had your back period. Torre has committed to your long term success as tour pros are committed to their shot. That's down to top notch customer service from Toro and it's dedicated local distributors, both of whom are passionate about delivering turf equipment and irrigation solutions that solve real world problems. Follow at Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor today.

00:27:58
Speaker 2: Now back to Steve Cook.

00:28:00
Speaker 1: With you know you talked a little bit about Oakland Health when you were working at Madina. Did you always know you wanted it? Like when you were young, you wanted to go and become part of a big club. Was that always, you know, kind of your intended goal as you as you progressed in your career.

00:28:17
Speaker 5: Right when I was growing up, when I went to school, I just wanted to be a superintendent. I wanted to be outside. I didn't really care where I worked, I did any thought process. I didn't even know what the top one hundred was and then I had an opportunity to come here and it really opened my eyes to what at that time, you know, in the mid eighties, high end maintenance and how things were done, and I really piqued my interests. Okay, this is this is the route that I want to go. And then I just had some good fortune from there. You know, I was fortunate to be able to move to France for that was thirty six holes and then I wanted to move back home. What kind of was a great opportunity for me. So I was got fortunate there. And then Oakland Hills opened up, and you know, the general manager and I at the time, Rick Bayless, kicked you know, kind of hit it off, and that was, you know, wonderful career opportunity. Kind of made my career. I mean, my DNA really made my career. That was the big step.

00:29:09
Speaker 2: But the first first one.

00:29:11
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, once I came here, I was kind of on a different path.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Which course did you take care? Of course? One? Of course one. Yeah, So it's way different now.

00:29:20
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I mean I think it's and I've told the members this, so I'm not letting anything out here that I shouldn't. On a podcast. But I do think it's the best course on the property right now. I mean, I just think it's he took a kind of a narrow piece of land, right it's long, long and narrow kind of and used the one singular feature into the best advantage, and that's that little valley waterway that runs from north to south from Irving Park Road all the way to the clubhouse, and everything kind of works off of that. And I just think the shaping is off the charts good on that golf course. The greens are really good. It's interesting you never play the same shot twice. It's a members golf course that you could play every day and never have the same shot twice.

00:30:03
Speaker 1: And the green to have some pretty both contours. So yep, you've got just general interest when when the pins are different. And there was a lot of drainage work, right there's a lot of stormwater mitigation concerns when they did the did the old course flood a lot with that.

00:30:20
Speaker 5: When I was here, it was severe flooding and a lot of dead grass when it flooded. So you know, Curtis Tyrrell was the superintendent at the time and he and Tom did those both those golf courses. What Time did Course one and res did course too, but they did some wonderful drainage mitigation. It drains big water really really really well.

00:30:43
Speaker 4: So like the last two weeks the best rainage on those two, you know, they stay wet and and you know with that kind of rain, we've had nine inches in May, so with that kind of rain, they're going to stay wet.

00:30:54
Speaker 5: But in terms of moving big water off the property, like holding it and moving it really really well done.

00:31:00
Speaker 1: It's one of the neatest things that I think, like until you've been somewhere where like I was at Riviera and I saw a rain once, but then I saw on TV when they had really bad rain delay and they had a shot, and I'll never forget it with just the way the water was moving off that golf course into the Baranka and it's just unbelievable. Like surface drainage at work and seeing waterways move exactly how you want it. It's it's something that as you understand, I think it's one of the coolest things in golf architecture that is that you know, very few people look at or think about when you know and obviously like a popular way to do it is a lot of people just use basins, but the surface drainage is like the most amazing thing when you're able to.

00:31:52
Speaker 2: Figure out a way to just move water from one spot to another.

00:31:55
Speaker 5: Well, I hope Gil at Oakland, I'm sure you will will look at that because I used to love to go out in a heavy rainstorm at Oakland and watch the water move off of that golf course. And it's still to this day is stunning to me that Ross did that. You could stand on every green and the water would run towards the southeast at Oakland Hills, which was Lasser Road by five Green, and that's where the creek exited the property Two Green ran off. I can still see the water running off the front of two Green. It would come off the front of two Green and then take an immediate right back to the southeast and go down towards the pond. Nine Green would run straight off the front of it due east towards the water. I mean, it was just every single green the water that ran off of it within one hundred feet was heading towards the southeast on that property. And I just think that's the genius of those guys, is that that wasn't by accident. There's no way that water was running towards the southeast off of Oakland Hills by accident, as Donald Ross did that. And I used to just love go out there, and I still like to this day to go out in a rainstorm if it's not lighting and just either walk the golf course or be out on and watch water run. Yeah, just for personal knowledge, and also tell you where you need drainage. Right, We're where you need to focus on drainage, and you're right. Watching water run on a golf course is, especially the older ones. It was a lot of fun.

