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Learning the ropes, and beyond
Being an assistant superintendent may not be easy, but learning every day is.
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Wanted: Assistant superintendent to help oversee construction and grow-in process of new 18-hole golf development. Candidates must be an effective leader, speaker, moderator, problem solver, coordinator, crisis handler, decision maker and innovator. Must be able to efficiently lead and coordinate numerous contractor crews spread across a 1,200-acre site. Willingness to work long hours and excessive amounts of patience are required. Ability to deal with the unexpected is expected.
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Above: Construction and grow-in of The Reserve at Moonlight Basin covered 1,200 acres, presenting unique challenges for rookie assistant |
Although this isn’t the job posting I responded to when taking the position, it very well could have been. Most assistant superintendents begin their career path at ground zero with what I would assume to be an incomplete knowledge base, just as I did. It is only a matter of time until every assistant realizes he or she has a lot of learning to do. Usually, there’s only one way to get it — by being hands-on.
Any person, regardless of profession, needs to encounter a handful of experiences before advancing to the next stage of a career. Among these are the ability to efficiently communicate and coordinate with large groups of people, manage crisis situations, make sound and quick decisions and learn every step of the way.
Laying the groundwork
The Reserve at Moonlight Basin is a new Jack Nicklaus Signature course located in the heart of the Northern Rockies in southwest Montana. The project is on a 9,000-acre parcel of privately owned land that is used more as a conservation project than as a development. The golf course encompasses just over 1,200 acres. Elevations range from 6,700 feet to over 7,400 feet. Snow can fall every month during the year. Grizzly and black bears, bull elk, moose and mud are constant threats. By no means is this an easy location to build a course.
The location of the golf course would present many unique challenges. We were aware of most of them from the onset, but others wouldn’t arise until later. Underground springs would show up under a fairway out of nowhere, requiring a network of French drains to keep the water from surfacing.
Geotechnical problems arose everywhere as well. An active slide comprises most areas of the course, some spots more obvious than others. Large cuts and fills had to be planned meticulously by site engineers. One in particular simply would not work. A layer of wet ash in the subgrade was determined to be too unstable to hold the weight of the potential fill. The eventual solution would require a new design for the hole.
The sheer size of the site presented challenges as well. It could take close to 15 minutes to navigate your way nearly two miles across the site. There will eventually be more than eight miles of golf car paths. Planned meetings with contractors on the course were often adjusted for travel time because of a backlog of haul trucks or an excavator sitting in the road.
These were just the tip of the iceberg, however. In the months to come, I would come to fully realize how difficult it is to build on such a site.
I arrived at The Reserve at Moonlight Basin in May 2006. The course had previously undergone a fair amount of mass earthwork in 2005, but no hole shaping had taken place. The real work was about to begin. Although I had previously completed three internships during college that had in some way dealt with construction or grow-in, this was a different story. After only a few hours of my first day on the project, I thought to myself, “I’m in way over my head.” And I was, which was good.
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Being able to make quick, correct decisions is a vital aspect of the assistant superintendent’s role. |
Leading as a rookie
Without a doubt, the hardest part of the job was dealing with the dozens of individuals and their different contractors. Like most assistants in and entering the profession today, I’m young. With a whopping 23 years of age and only one prior season of assistant superintendent experience under my belt, I was in fact the youngest person on the entire project. Respect can be hard to come by in a situation like this.
There are a few techniques I used to help ease this situation. Absolutely no one likes the young college graduate who shows up on a job and knows everything, including how to do everyone else’s job. Instead, I tried the opposite. I was never afraid to ask plenty of questions. Most contractors have been in their respective positions for a long time, some longer than I’ve been alive. They have lots of knowledge about their jobs and are usually more than happy to share it.
It’s impossible to be an expert about everything that takes place during the construction of a golf course. However, being familiar with all the different aspects is a reasonable expectation. When encountering a new component of the building process, learn all you can from the people completing the task. For example, ask the concrete contractors how many square feet of cart path they can pour from a 10-yard concrete mixer. How many feet can they pour in a day? What’s the minimum temperature they can pour in? How long does it need to cure before it can be rained on? It helps tremendously to know the basics of how their jobs are done, how much time it takes and how it affects the rest of the project’s schedule. Simply knowing this much can help you coordinate the other contractors to keep the project going.
Most important, don’t get pushy. Instead of telling the irrigation foreman that some of his heads need to be moved, ask him what the easiest way would be to get them moved. Offer to do a final walk-through of the staking with him on the next hole to ensure all flagged heads are exactly where they need to be. Don’t tell the excavator operator how to dig the drainage trench. Notify him of the routing you need for the pipe and ask him about the most efficient way to dig it. Never pass up an opportunity to ask a question of a person who knows a lot more about what he’s doing than you do. This will help you better perform your job in the future as well as earn the respect of your colleagues on the project.
Decisions: when and how
It’s bound to happen a lot. Like it or not, one of the biggest parts of an assistant’s job is making decisions. Some are easy, but most aren’t. Some are small, but most are big. Learning how to make a decision that is not only timely, but also correct, is essential. Decisions made too late won’t work. Decisions that are wrong won’t work, either.
