Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Toro. We are really excited to announce our new partnership with Toro Golf. We share a mutual admiration of golf course superintendents. Superintendents are among the most important and influential people on golf and really our thought leaders. I mean, these guys are scientists and they keep the golf courses in great playing conditions. And we're excited with Toro's support to create this monthly
superintendent podcast series. So it's going to be our goal to deliver you a informative, thought provoking podcast that highlights a lot of the greatest superintendent's and most interesting voices in the industry. Today's episode is the first one, and it's with Blue Mount Golf and Country Club's superintendent Alex
Beeson Crone. Thanks especially to Toro. They obviously are big supporters of superintendents across the country and world and are supporting us by helping us do this podcast, which we've wanted to do for some time. So without further ado, here is Alex Beeson Crone.
I miss a 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 bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg Frida egg egg Frida egg bride egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
How often do you play golf?
Not enough? If anyone, I would say, in average, try to play like twenty times a year. I would play more if I didn't work and I have a wife and three kids. Yeah, that's hard, Yeah, it is. I mean, we spend a lot of time out working and by the time I'm done, you know, the fruits of my labor are probably best start just keeping a marriage together and going home and hanging out with the kids.
One nice thing with being a superintendent is like you not always, but you can be done earlier, so you get more afternoon time with kids than like a guy that say, commutes into the city and gets home at six thirty or seven.
This year was well, I'm saying, sometime you can't be Yeah, and you got my friends, and there's there's other supers, you know, and I get the the talk quite a bit from buddies there in the industry.
It's like, oh, go home, you know, the golf course would be there in the morning and that's you know your two. Yeah, I'm gonna work on that. But yeah, you can you know, you can be out of you can be in at four, be out at I mean on a weekends. Some days Moan goes, we'll be done at eight thirty.
So this is her first year at Blue Mound. What uh, you were assistant at Aaron Hill's before. What what was the toughest thing about becoming the boss versus like being you know, an assistant where you probably did a ton of the same stuff. But what was the hardest thing about moving up into the you know, the head position.
And of course.
Hm hmm. Honestly, the I mean the transition was Zach you know, good friend Buddy h and my old boss at Aaron gave us a lot of autonomy. And John and myself we we got to do a lot, we got to take We do a lot of the morning meetings and help with set up and you know, economic plan so none of a lot of that was different. It's you know, checking my mailbox for invoices and like for instance, and we just did this huge bunker project, pretty big and budgets due at the end of the month,
early order for chemicals is due. It's like, you know, I got a long week in the office, and that's what's tough. You know, it's tough because I want to be out there. I'm a working superintendent. All motis rag bunkers do it all. Really, I don't really care for spending time in the office too much, and I think that's been the hardest transition.
Yeah, I see that too, Like with my business as a gross like I have to do so much more business stuff, and like I like making the content. It's like, right, that's the fun stuff, exactly the same thing you like doing the golf course stuff.
I mean, that's why you got into I assume, right.
Yeah, no exactly. And like when I if I just had to do like the office side of it, you know, I know there's some superintendents or directors let's say that literally were like sportcos to work. I could never do that. I think I would. I would do something else that just doesn't I mean, and I'm not saying maybe maybe when you know I'm sixty, that might be appealing.
But hey, you gotta be careful.
You can't, you know, shut off the potential, you know, career progression. You know, the USGA calls and says, you're you're running everything from an acronomic side, you'd probably have to wear a suit and die.
I don't know if that guy does that for these Yeah, I think he he rocks a polo polo.
Yeah, that's what.
Uh you're you're from Madison? How you How did you first get into the game of golf.
I got an older brother and dad that love the game. I mean every trip was golf trips. Literally every family trip we took as kids was And at the time, architecture wasn't like a big thing, so it was like, oh the golf that had just places to play. It was like this place is four stars. We'd only you know, my dad be like, you know, we're playing fifteen stars this trip. You know, It's like and now I look at some of these courses, I'm like, you know, maybe not my cup of tea now. But that's how I
got into it. I grew up. I actually didn't grow up next to the We belonged to a course Nakoma, which is a bendelo and fun, fun track. And my brother was maybe not scratch, but he was a good golfer. My dad was a single digit golfer, and it was you know, we would go play like eighteen and then rush home for dinner and it was sweet.
