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Odyssey to opportunity
The travels of GCSAA’s new president, David S. Downing ll, CGCS, have been upward and onward.
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Photos by Rob Belknap |
David S. Downing II, CGCS, has extended himself beyond the normal bounds of golf course management and, as GCSAA’s new president, he’d like to see the association start thinking out of the box a little more as well.
Downing has helped take the superintendent’s profession to a higher level during his 30-year career with an intriguing array of jobs from points in the Northeast, the Southeast and the desert Southwest. He somehow has also found time to run his own consulting business for a nine-year stretch and has been active on behalf of his profession in both the chapter and national arenas. And, not least of all, he has maintained an undying commitment to his family and his faith.
Downing has few bumps and bruises to show for all that, but plenty of character, respect and success. He often wonders why more of his colleagues don’t do the same.
“I’ve always been anxious to learn more, to manage a golf course in different cultures,” he says. “Although I’m well-known for having had a number of positions, every one led me to another opportunity to learn more about the business. I’ve tried to enhance how the multiple experiences in both working and living have helped me grow. I’ve done everything there is around golf and I really think it’s made me ready for this position I’m in today.”
Mike Smith, CGCS, who gave Downing his first job as an assistant right out of the Penn State turf program and who spent more than 25 years at the same golf course, nevertheless understands where his former assistant is coming from.
“There are two theories about growing in this business — you either stay at a place and grow it out to its maximum if you think there is a lot of potential, or you do like Dave and you move up as you move around,” says the 31-year GCSAA member who retired in 2005.
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Downing’s children grew up in the Myrtle Beach, S.C., area. Pictured here with Downing and his wife, Jo, are (from left) Anna and Michael Downing, Alex (behind Jo) and Billy and Hayley (Downing) Smith. |
Life is good
Downing is showing signs of growing roots. He and his wife of 30 years, Jo, have lived in the Myrtle Beach, S.C., area since 1990, a period in which he has had a number of job changes in the Carolinas region. Their children grew up in the resort town. Their oldest, Michael, now 28 and married, is a pastry chef in Las Vegas, while Hayley, 26 and married, is a physical therapist in Myrtle Beach and Alex, 19, is a student/athlete at nearby Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C.
“We have really worked at staying here,” Downing says. “For me, it’s to continue to grow professionally, take on more responsibilities and more about the business of golf, but still provide the opportunity to have grandchildren around, hopefully, some day. You never say never, but we’re settled in.”
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David and Jo Downing have been married 30 years and believe they’ve finally begun to settle in the Myrtle Beach area. |
They may be even more settled than Downing admits. His last job in the field was superintendent at Rivers Edge Golf Club just north of Myrtle Beach in Shallotte, N.C. Then, this past September he was promoted by the management company that runs Rivers Edge, Signature Golf Group, to company vice president of operations and construction. Even Downing has the feeling that this might be the end game.
“It’s a way for me to do a little bit of everything I’ve learned and I enjoy. I have really learned to like the business of golf, doing more than just growing the grass,” he says of his role with the three-year-old firm that manages or markets around two dozen golf properties.
A telling beginning
It’s been quite a trip from there to here for the 51-year-old Downing. He grew up in Reedsville, a small town not too far from Penn State, and worked on a couple of golf courses as a teen — Lewistown (Pa.) Country Club and Seaview Resort near Atlantic City, N.J. — before deciding he liked that kind of life and turned to the renowned turf program just up the road in State College.
“I was really fortunate to get in at Penn State with only two years’ experience and only 19 years old,” Downing says. “In the ’70s that was kind of odd. I’ve loved it ever since.”
Downing graduated in 1977. He was 21 and Jo 19 when they were married and left Reedsville (pop. 2,000) for the fourth-largest city in the country, Philadelphia, and Torresdale-Frankford Country Club. Mike Smith needed a good assistant, especially since he was becoming involved in the Philadelphia Association of GCS.
“Dave took on a lot of responsibilities. It allowed him to grow very quickly in the position,” Smith recalls. “It was very clear from the beginning that he had what it takes to be successful in our business — drive and ambition and a real love for golf and the golf course.”
In about a year and a half, Downing moved on to Williamsport (Pa.) Country Club. It wasn’t long before Smith himself moved on and up to Gulph Mills Golf Club in King of Prussia, Pa., where he would spend the rest of his career, including a term as president of the Philadelphia chapter.
Key stepping stones
Downing was hired as an assistant at Williamsport, but soon became head superintendent. He oversaw a complete course renovation, including a new greens irrigation system and a new maintenance facility. In 1983, he was off to Kennett Square Golf & Country Club just southwest of Philadelphia, where he managed the entire property and again led an extensive renovation.