00:33:23
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to go and watch Chicago Golf's punch Bowl drain because, like Rainer had this distinct way of building that drainage point where everything would just run right out, and I'd love to go stand out there and just a mon soon and watch it.

00:33:39
Speaker 2: I kind of missed my chance this year. But they had to.

00:33:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, they had no choice. Yeah, right, So that was always the forefront of their mind. They knew they had to get water off the golf course.

00:33:48
Speaker 1: From from your standpoint, I'm just curious, you know what, when you have a point, a spot that's not draining, Well, they say it's a low point. What are your different how do you prescribe vibe? Exactly how you're going to attack a drainage issue, Well, it.

00:34:04
Speaker 5: Depends on the outlet.

00:34:06
Speaker 2: You know.

00:34:06
Speaker 5: You have to figure out where the outlet is going to be first, and then how to get it to the outlet, you know, and what's what's the grade in between where where you are and where you're going. So if there's a ponded situation someplace that you know, can be a small pond or a big pond, you just got to look around, know where the water runs and look around and figure out where am I going with it? And then what's my greade difference between point A point B? And then try to try to figure it out. You know, if you're trying to drain two hundred acres, it's best to bring in an engineer right and do an engineer drainage drawing with the you know, the superintendents are always putting drainage in and you're just looking at bird bass, where's it going to go? Where do I have to put it? Sometimes you have to put in some pumps right to get it over. An elevation might be the best way to do it depending on your power source. But yeah, I just think it's trying to move water off the golf course because for a superintendent, the two most important tools are the ability to add water and the ability to remove it. Everything else is secondary. If you can't do those two things, then you're gonna have You're gonna struggle. So you have to have good irrigation and you have to have good drainage.

00:35:11
Speaker 1: Your experience at Oakland Hill has opened you up to UH tournament golf. And I don't know how many superintendents have worked with the PGA, the PGA Tour you worked with here at Medina last year, and then also the USGA. If you notice any differences in working with those organizations, what each experience was like.

00:35:33
Speaker 5: Well, I would say a big difference is that for the most part, or I'm talking in the past, or just more volunteer people you're dealing with with the USGA and with the PGA and the PGA Tour, those are paid staff that you're dealing with from from all across the board. They're paid employees, So you have this shared commonality with a paid employee, right, It's just a different relationship and it's a different dynamic. And with the you know, Carrie, you're dealing with one person, only one person, that's it for everything. So it's just a lot quicker communication line. So you have to learn that relationship versus the USGA might be a little more complicated web that you're trying to deal with in terms of the communication. And that's okay too. You just have to know going and that's what's going to be the case, and not get all worked up if three or four people ask you to do something different. It's just the way it works.

00:36:32
Speaker 2: It's the way committees kind of work.

00:36:33
Speaker 5: That's the way the committees work, right, And it's just the way it works. And I don't think it's good or bad. You just have to recognize that going in and not try to, you know, be all panicked about it and just you know, hopefully you're dealing with for superintendent, it's best if you're just dealing with one people. So the PGA tour is Paul from you, one who's just a wonderful person. And I've known him for a long time and so you know, Paul's a guy from me that I can go into the office and have a and have a direct conversation and say you can't do that when he can say the same thing in return, because we know each other, and then we leave the office and we have a game plan and it all works out just fine. So I don't know, I don't think one's better than the other. I just think you have to recognize the dynamic that you're in and be nimble enough to deal with the relationships.

00:37:26
Speaker 1: How how was like your first jump, your first experienced in tournament golf with a championship golf versus this last year, Like, how is your mentality for that week because you hear superintendents to talk about that lead up that week and there's so little sleep and you know so much time. How is your approach to that changed over the years.