Yeah. I always like my favorite growing up was playing the nine after dinner. Oh the best night, best night by far.
So you're playing a ton of golf as a kid to like turf enter your life.
Kind of my accident. I never had a desire to be a golf course superintendent growing up, not even like an inkling. And I was taking some time off from school at UW. I was originally going to school for landscape architecture and just the original The super at Aaron Hills at the time just kind of ran into him. He saw my hat. I don't I think I was wearing like a black hole ron hat, and he was like, you know, we're building this golf course down the road.
It's going to you know it's going to be it's really it's something special, and looking for guys on the crew. So this was probably July of two thousand and five. I remember because my birthday was August fourth. I started on my birthday two thousand and five at Aaron Hills and they were doing construction. I mean, I think only half the holes were seated, picked a lot of rocks, broke a lot of equipment, and had a blast. I mean,
it's just like the time of my life. We're working, like, you know, seventy hours a week, rolling out stop blanket, literally just having a blast and really haven't looked back since I went back to school at UW. And you know, Zach really mentored me throughout, even you know, I was just a crew guy. He was involved me and stuff that was I was like, this is fascinating.
You went to school wanting to be an architect and then you took that job and you're working on a construction site.
Originally when you took it, where you're.
Thinking, hey, this is going to be my kind of means into getting into architecture or where you're just kind of taking it to figure this will be cool to do, kind.
Of just this will be cool to do. You know me, I was a lot different at I guess twenty and them at thirty six. It was just like, hey, you know, can afford my own apartment. And I was happy. I mean it truly, and it kind of his all had I can't talk has always boiled down to happiness. If I'm happy at work and I'm at work a lot, right or at a minimum at work forty hours a week,
and that means something. So yeah, I had no intention really of even going back to school for that until like probably three or four four years later.
What was you know, the Aaron Hills built.
There's obviously Gary Tomato wrote that huge thing about, you know, kind of the story of Aaron Hills, and I think everybody probably glanced at or heard a lot about it when the US Open was happening. But what what was it like the early days of Aaron Hills.
It was pretty well. I mean I lived on site and Bob was heavily involved babbling the original owner. You know, there would be nights where he'd like come knocking on the door and be like, you know, I tipped the trailer in the marsh on three. You know, it's eight o'clock on a Sunday night and it's sposally my day. Yeah, Yeah, he'd be out. He'd love to go out and like moud holes and uh, you know, I was a much
better golfer then. It was kind of right after I was close to scratch and he would be like, oh, you know, you had like can you get out of this bunker? And I'd be like barely, like all right, let's go deeper. I was like, okay, Yeah, I was just kind of oblivious to course. I mean I really was. I was truly oblivious. I was it was cool to be as a crew guy, be you know, involved in that kind of stuff. But it was pretty wild. I
mean eating lunch. I remember going to lunch with like Ron Whitten and you know, he was on site a lot, going to the air and in and grabbing some two dollars hamburgers. I have really fond memories of it. I truly do, because it was fun. I mean it was it was something I never thought i'd do, never thought I'd be involved with the build portion of it. And there was only like six of us two, so that, yeah,
I had to do all kinds of different stuff. I guarantee you no one has ever wrapped a muffler around a dumb truck like I have, like around the axle of a dump truck tell us yeah, oh yeah. Well so they were like they gave me this huge pile and like a you know, a tractor with a bucket front end, or around the front of this thing. Never been really I'd sat on a tractor maybe like my
second cousin's farm, but like never operated a tractor. So Zach gives me like a two minute tutorial and he says, you know, like they had cleared out that huge bunker behind thirteen. There was a huge pile of dirt there, and he's like, this needs to go to do the hall road by the pump house. I was like, okay, so what would now probably take me? Like I don't know, five hours, took me like four days. And he's like,
I'm dropping these you know what. He was like, they're like chocolate, You're dropping like hershey kiss is like they need in their like space, like these piles need to be on top of one another. So Who's like back into the pile. And so I'm just floring this dumb truck that we got back into the pile. And soon enough, like I hear this like clunk cluh, Like what was
that hop out? And the muffler has like been bent like all the way like literally it was like figure eight, you know, curled around the axle and it snapped off. I mean the axle stop the truck from moving.
Was it because you kept backing?
Yeah, like and it just kept bending the muffler further down.
Probably wasn't your best moment.