Two years later, at the prodding of a PGA Tour agronomist at the time, Bill Buchanan, Downing made his first significant upward move — to TPC of Connecticut in Cromwell (now River Highlands), where he headed all course management and maintenance operations and prepped for two Canon Sammy Davis Jr./Greater Hartford Opens. He also assisted Fred Klauk with the Honda Classic when the latter was at TPC Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, Fla. In Downing’s second year at the Connecticut TPC, the facility was named the Operation of the Year in the PGA Tour’s TPC Network.
In 1987, again at the advice of Buchanan, Downing went west, to Las Vegas Country Club, home of the Tour’s Las Vegas Invitational and one of the most discerning memberships in the land. Besides prepping for the Tour events, he also coordinated tournament infrastructure with Tour officials and the television networks NBC and ESPN. He also oversaw a $1 million irrigation project and prepped the layout for a switch from bermuda to bentgrass greens. Eventually, however, he resigned under pressure.
“Tournament golf was fun; I had a great time with that (at the TPC of Connecticut and Vegas), but I also learned about the business of golf and how tough it can be,” Downing says.
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The sun rises over No. 9 at Rivers Edge. |
Time for some heavy lifting
He bounced back in a hurry, all the way to Myrtle Beach, when the top two executives with Western Golf Properties, Mark Kizziar and Joe Black, both former presidents of the PGA of America, hired him to bring to fruition an ambitious undertaking for a Japanese client — a 99-hole project at Wild Wing Plantation. By the time Downing arrived, the project was scaled down to 72 holes. He directed the construction and grow-in of four courses, each opening one year after the other (1991-94). It was a major breakthrough for the superintendent.
“It was an opportunity to do construction and operate multiple courses. It was a huge education for me,” Downing says.
Kizziar was impressed. “Basically, David went in there and in a temporary setting not only grew in the first two golf courses, but then also worked very closely with the architects (Larry Nelson and Jeff Brauer on the Avocet Course and Rees Jones on the Falcon) in getting the final two courses built and in operation,” he says.
Kizziar managed Wild Wing until 1995, the year it drew 175,000 rounds, and then was hired as CEO of Lyle Anderson Golf Ltd. in Scottsdale, Ariz. Currently the president of Superstition Mountain Properties, he recalls his own interaction with Downing.
“We learned a lot from each other,” Kizziar says. “Dave was very beneficial for me in the agronomic stages and I certainly for him in the operational and business techniques.”
Downing and his family were happy with the small-town flavor of Myrtle Beach and he stayed at Wild Wing for eight years. Then an even more challenging job came his way — Barefoot Resort & Golf in North Myrtle Beach. There he led the simultaneous construction and completion of four courses, working with the designer likes of Davis Love III, Pete Dye, Tom Fazio and Greg Norman. Overcoming some delays caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the courses all opened in the spring of 2000. Barefoot was home to a half-dozen Canadian Tour events and was touted as one of the top-rated, best-conditioned and highest-priced operations in the region. It was also a burdensome endeavor.
“Building four golf courses at once probably wasn’t the most financially prudent thing to do,” Downing says. “There were a lot of issues. Eventually, ownership eliminated the top three management positions, and I was gone.”
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As vice president of operations and construction for Signature Golf Group, which manages Rivers Edge GC, Downing is helping the course’s superintendent, John Shaver (right), resolve problems involved with growing bentgrass greens in stifling Carolina summers with saltwater irrigation. |
A signature move
It was 2002 and Downing’s first year on the GCSAA Board of Directors. He fell back on his consulting business for about six months, then hooked up with Avestra, a golf management and consulting firm out of Pinehurst, N.C. He was on the road for a couple of years, including working with Love again to bring in the final construction and grow-in at Forest Oaks Country Club in less than seven months in order to host the 2003 Chrysler Classic of Greensboro.
Downing then moved on to a 16-month hiatus closer to home at The Pearl Golf Links in Sunset Beach, N.C. In November 2005, Steve Taylor, an acquaintance of Downing’s for nearly a decade, came calling. President of the fledgling Signature Golf Group, Taylor hired Downing to elevate the course conditioning of Rivers Edge, a uniquely designed public layout ranked among America’s top 100. Less than two years later, Downing became one of the management firm’s key people.