Knowing how to make a sound decision doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of practice, and with practice comes confidence. This is the foundation of making a good decision. It’s impossible to reach a verdict if you’re not comfortable that it’s the right one. Furthermore, those working with you will notice your confidence in your decision, or lack thereof. If you’re not confident, neither are those around you, and they are the ones who have to act on that decision. However, they will also notice if you’ve made your decision with authority, and will act more quickly because of it.
When it comes to decision making, I’ve found a solid line of communication between the assistant and the superintendent to be the most helpful. This is crucial not only to your success as an assistant, but also to the success of your superiors and in turn, the course itself. I can’t make a sound decision if I don’t know what the superintendent wants.
Fortunately for myself and the other assistant on the project, the expectations for the golf course were made very clear by our superintendent, Mike Wilcynski. Like most superintendents, Wilcynski is a very busy man. While he would love to spend most of his day on the golf course, he knew the likelihood of that happening was nil to none. Because of his other responsibilities, Wilcynski made it clear to us what his expectations were, from efficiency of the earthmovers and routing the irrigation system, to grassing lines around the tees and curbing parameters on the cart paths. Extensive communication throughout the summer helped the other assistant and me make sound decisions. Knowing we were making the right decisions also helped Wilcynski delegate responsibility with confidence.
Last, making decisions requires quick thinking. Although some decisions require mulling over a bit, most do not. Having the confidence to decide quickly can mean the difference in a delivery of sod being laid in one day or two. However, it is important to realize when a decision is above or beyond your responsibility or expertise.
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Reznicek discusses the property with prospective members. Being familiar with all the different aspects of constructing a golf course is a reasonable expectation of the assistant superintendent, Reznicek says. |
You have to make sure you know if you can make the decision or if you need help. The irrigation foreman approached me often to look at heads before they were set. I felt confident making small head changes around the golf course. I was well aware of the grassing lines, the different head capabilities and the water requirements of our site. No big deal. However, if he approached and wanted to change a mainline routing, a different course of action was taken. Wilcynski needed to be aware of major changes like this, and I wasn’t comfortable making these decisions without first consulting him.
Knowing how to quickly distinguish between minor and major decisions is key.
Without a doubt, your ability as a strong decision maker will be tested on many occasions. Crises happen, and when they do you need to be prepared to make the right decisions quickly.
It was an afternoon in early October when our sprayer broke down. Not only was it broken, it contained 200 gallons of snow mold treatment in the tank with no ability to apply or even agitate the mixture. This quickly became a problem.
Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to seek help from outside sources. With some quick thinking between the other assistant and our equipment technician, we were able to borrow a sprayer from another course in town. We managed to rig our spray hawk up to the borrowed sprayer and drained our spray solution through a watering hose into the tank, with a little help from gravity. The irrigation technician and I were out until 9 p.m. finishing the application. Seeking help from an extra set of minds and hands can help alleviate a crisis much faster than you could on your own.
Time management in a time shortage
Many assistants, myself included, must learn how to effectively manage their time. It’s impossible to help everyone else work efficiently if you can’t even manage yourself. Figuring out how to get 12 hours out of a 10-hour work day is essential. There were a number of days when I showed up to work at 6:30 a.m. and immediately needed to talk with 10 different people in five different places. My Gator can only go so fast.
I found the best way to get the most out of my time was, and is, to prioritize. No matter how well you think you may have organized your schedule, dozens of unknowns are bound to arise and throw it off. It’s essential to realize what situations are the most important and attend to those first. After that, simply work your way on down the line. Some situations will require more of your time, while others may not. Differentiating between these two is important for scheduling. And, although I didn’t use my planner much last summer, I purchased two for 2007.
Another situation I struggle with is how to be hands-off. Before becoming assistants, most of us spent many seasons as interns or another form of maintenance worker. We were able to personally complete a project and ensure the job was done correctly. Typically, this is no longer possible. Although the traditional adage, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” may sometimes hold true, it’s often impossible as an assistant. There were many times I had the desire to perform a job myself, but realized I would be neglecting other, more pressing responsibilities if I did. Letting go and trusting others will free up much more time in your day.
Preparing for the future
What you’ve read up to this point has been a description of what I learned last season and how I learned it. Most important, I never stopped performing my job for the golf course. Even the most experienced assistant, or even superintendents, would probably agree — no matter how well you may have performed your job or how good your course looks and plays, if you didn’t learn anything in the process, you probably weren’t as successful as you could have been. Although the learning curve may level off the longer you’ve been in the business, learning is a process that never stops.
As I enter the 2007 construction season, I realize how much more I still have to learn. I do, however, feel significantly more confident in my abilities, thanks to the skills I picked up last year. My decision making abilities are good, but could be better. I have become an effective leader, but still need to work on my communication tactics and interaction with those who are older than I am. As is the case for most assistants, the learning curve will remain steep for many more years, even through the eventual transition to head superintendent.
Learning is a process that happens as much from the situations you encounter as it does from the ones around you. I was fortunate to have a head superintendent and a fellow assistant who shared their knowledge and expertise with me. All of the contractors on the project were just as helpful. I would also hope that everyone I worked with and encountered last summer may have learned something from me as well, even if it was nothing more than youthful enthusiasm.
I’m excited to discover how much I can learn during this next year. I hope I learn enough to figure out how to finish building a golf course by the end of the year and how to maintain a golf course that will most likely be as difficult to upkeep as it has been to build.
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