No, but you know, and this is kind of and this is how I operate as manager too. I mean things break, yeah, right, Like guys will be like, oh, you know, something will happen, grass will die. Things break, And it's not that I'm lax or it is that I'm lax, but it's not that I'm like lack of laxa daisical, like you know, I don't really care. But it's like, I mean that was They were like, well, yeah, you really screwed that up. Like we don't have a dump truck now. I think we just sought off them
off LERD for like three years. It was like the loudest dump truck in Washington Con.
I mean, there wasn't a lot of stuff around there, so yeah, right, quiet aspect of it was so in terms of the course that I mean, it opened and it went through like a couple revisions and and you had your public you know public and everybody was up there and what was it What was it like watching it mature and like the whole process of like obviously it and Chambers Bay were these two courses that were essentially built for us opense, Like, how how often were
you making tweaks? And and the USGA was coming in and saying do this and that? And what was it like being on the staff that through that period?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there clearly there's been a lot of tweaks there. It would be like, you know, we'd make a tweak and then there'd be another tweak to that tweak, just because we all, like we all John Zach myself, we like doing it, like it was fun because we always got we were closed for construction, right, so constructions in the spring and fall, and it was just like, yeah, throw some tunes on and so I don't think we ever It wasn't like we're irritated by it,
but no, it was pretty wild. You didn't know what to expect next, kind of. I think they're all for the better. I think the golf course is so much better than what it originally was. Personally. You know, some people missed the berets or the Dell hole. I didn't.
I Yeah, I played it when I was young, and I remember a couple of times being like what is going on? Just uh it was why. I mean, it's it's the topography out.
There is just insane.
I mean in terms of golf and it I mean it's it's unbelievable that it's only like an hour from Milwaukee.
Right and it's you know, you drive in like you would never expect over the hill that that's what the topography was. And that was that was my you know, August fourth, not even I guess I started August fourth, but you know whatever, that week before I started in two thousand and five, it was like, my god, you know, this golf course can't be that special. Yeah, this is
the Kettle Moraine. But and we like pulled up. It used to be this gray house that the superintendent lived at the time, and that's where like the offices were and they moved all those but uh, pull in and you're overlooking, like you know, it's basically where the clubhouses now. It's like, this is incredible, you know what this exists? And I had never seen. I mean, yeah, now there's Sand Valley and there's all there finding like really cool places, but you know, i'd never been to some of I
never you know, we didn't go hiking as kids. You know, I'd never seen some of the topography in Wisconsin.
Yeah, you were busy going golf. We were so this moment. Obviously you're part of this crew and you were somewhat into architecture before. Yeah, this is where you know, you kind of got the full on bug, right total. So how did you start to think about it? Did you start to think about golf? And obviously you're learning maintenance
along the way, but how golf courses are maintained? Like, did you start thinking differently because of the you know, architectural experience of building a golf course.
I'm not sure if I start thinking differently about.
I mean, did you did your perspective of golf change?
Absolutely, I've kind of gone through like this, you know, peaks and valleys of how I view golf. You know, I think for a while there I was only looking at conditioning like well we do this, or I go somewhere and be like we don't do this, we need to do this, you know, and I couldn't just enjoy it, like truthfully, like for probably five or six years, couldn't
enjoy golf the way I used to. I definitely at that time, we probably in twenty I think John Morris had started in twenty eleven at aaryone else as the competition's director and his relationship with obviously golf. He introduced me to a lot of stuff that I'd never heard before, a lot of sites, you know, just books. And I still like the more I kind of know about architecture, it's almost like the less I know, right, Like it's like I don't know exactly know what I like until
I see it. I used to, you know, I got real into like, well, if it's not a core crunch or a dough course, it has to be it's not, you know, it's not the best out there.
It's funny how that works, Like I read like my old stuff now and I'm like so confident then and now like I like, I'm like, I don't know if that's right.
It's funny how like your perspective kind of changes.
And I mean there's so many different facets of architecture too, So it is a good point.
The more you know, the less you know. Almost I don't know if that made any sense.
I feel like I'm no.
It does, but I'll never forget.
I had a buddy who was a superintendent and we were we were out a course and we were talking with somebody else and the guy walks away, and my buddy goes, you know, now that's the guy. That's the guy that knows just enough to screw everything up.
Yeah, and it's it.