00:37:47
Speaker 5: Well, that's a really good question, then, thanks for asking. Well, my first one was here was the eighty eight Senior Open, and you know I wasn't the head guy then, so I was really kind of a lieutenant. But the next one I think was the old to US Amitter at Oakland. And so for the first event, this is also a function of age, Andy, right, I mean the first event, you know, everything's got to be perfect and you're you're all worked up about stuff that later in your career you realize have zero relevance to anything. Right, So, as I've gone along with the tournaments, one truism is that it all occurs in the years prior. Right the week prior you're not doing anything that's going to impact, or the month prior, you're not doing anything that's going to impact the play. You're just trying to maintain what you've got. Narrow your focus. So three years out, five years out, your focus is the entire property. You know, for the Ryder Cup, it was two hundred and seventy two acres I was focused on, and then it just narrows down, narrows down, narrows down, and thirty days out, two weeks out, you're inside the ropes only you're not even looking at anything outside the ropes. It doesn't even matter, it's irrelevant. Just get it off your plate, don't worry about it, you know. And I just think that over the years, I've learned it's about the relationships you meet with your you have with your staff, with the volunteers who come in, with the members, with the governing body. The relationships are so much more important than the turf You're never going to remember how fast the greens were on Thursday of the US Open. That's a bragging point in the superintendent's meeting, Right, It's irrelevant. What matters is twenty years down the road are the people you meet and having a relationship with them and meeting them for dinner, you know, when you're older down the road, and making sure those relationships are solid and you have fun because they're shared memories. Right. The closest memories I have with my former assistance and superintendents are the ones you do battle with through the tournaments. You know, So now twenty years later, fifteen years after the Ryder Cup, I'm able to go have a beer with those guys and they can. There are superintendents on their own right now, and we can have fun conversations about what happened. And I think, so, I think you have to stop and smell the roses. You have to slow down, just downshift during these events. It's not about the grass. The grass is irrelevant.

00:40:13
Speaker 1: That's what the all the year leading up to it is about.

00:40:17
Speaker 2: Right, And then that it makes total sense.

00:40:20
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's like if you're a tournament golfer and you know that's I played this US mid Am a few years ago, and I worked really hard getting ready for it. But when you get there, that's when it's about enjoying the experience and remembering everything. It's you know, nothing's going to change that dramatically while you're there. Yeah, you're either going to have it or you're not going to have it. And you know there's not much you can do.

00:40:49
Speaker 5: Can't stop the rain, can't stop the floods, can't stop the one hundred degree heat indecks, and none you can do about it, you know. So, so in the years prior, you're focused on does it drain right or the roadways good or all the year gay working or all these infrastructure issues taken care of, Do I have the right staff right, do I have the right people in place? And then you know, long about depending on when the event is ninety days before, you're just trying to maintain what you've got. Don't take on anything, just maintain what you've got, have fun, slow down, relax, have you know. So, considering I'm at the twilight of my career now, not at the beginning, my main focus for the BMW was the people. I wanted to make sure that I could, that I could offload as much of the decision making and the turf as I could and spend time with the people. Because I'm at this point in my life, I know that down the road it's going to be the relationships I had with the volunteers, and did I spend time with them? You know, because so many people during the my prior events, I'll run into and at a meeting and they'll say, you know, they'll remind me of something that happened in the two Amateur or the four Ryder Cup, and I'll think, oh, my god, I don't even know who this guy is. I don't remember meeting him, but it was important to them. Yeah, there's so many of these volunteers who come and work for you during events. The thirty seconds or thirty you know, three minutes you spend with them, and recognizing that they're there is something that they will never forget. You know. I've said, so many guys come to me over the years at a conference and tell me, you know, do you remember during the Ryder Cup you said this to me. I'm not really I remember that because you're talking to one hundred people. You don't remember those conversations. Well, at this point in my career that that is really important to me, that the time you give them during the event is far more important than the green speed or the height of the rough Right, who cares? Nobody cares, the players care, and you're trying to provide a good product. I don't want to diminish your role as providing a good product. But you're not going to do that the Monday before.

00:43:03
Speaker 1: It's like the same thing they say about players. If you're looking for your swing on Tuesday in trouble, you're in trouble. You're looking for your graphs on Tuesday, you're probably in trouble.

00:43:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean right, you're in trouble. Yeah, I mean it's so.

00:43:16
Speaker 1: It's more about the prep work that goes into it from years in event.

00:43:20
Speaker 5: Years in events, not months years in advance. I mean, you know, like every event, as soon as we got the event, whatever event it was, the PGA, the Ryder Cup, the US amit, or as soon as we book the event, or as soon as it even looked like we were going to book the event. As a superintent, you're looking at the property. Is my drainage?

00:43:40
Speaker 3: Right?