“Dave’s credentials are beyond reproach,” says Taylor, who retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1988 and dabbled in golf course maintenance before moving over to the management side (see related article). “But more than that, I think he has moved the traditional role of a superintendent clearly into the management arena. That’s what interests me the most as far as his role with Signature Golf.”
Gems of wisdom
Downing likes to say he has learned how to say hello in six different languages without ever leaving the United States. Of course, his career travels have piled up attributes far beyond regional hi’s, hey’s and yo’s. His exposure to different types of golf course management in different climatic zones, for instance, has been invaluable.
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The Signature Golf Group management team includes (from left, standing) Teresa Ettinger, Elaine Giordano, Scott Taylor, Signature President Steve Taylor, and (from left, seated) Garrett Bayer, Downing and Donnie Locklear. |
“It’s been interesting. My education at Penn State was terrific, not just from a turf standpoint, but they taught us that we had to justify everything we did,” he says. “The basis from the turf side was you had to grow a healthy grass plant no matter where you are. You learn to utilize the resources and the network to adapt.”
Along the way, Downing says he has learned such nuggets as the fact that Connecticut can be drier than Las Vegas for periods of time; that managing Poa annua in the Northeast is like managing bentgrass in the Southeast; that on a 110-degree day in the desert, the soil temperature may only be 82 degrees; and that when cloud cover along the Carolina coast traps the humidity, greenside fans, no matter how disconcerting to some, replicated more ideal windy, dry conditions.
“I’ve been successful at learning what each environment brings. I think it goes back to my education ... trying to figure out what you’ve got to do to grow a healthy plant,” he says.
Serving the profession
Like his career, Downing’s GCSAA board service and his presidency this year have been a long time coming, and with purpose. Downing joined GCSAA in 1979 and was certified five years later. A key figure in his initial activities was his old mentor, Mike Smith, who showed Downing the way by example.
“I was always very involved with the associations and the golf business. I guess Dave noticed how I interacted and took it to heart,” says Smith, whose longtime relationship with Downing has come full circle recently. Smith currently lives in North Carolina and is in sales and consulting for a soil-care company, NutraTurf, and counts Signature Golf among his customers.
“One of the few pieces of advice I gave Dave when he moved on 30 years ago was to stay active,” Smith says. “He certainly took that to the end. I couldn’t be more proud to have had a small part to play in his success and reaching the level he has.”
Downing got involved early on with the Keystone and Philadelphia chapters and then the Southern Nevada GCSA in Las Vegas. When Downing moved to Myrtle Beach in 1990, he joined the Palmetto chapter and then the Carolinas GCSA. He eventually became president of the Carolinas in 1999 while at Barefoot Resort.
That also happened to be the first full year for Chuck Borman, formerly GCSAA’s director of membership, as executive director of the Carolinas. Borman, now in his 10th year with the chapter, recalls the role Downing played in leading the effort to move the Carolinas GCSA conference and trade shows from “hotels and parking garages” to the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.
“That was significant because the revenues of the association have increased dramatically based upon that move. It has been the economic engine that has allowed the association to grow as it has,” says Borman, who notes that his relationship with Downing actually began more than a dozen years ago when he worked with him on GCSAA membership committees.
“I was impressed with the intelligence he brought to the table and the ability he had to think through problems from all angles. He was always looking for win-win outcomes,” Borman says. “But most of all for me personally, as good as Dave is in what he does in golf and for GCSAA, it’s really the type of man he is. He puts God and his family above everything else.”
Downing’s run through the GCSAA ranks to the national presidency was spurred on by another mentor, Mark Kizziar, when the two worked together to achieve the imposing Wild Wing project. Kizziar, who had been president of the PGA in 1983-84, noted Downing’s involvement in the Carolinas chapter and had a bigger picture in mind.
“I remember Mark asking me one day what it takes to become president of GCSAA and I mentioned the committees and the board service and he says, ‘Well, we want you to be there some day. So, whatever it takes, get going,’ ” Downing says.
Kizziar remembers that, too, and also his motivation behind it at the time.
“Having gone through the officers in the PGA of America, I encouraged Dave to go far in GSCAA,” he says. “I felt it was a very definite advantage, not only for David Downing, but also for Wild Wing Plantation and subsequently for Western Golf Properties. It’s a great credit to him to have made it all the way.”
Schedules and sensibilities
Downing was elected to the GCSAA board in 2002, four years after leaving Western Golf for the Barefoot project. By then, between his continuing activities with the Carolinas GCSA and burgeoning service with GCSAA, he was traveling nearly 40 days a year. Plus, he was a volunteer at his church, coached Little League baseball and recreational league basketball and managed otherwise to be there when his family needed him. And, of course, there was the little item of managing 72 holes of golf and running his consulting business.
