Qotf (Gourde Superintendents OF NEW E N G L A N D , Aiociation I N C . Sponsors a n d a d m i n i s t r a t o r s of the Lawrence S. Dickinson Scholarship Fund — A w a r d e d y e a r l y to deserving Turf M a n a g e m e n t Students. Going Down for Third Time (The following is an actual conversation with a golf course superintendent whose identity must be withheld for obvious reasons.) "I've had it. At the end of the season, I'm quitting. Too much pressure. Too many headaches. I think I'll get a jo'o keeping things green in a cemetery. I should be safe there." Come on, you have to be kidding. You have a good job here, one of the top courses around. You can't be serious. "I wish I was pulling your leg. But I'm not. This has been one hectic year for me. The weather's the reason. But how can you tell that to the members? They think I control everything, even the rain and humidity. Well, they can get themselves another boy." This is only a temporary reaction. You're mad now, but you'll get over it. It happens to every superintendent. Show me one who's not been on the edge of resigning, and I'll show you the guy who has the perfect job. . .of which there are none. "No, I've thought it all out. And I don't want to wind up like a lot of guys.. .getting the ax and tossed out on the street." Oh? What seems to be the problem? "That's problems. I have about 200 of them. And they call themselves members. There's just too much politics around here. My chairman doesn't back me up because it will cost him a contract or some juicy business connection. I suppose I can't blame him. He has to eat, too. But I guess he's used to eating high off the hog." What's the setup here? Is this the kind of place where you have 200 agronomists running amok with golf clubs ? "That's about the size of it. Naturally, every member's an expert. . .in somebody else's business. When I turn on the water, they come at me complaining about sloppy lies. When I don't turn it on, they're on my neck because they can't hit the ball off dry spots. It's a case of being damned if you do and damned if you don't." Well, you have a point. But there should be some kind of logical relationship between your chairman, the members and yourself. How can anyone expect a man to work for 200 different bosses with 200 different sets of ideas and demands? "That's just it. They can't. But it seems to happen around here. I've tried to hold back my temper and go along with the program. But how long can you keep checking yourself? What bothers me is that I might fly off the handle and say something I don't want to say. I still have my pride and selfrespect. . .and my dignity. I'm a professional just like most of my members." So, what's their big beef? Course in bad shape? Are you cutting the greens too low? Maybe letting the rough grow in to make for some big scores? "It's a combination of all those things. We've had some major problems with the turf here but we've licked most of them. I got the course to a point where I thought it was in the best possible condition considering past troubles. But then it went kaput." What's that? "We got that spell of high humidity and then we got a sneak rainstorm which pelted us with about five inches of water in a couple of hours. One of our greens was completely covered by two-three feet or rain. The rest of the course had puddles all over it." Don't tell me. Then it turned hot again, right? "Did it ever. I saw wilt happen right before my eyes. I saw beautiful grass turn brown in a matter of minutes. Maybe you can't see grass grow but you can sit there and watch it decay. So, from a gem of a course, we had a germ of a course on our hands." But that's not your fault you can't control Mother Nature. "Tell that to my members. They must think I declare Mother Nature on my income tax. Some of them actually thought I should have known that storm was coming before it came. And they thought that because I knew, I'd be able to steer the water away from the low spots." Wow. Have to run an IQ test around here? "Hey, I don't want to get into personalities and things like that. All I know is that I've seen other superintendents buckle under the same kind of treatment and then have their jobs cut from under them. It's not going to happen to me. I'm going down for the third time and I don't want anybody throwing me a line. I've had it." Too bad. You're really in a wonderful profession. "You're right, but there's only one thing. It would be the best, if there weren't golfers and club members. They're driving me right up a wall and out of a job I used to love. Next time you see me I won't be here. And that's a promise." Gerry Finn Next Meeting Sept. 10,1979 Gannon Municipal Lynn Host Supt. Steve Murphy Directors Meeting 10.00 a.m. Regular Meeting 11:00 a.m. Buffet lunch 11:45 a.m. Golf After lunch Call 592-8238 for reservations Reservation cot off date Sept. 7,1979 Directions - From Route 128, take exit 30 towards Lynn. Go through rotary follow Route 129. Just beyond the Union Hospital you will see a sign on the right (Great Woods Road). Club is on this street. ^joff (Gourde ^uperintendentd ^^IdAocialion Action in "Twister Alley 11 The immediate vicinity encompasses that jagged path, starting in West Suffield, Connecticut and stretching to Hampden, Massachusetts. And plunked somewhere in between - smack-dab in the middle of "twister alley" is the Elmcrest Country club. The calendar lied on that Friday of August 10. It wasn't Friday, the 10th. It had to be Friday, the 13th. Elmcrest coowner Joe Pagos must have walked under a myriad of step ladders and played wet nurse to a litter of black cats. At 4:30 of the ill-fated Friday, action in "twister alley" picked up considerably. A gathering of gusty winds had begun a drunken march outside of West Suffield, knocking down and uprooting trees as a form of preliminary muscleflexing. When they reached Elmcrest, the playful mood had changed to one dealing destruction and possible death. "We had about 60 golfers in the 19th hole," Pagos told. "They had come in to get out of what looked to be a real whopper of a storm brewing. Then, this wind started to come in with a terrific force. I looked out at the 18th fairway and every tree was parallel to the ground.'' The golfers in the 19th viewed the next incident with amazement. A golf car came flying across the picture window and then the window blew into the back wall with glass rebounding off it in almost miraculously harmless fashion. "We had only one injury that I know of," Pagos reported. "A member got several pieces of glass in his back. I believe it turned out to be a 26-stitch cut. We were very lucky on that account. I still don't see how people avoided being hit. It looked like war with shrapnel exploding everywhere." The "Pagos luck" was shortlived. Seconds later a huge gush of wind tore almost half of the clubhouse roof from its place and sent it swirling. Several days later, debris was being discovered as far as two miles away from Elmcrest. "The walls of the dining room buckled and then it started to rain," Pagos recalled the instant fury of Mother Nature. "The dining room was unoccupied at the time. I hate to think what would have happened, if it was full. I don't know. Timing was the key. You can mend roofs and rebuild walls. But human life. . .it can't be restored with hammer and nails." The rain, which accompanied the twister, didn't stop for some 48 hours. And it found a home through the gaping hole in the roof. "You never really can estimate the final damage in something like this," Pagos explained. "Every hour it seems that I find a new wrinkle. I pick up a pile of glass here and discover another mangled two-by-four there. Right not we're talking in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $125,000. But that's only an estimate. It could go higher and probably will." Through the ordeal, though, Pagos continues to count his and his membership's blessings. Two women golfers just missed the path of the twister because of a last minute decision. They were playing the 18th hole when the warnings of the storm chased them toward the 19th hole. In mid-flight, they decided to turn back and recover their golf balls. PRESIDENT FIRST VICE PRESIDENT DEAN ROBERTSON 24 Riverview Drive Newbury, Mass. 01950 Home phone 462-4540 Office phone 745-7289 Club Affiliation