00:43:40
Speaker 5: Where do I need? Where do I need help, you know, is my staff right? Do I have the right staff in the shop? Do I have the right assistance here?

00:43:47
Speaker 1: I imagine when you put infrastructure down that affects drainage big time.

00:43:51
Speaker 5: Big time, and especially paving, because paving can help so much with drainage. I mean, paving is quite frankly, probably one of the best ways to drain a golf course because you've got all the control in your hands, right, you get the water on the pavement and get it into a drain right, it runs so much faster off the pavement. So if you're looking at the landforms and you're going to do any paving, I mean, my gosh, if you spend one hundred thousand dollars in paving, you want to spend close to that in drainage right at the same time, because you can move so much water off a golf course with pavement.

00:44:26
Speaker 1: And then if you and it could become a huge problem if you don't have the drains, if the subsecrent places with the pavement, because I could rush down there and.

00:44:33
Speaker 5: Sit that's exactly right, Andy, it's going to run off the pavement and end up on a golf course. So you really want to have a good engineer in a good paving company. Prior to the events, I.

00:44:43
Speaker 1: Spent some time with one of your former employees and he talked about how important and critical you were as a manager at a point in his career, and one of the words he used was autonomy. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you approach you know, you obviously are the director of grounds here at Medina, but then you have three course superintendents. They all have assistant superintendents. I'm assuming it was a similar way at Oakland Hills. How you go about delegating and empowering your employees.

00:45:17
Speaker 5: Well, I often joke it's because I give away power because I have so many outside interests and if I don't give away power, I can't go ride my bike. So that's kind of part of it. But no, I mean I think that it's a recognition, as you and I talked earlier today, it's a recognition that I'm not the smartest person in the room, and if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room, right. So I've always recognized that I've tried to hire people who are better than me, Like I don't do well at crew meetings. I don't like to do it. I'm uncomfortable in doing it. I just don't like to give up. So I have always the best superintendents who worked for me are better at crew meetings.

00:45:56
Speaker 1: Right.

00:45:56
Speaker 5: So I've always tried to hire organize people who are organized and efficient, clean and professional.

00:46:01
Speaker 2: Are you organized?

00:46:03
Speaker 4: Uh?

00:46:04
Speaker 5: I think I have a reputation at being organized, but if you if you went into my office, you wouldn't say that.

00:46:09
Speaker 3: No.

00:46:09
Speaker 5: I try to be, but I'm a procrastinator. That's one of my biggest problems.

00:46:16
Speaker 2: That's one of mine too.

00:46:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just I've suffered from it. But no, I think I think you know, early in our career and you're probably at this stage, we think about accomplishment, right, the next rung on the ladder, the next big job title. I got to move from the Diana of France, and then I gotta get Oakland Hills, and I gotta do the tournaments, and I gotta make more money, and I got to get the big job title, and I got to become a master Greenkeeper and I got to become certified. And it's all about accomplishment. And then I think, as we go on, we realize it's not about accomplishment, it's about contribution, you know, and the perfect scenario And what I try to teach the young guys is the perfect scenario is the marriage between those two. If you can learn early on that you can accomplish them and also contribute to others at the same time, then you've reached nirvana. So the autonomy thing comes from trying to help these kids learn. The only way you're going to learn is if you get thrown in the deep end. But there's a safety line, right, I got the life preserver for you, I got the ring. You're going to go on the deep end. I'm going to watch them make sure you don't kill anything. Onebody killing any grass. But there's a lot of leeway of what you can do right in turf management. There's like a hundred ways from getting point A to point B, and your way might be better. So let's let these young kids come in here. They graduate from college. They automatically assume that everything you're doing is wrong, right, because what they're doing in the book is completely different than what you're doing in the field. They bear no resemblance whatsoever to each other. And if you've got the patience and you can keep your ego in check to understand that and let them come in and push the boundaries and give them some rope and let them fail along the way. The learning curve is just ginormous, and then you take advantage of that. Right the first year they're learning, the second year they're getting their groove. The third year, boom they take off.

00:48:08
Speaker 1: And there's something about letting somebody go do their thing and then when they might make a mistake is the best learning experiences for me too.