“I like a lot of activity,” is another thing Downing likes to say. Indeed.
“It’s all about who you hire, your staff and the ability to delegate and train,” he says. “GCSAA’s new governance helps, but I also have learned that if you can’t make it somewhere, it’s OK. I’ve missed two PGA Championships because summer in Myrtle Beach and bentgrass greens isn’t really the best time for me to be away. I’ve learned that you can say no.”
In fact, Downing earned a piece of Carolinas GCSA lore one recent year when he forced a change in the schedule of a meeting so he could attend his son Alex’s signing of a college baseball letter of intent.
“One thing I’m strong on is people and time issues,” Downing says in a not-so-subtle message to GCSAA members. “I’m as active and as busy as anyone and I can find time to serve. That’s part of what we’re put on this earth for, to serve each other. We’ve got to find time to serve, whether it’s a professional organization, a church, the community ... find the time, because you’ll grow from it.
“I’ve learned a lot through life experiences,” he adds. “Like my church culture (at North Conway Baptist), for example. I led a conflict resolution committee once, and you talk about a life-shaping experience. Having seen things like that, I’ve become a good listener and someone who can create some consolidation of thought. I think these are some of my gifts.”
Team with a game plan
Another of Downing’s life’s lessons is one most all superintendents must address — dealing with change.
“I’m an agent of change, what with the career I’ve had,” he says. “I think that’s where GCSAA is now; we’re prepared to be a dynamic organization. Change is always going to happen and you need to be prepared for it.”
Downing believes he couldn’t have a better team to lead GCSAA this year. He describes his fellow directors as a great group of people and a good working board that strives especially to achieve unanimous decisions.
“We figure it out, hash through all the issues and, when we make a decision, it should be easy to walk out together,” he says. “It shouldn’t be a 5-4 vote because we’ve gone through the process and worked it all out. It should be 9-0 because we took what was there and made it better.”
Downing has a few main issues penciled in for the coming year.
Revenue protection
Downing believes it’s imperative to maintain the viability of the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show at a time when there is pressure on such events. Plus, association leaders and staff must seek out and research other ways to drive revenue — “Get out of our box,” he says.
Chapter relations
The call to intensify the ongoing efforts to make GCSAA and its affiliated chapters as one — “We have to work together to be successful and make every chapter effective so the members receive the best service they can,” Downing says.
A time of transition
Downing notes that much of his presidency will involve the acclimation of GCSAA’s new CEO, with Steve Mona, CAE, moving on to head the World Golf Foundation after 14 years at the association’s administrative helm.
“We have to manage it well,” he says. “We’re proud of Steve, and I’m excited that he got the opportunity he did. I don’t think 15 years ago GCSAA’s CEO would have even been considered for a position like that. Steve and the directors down through those years have done a good job of raising the association. We can’t go backward. We’ve got to keep the organization moving forward.”
Seek the nitty-gritty
Downing says the real strength in a superintendent is becoming an expert in efficient time management and physical management — how much time and how many people it takes to get something done, such as rake a bunker, overseed a fairway, manage bermudagrass greens versus bentgrass, and so on.
“GCSAA needs to get more specific with its surveys and studies,” Downing says. “We need to develop standards for our work, such as the cost of goods sold — what does maintenance cost per acre, how do expenses relate to revenues, how does time management help drive more profitability ... that’s what owners want to hear from us. We need to learn the language of business, and I think it’s GCSAA’s responsibility to help us learn that language.”
Downing is living such a moment now. A key golf course under his care for Signature Golf, Rivers Edge, has crucial issues trying to grow bentgrass greens in stifling Carolina summers with bad (salt) water. He’s leaning toward a costly, time-consuming solution: re-grass the greens to either bermudagrass or paspalum.
“We’ve been doing the homework going on three years now,” he says. “We pretty much can calculate when we would get a return on such an investment.”
Rising above it all
Downing points out that GCSAA statistics from salaries and benefits surveys indicate that superintendents’ tenures are becoming longer and salaries are continuing to increase.
“I think what’s happening is that owners, management companies and facilities are recognizing what golfers have been saying all along — that it’s all about course conditions. So, the most valuable person at the facility is the superintendent. But I think where a lot of superintendents are missing it is that they stay in their buildings too much, they tend to be introverted. We all really need to become part of the team and even step up and become a leader of that team and benefit from that. Growth opportunities are there, even as golf becomes more of a business and the competition becomes tighter.”
That last point said, Downing believes the industry nonetheless needs to come together and do a better job of selling the value of golf.
“All the other sports seem to do a good job of marketing and packaging their game. Golf needs to be marketed as a game that’s good for everyone ... a game of a lifetime,” he says. “Maybe we’re so focused on the business we’re forgetting that it’s a game and it’s fun. We’ve got to remember that at the end of the day, that’s what golf is really all about.”
A superintendent’s slice of heaven
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The clubhouse at Rivers Edge GC, one of Signature Golf’s prime management |
No doubt there are GCSAA members who shudder at the thought of their 2008 president being an executive with a golf course management company. Heck, Dave Downing himself knows that feeling.
But Downing is feeling upbeat about such things these days. He believes he’s doing a good thing in a good place as vice president of operations and construction for Signature Golf Group in Myrtle Beach, S.C. There is a right way, he points out, to do anything, including the facility management end of the golf course industry.
“There are good management firms and bad management firms, just like there are good clubs and bad clubs and good owners and bad owners. It’s really a mixed bag. I think we have a good company. I think we treat superintendents well,” says Downing, who believes that his extensive experience in golf course management, coupled with that of his firm’s president, Steve Taylor, are major pluses.
“Most of the successful superintendents I’ve known over the years have really been good communicators and get involved in the whole facility and become part of the team,” he adds. “I think that’s where we’re trying to get to — management companies have fit a niche with buying power, expertise and leadership to help facilities succeed. Management companies are not the great evil people think they are. There are still some that aren’t as successful or aren’t as superintendent-friendly, and they also tend not to be as pro-friendly or manager-friendly, either.”
Taylor, who retired from the military in the late 1980s and with an interest in golf course work, attended the turf school at Horry-Georgetown Tech in the Myrtle Beach area. He worked as an assistant superintendent for a time, then moved over to the management side and got his Class A PGA membership. In 1993, he joined up with Gary Schaal and Darrell Childers in forming TSC Golf, an investment firm that morphed into a management company.
In January 2005, Taylor, Steve Blythe of the Blythe Golf Group and others formed Signature Golf. Several months later they hired Downing as superintendent at one of their prime management properties just across the border in North Carolina, Rivers Edge Golf Club. This past September, Downing was promoted to his executive position within the company.
“I think it all adds up to why I have a real appreciation for what Dave has done and who he is,” Taylor says, “because in addition to a management background, I have a turf background, as well, and a PGA background.”
As for the stigma against management firms, Taylor takes a perspective of one who has been in the business for 15 years.
“A lot of owners, especially new owners, of golf operations really don’t understand the golf business and have unrealistic expectations of what their property is going to be,” he says. “They expect management companies to make an under-capitalized and debt-heavy situation work.”
Signature Golf currently has about two dozen golf properties under management or marketing agreements.
“We offer á la carte ... we’ll do as little as some consultation or project management and we have experience in building golf courses, from soup to nuts — hiring architects, construction, taking it all the way through opening,” Downing says. “If it works well, we hope we get a management contract on the backside of it.”
Nearly all of Signature Golf’s portfolio is in the Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand region. In recent years the area has had a number of golf courses go under (about 20, Downing says), with housing developments, shopping malls and other such projects cropping up in their places. Some would call it a risky golf market; others say it’s ripe for the picking.
“I guess you could call it a course correction, and the market needed it,” Downing says, noting that there are still about 100 courses operating in the area. “Rounds are still down overall in the marketplace, but rounds per facility are up and that’s good,” he adds.
Myrtle Beach golf is full of peculiarities, and pricing is one of the big ones. Downing says the region has more than a dozen seasonal rate changes per year, plus a number of other pricing quirks — a.m. rates, p.m. rates, retail rates, package deals, early week rates, late week rates and so on.
“It’s still a tight market, for sure, but there are some opportunities where we think we can help with marketing, providing exposure and advice for some of the properties,” he says. “You can’t just build it and they will come anymore.”
Meanwhile, the team at Signature Golf is looking at a gradual expansion into other markets in the Southeast and eventually across the country. Downing’s experience in many different golf course cultures figures heavily in the firm’s future plans.
“I think Dave is the key that’s going to push us beyond where we would have been able to get otherwise,” Taylor says. “He is very active and well known and respected nationally. That kind of exposure for a small company like ours is invaluable. He brings a lot to the table other than what he knows about turf. I’m looking at this as a long-term deal and I think Dave is as well. From my personal perspective, I hope this is the last job he ever has. It’s a match made in heaven in my mind.”
– T.O.
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