00:48:21
Speaker 5: Right So, because I can watch what they're doing, and I'm in my head, I'm thinking, well, I've already tried that ten times, but I'm gonna let him go do it because i know it's going to fail. But I let him do it, and then he'll tweak it somehow whatever he's doing, and I'll think to myself, oh, that's a pretty good idea. Let's do it that way. All of our job descriptions that I have are a function of It's the same form as I had here. I've just kept him over the years. The same job description I used today is what I started with at the beginning of my career. It's just been tweaked by every assistant, every inter and every superintendent said well that doesn't work here, let's change that a little bit. So I think, you know, you get better if you let people push the envelope a little bit. As long as they don't, you know, you got to keep them corralled, right, you got to keep the mustangs in the kraal for the most part. But if you hire really good people who have good intentions, who care about others, who respect others, who care about doing a good job, who have a good attitude, you're you know, the culture that you're going to create is like really really really really good. You know, I don't when I hire them, I don't really care about the turf science bit of it. That's like super easy, Like the science is super easy. You're trying to hire a good person, you know this. So there's two things right. There's there's can they do the job? And are they willing to do the job? If they can do the job, when they're not willing, that's like that's like a path for failure. You're never going to succeed. But if they're willing to do the job but they can't yet, I can teach them. I can teach them to do the job, but I can't teach a good attitude.

00:49:58
Speaker 1: I imagine one of the most fulfilling parts of your career has been, like you, essentially, it's people always talk about coach Kase, you know, coaching Tree in college basketball and how it's and you yourself have developed almost like a superintendentistry where you know, so many people that have worked with with you for you now have their own golf course and they're all over the country.

00:50:25
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, it's really you know, it's one of the it's it's the single most rewarding thing that I do right is to stay in touch with these guys and we share some I text with a few of them, the ones that I'm closest with, and we have a really good time sect texting back and forth. And it's it's the single most by far rewarding thing in my career. It's not about the events, it's not about the big job title, it's not about any of that. It's about the people that have worked for me and the sacrifices they made to make me better. You know, I learned and I continue to learn from them. They're really good superintendents. Many of them in the Chicago area and I learned so much from them, not just about turf, but about life. And we get together every year, try to at the conference and have a little happy hour cocktail party, and it's just I think if you stick around long enough, the numbers start to grow of people who you've worked with and who worked for you. But yeah, it's it's it's like so much pleasure to see them. And now some of them, you know, other kids are getting ready to go to college, so I know some of their kids now, and so it's just it's just been it's just been great.

00:51:42
Speaker 2: That part of it with with a huge staff.

00:51:45
Speaker 1: Obviously this well we've the entire world's been dealing with the last few months has been extraordinarily difficult. But with the coronavirus and a large staff, you know, working out out of a confined area of what what have you?

00:52:02
Speaker 2: How have you had to adjust the way you guys work.

00:52:07
Speaker 5: Well, I mean logistically, as you know, it's just it's just really really really complicated. You know, to just to mitigate the risk is all you're trying to do is just mitigate the risk, knowing that you can't eliminate it entirely. So we have three shifts running right now, soon to add a fourth start time. So we have guys coming at five point thirty and then six fifteen and then seven and then seven thirty, and you know, just we try to maintain social distancing when they show up in the shopyard, so nobody has access to the building unless they get walked in and then they cleaned behind them. Everybody has their own cart, everybody has their own tools. We have three guys that just work at the shop all day. That's all they do is clean and disinfect and organize. Nobody can use a time clock, so we have to manually write down everybody's time. I'm just trying to eliminate the touches and keeping our risks level down, knowing that if you have fifty five people, you know, it's tough to keep keep them apart, you know, so it puts pressure in the whole operation. And you know, as a leader and a manager or a single most important thing, it's not the grass, It's about everybody's health, right. You want everybody to be safe. And you know, unfortunately, two weeks ago we had we had a death on the crew, not related to the virus, but for another reason, Like two weeks ago today we lost a guy who on his fourth day at work, he retired. Guy lands, He's, you know, one always wanted to work at the Dina Golfer since he was the age of eight, and he passed away on site. And so it's your worst nightmare. You want everybody to be safe, but knowing that, you know, we also have a responsibility to keep everybody employed. You know, we don't maintain the golf for us. We don't have a business, so we have to keep the place maintained at some level and to keep everybody employed because that obviously impacts their health. I mean there's physical health, and there's financial health and emotional health. So it's been a real challenge. And the main thing is not to get the staff numbers too high. So we're going to be running all year, We'll be running fifteen or twenty people short. Just because of that. It's just becomes unmanageable.

00:54:21
Speaker 1: It's got to be one of the biggest challenges that you've faced in your career.

00:54:26
Speaker 5: Safety.

00:54:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, just oh, no question.

00:54:28
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean every day and every day you're thinking about, you know, where's my risk today? Is everybody got their goggles on because you just don't want anybody to get hurt. I mean, you forget the business part of it. You just don't want to be in charge of an operation where somebody's going to get hurt, right, you don't want to carry that with you, and you want them to be safe.

00:54:48
Speaker 1: How do you use the time when there wasn't golf because Illinois obviously was one of the last states to come out, and you essentially got all of April to where no golf, where usually you're starting to get the first your first rush of golf.

00:55:01
Speaker 5: Well, we're a little bit lucky here in Chicago because it was cool and we had some hard frost so kept the grass in check. We didn't fertilize anything, so no fertility, and then used growth regulators where we could and got those applications out. And then there were a few days where I was the only one here with our head mechanic, Brian. It was just the two of us. In a couple of days, I was the only person on the entire property.

00:55:25
Speaker 2: Kind of had to be a kind of cool and weird way it was.

00:55:29
Speaker 5: It was pretty neat.

00:55:29
Speaker 2: I want, like the not the best circumstance, but.

00:55:32
Speaker 5: No I made sure I walk, to make sure I walked those couple of days because I thought I got six hundred and fifty acres to myself today, so I want to walk and see what's going on. But yeah, just trying to keep the grass in check so that we when we did get permission to go out and do something and get some guys in. But there were a lot of days we had everybody here, just kept them home and then we just started slowly, you know, full time guys come in, just those ten, get done what we could get done, and then just slowly ramp up five guys at a time. As you know, try to match the staffing with the grass growth.

00:56:06
Speaker 1: I imagine it established like your priorities, right, what you do?

00:56:11
Speaker 5: Oh with Ever, as you know, Andy, with every crisis. This is so good for the assistance and superintendents, particularly at a place like this because a couple of them come from high end clubs, right the Chicago Golf Club or these top clubs where we recruit them from, and they've been where budgets aren't I always, I always budgets are never unlimited because whenever there's a high budget, that always comes with unlimited expectations as well. So we don't have a high we don't have an unlimited budget here, but it's bigger than most, right, So there's a lot of luxuries in that. In that in that budget that we do a lot of products we can buy and a lot of products we can use. If the shovel's break we'll go buy a new shovel, If the cart doesn't break down, we'll buy new this or that, right, Because there's some luxuries are that come with that. But during a time like this is just like oh eight, no nine, you learn to be efficient, right, you learn to get by with less. I mean we've basically cut supplies to zero right now, we're not buying supplies. If you don't need it, you don't get it. So you have a tendency to make sure that every shovel gets put away, gets put away every night, right, and it gets cleaned and it gets put away because you're not getting another one if you're the manager. Right. So it teaches some really good habits I think for these guys, because when they leave here, they're not going to go to a club with these kind of resources. They're just not and they're going to have to learn to be efficient, they're going to have to learn to manually keep time of the hours, right, So I think it's a wonderful opportunity for them to learn how to be efficient and get by with less, and they're going to take those lessons with them.

00:57:40
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's going to be the case across like a lot of professions, is people are going to learn to be better at their job by you know, necessity, but you know, you have to approach it so differently with limited staff.

00:57:57
Speaker 2: All of a sudden you really start to understand.

00:57:59
Speaker 1: And hopefully I think like the big other thing would be that golfers also on their side, start to understand, you know, a little bit of imperfections.

00:58:09
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, a.

00:58:11
Speaker 5: Little bit of dollar spot isn't going to bother anybody. Yeah, right, And now I completely agree with you. And you know, do you really need to be filling every single divot every single day? Maybe? Maybe not. Maybe that's money you don't need to spend.

00:58:28
Speaker 2: Do all the bunkers need to be raked every day?

00:58:31
Speaker 5: We haven't had one complaint and we're raking bunkers. We try to rake one b one one golf course a day. Try with the rain has been difficult and no bunker rakes. Now we're getting a lot less play, right, there's a lot less play and as members only, so they're going to tend to take care of the golf course a little bit better. But we haven't had any complaints about bunkers at all.

00:58:51
Speaker 2: It'll be interesting.

00:58:52
Speaker 1: We were talking before about the long term effects of this, but I think for golf it could be a really good thing.

00:58:57
Speaker 5: I do too, and I think we'll find it. We'll find a normal again. We'll go back to many of the things we did, But I just I think it's good for the kids that work here to see that there are some luxuries here. On a four point five million dollar budget, there's some luxuries in there. Do we need them all? Or could we take that money and reallocate it to something else that makes more sense? Right, because we're trying new things, so like, for instance, we're moving the triplex that we would we would mow mowing teas with triplexes now instead of hand mowing. Right, the members probably don't know this until they listen to this pop podcast. Right, we typically hand mowed those. We hand more approaches out to the first sprinkler that, well, we can't do that right now, we don't have the bodies. So I think more triplex mowing right up next to the green is save save some bodies. These are efficiencies that these kids will take with them when they leave. The members will pick up on do we need to have all this all this hand mowing that we're doing everywhere? And you know, I've been around now long enough to know that I know a lot of superintendents still the small operations where they have to be out working themselves changing cups. They'll take the triplex out. In the back of the triplex the greens more is a trailer and on the trailer he's got a hose, all the cup setting tools he needs. So he's driving that triplex out. You unhook the trailer at the green, mow the green with the triplex, get your cup setter out, change the cup, change the team markers, empty the garbage trailer's got a garbage basket in it too, and you move on to the next one. Yeah, one guy.

01:00:30
Speaker 2: Efficiency, Well, that's the thing that is.

01:00:32
Speaker 1: Constraints often are the you know, you're going to become way more efficient if you if you have.

01:00:39
Speaker 5: To be right if you have no choice, you'll be efficient. Yeah, so I think it's good for me or the leader. If you're the superintendent, the leader of your department, or the head of your department, you have to constantly be looking at efficiencies because it's how much blood can you squeeze out of the turnip?

01:00:55
Speaker 2: Right?

01:00:55
Speaker 5: How can I be more efficient? You know? How can we teach the kids that if you can It doesn't sound like a lot, but if you can change one little thing and save five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, right, or five dollars, but you can find one hundred of those things. Now you're overtime I'm talking about, you know, overtime. Constantly be looking at efficiencies. You know, we just and teach that culture, teach them to constantly be thinking about the efficiencies and how can I get better? And how can I save five little minutes? Is it a better screwdriver? Is it a better light bulb? And we just found one last week and they got all excited because we found a new valve for the for for a big tote has product in it, one of the products we sprayed, but the valve was leaky, so we poked around to find a new valve that changed the way simply the delivery system of how we got that product from that two hundred and fifty gallon tote into the spray tank. And it saved fifteen minutes by doing that and product, save the product, and most importantly, save their stress level because they're rushing around and they're standing there waiting to fill this product into the tank, and their stress level went down. But that comes from constantly, you know, constant process improvement, constantly trying to improve the process that you're using and never accepting it as the best way, and you'll slowly and slowly and slowly get better, more.

01:02:24
Speaker 1: Efficient, and watching people fail it trying to improve them and watching your.

01:02:29
Speaker 5: People fail at stand back and say, I know this isn't gonna work, but let him do it and he'll work through it. But what's fun too, you're talking about the guys who used to work for me. What is really fun and rewarding is the phone call you'll get after they've been gone from you for like, I don't know, they've been a superintendent for five or six years, and you're running to them. They'll call you and they're going, eh, yeah, you were right about that. Whatever it is. So yeah, I know, I know, I was right. You just had to get to it yourself'll be it'll be all right.

01:02:57
Speaker 1: So then when you save up all that stuff over the course of the year, you know, then you might have the budget to buy a machine that fixes everything up for make it solves another huge problem.

01:03:08
Speaker 5: Well, that's right. It's not about necessarily giving money back, but that's okay to do that if you, if you, if you want to do that. But it's about taking them that a little bit of savings, that a little bit piggybank, you say, from the efficiencies and doing an extra cookout a year, or or a new piece of furniture in the lobby, or new radios, or a better uniform for the staff the following year. I mean, there's just so many things you can roll that money back into, and you're just constantly trying to get just a little bit better. You have to make these huge improvements. You just got to get a little bit better every day, just a little bit, and over time, you know, the game will get better. Right, This all this all goes back to the game will get better.

01:03:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Well, Hey, Steve, thank you very much. This was this was fun and uh it was. It was a much chat to just golf.

01:04:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it's always well. As I try to tell anybody who listen, it's you know, on mind of the business as a greenkeeper. It's not about the grass. It just it isn't about the grass. It's about everything else but the grass. And that might be the end product of what we do and the product that we provide, but it's about so much more