It's interesting because the more I feel like, the more you get to know stuff, the softer you get on opinions about stuff.
Yeah. My opinion now is might I might hate it like a year from now, you know, like like we just had Bruce Hepner here to do some really cool work, and my opinion is going into it were very different than what I thought, you know, maybe not very different. Man, we had the fourth hold the Alps in the short the seventh we were going to do the mode and I was like, you know, but I thought it should look this way, and he was kind of like, let me do it this and I was like, oh, you know,
but he was right. You know, it's incredible. I mean, like, and that guy knows one hundred times more than I do. Yeah. It's kind of cool though, Like, you know, I enjoy being I always, you know, in recent years more than ever, I enjoyed like just being wrong.
I when I get tricked, especially if I've seen somewhere the first time. If I'm playing and I'm like, oh, this is where I definitely want to be and I hit it there and then I realized, like, ah, this is not what I thought it was going to be at all.
It's like that those are the best moments. I think.
It's like when you just I don't know, when you're wrong about what you think about something.
Or even like you know you're wrong about something, something looks you know, like that's not going to look cool. That looks way better. You see it, You're like, oh, yeah, that was right. I'm glad we did that.
Yeah, this is it's like a preconceived notion thing where you have like this like thought of hey, this is this is the way it should be because I saw this here. But you know, that's the beauty of the architects. It's like they're I mean, they're artists and I couldn't imagine having like the way they think about things. They can see it before they even move any earth.
Right.
Yeah, I think I don't know how good of an architect I would have been had, you know, had it panned out. Yeah, I just don't.
Yeah, what what you said? You read a bunch of books. What are some of your favorite books that you've read, they.
Said, he introduced me to a bunch of No, No, I've read a few and and uh, I mean early on I read anatomy I'm a Golf Course by Tom Doak and George Thomas. Yeah, that's a good one. I actually read that recently. I read that right before I got the job. Here. I ordered a bunch of before I got the job. Here was like and as a very early present, because I used to like kind of doodle golf holes, I got Doctor Hurdson's and that was actually kind of cool because it was like it shows
you like construction specs. I enjoyed that.
And there's so many good this there. Now for a quick word from our sponsor. For one hundred years, Toro has helped superintendents confidently display their skill and dedication to maintaining golf course turf at the highest agronomic standard. In nineteen nineteen, Toro built the first motorized faaraway moor, replacing horse drawn equipment. No more hoof prints and all eighteen
pharaways cut in only eighteen hours. Pretty incredible feat. So greenskeeping has come a long way since then, with Toro continuing to bring innovations that address what matters most to superintendents. Be sure to follow at Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor to demo the newest innovations from Toro. How back to Alex beeson crone, So let's talk about your gig here Blue Mount Golf
and Country Club SETH Rayner Course in Milwaukee. Did you know a lot about Rayner before you came here?
I thought, you know, yeah, Rainer was has been for like the Latin truthful Blue Blue Mont's been like it was kind of like the Holy Grail position for me. I was like, man, that job ever opens up, I'm gonna do whatever I can at least get a shot. I wasn't sure if it ever would open up, But yeah, I knew a fair amount about Rainer.
How does the superintendent job search work?
Like?
You know, I like to think about obviously, like I.
Was working in completely different world before this, But you think about, like how regular job and it's such a small industry. There's I mean, you know, when a job opens up, there's instead of thousands of qualified candidates, there might be a couple dozen.
Yeah, No, I don't actually know the final numbers and who applied to this job, but I mean, yeah, there's there's not gonna be more than one hundred people probably seeking out that job. So they'll either post it like one of the you know, GCSA or turf net, or it might not even be posted. I mean some jobs don't even get posted, just like word them off. You know, they might already have three or four candidates that they desire to fill that position and just have them interview.
But this one was posted online. I actually found out about it before it was posted. Yeah, a little inside, little inside track. I mean I knew that, you know, Steve Oulan, who was here, took the job at account of Walk, which is a ross course, you know, thirty five minutes west of here. And when I found that out, I called up a member that I knew that was a friend and said, who do I send my resume to and cover?
Why? Why was Blue Mount of the Holy Grail job?
I just love this place, I do. Is there's something special, you know? And I mean, yeah, it's the greens, and it's the you know, it's the only rainer in Wisconsin clubhouses. Pretty spectacular, just the whole vibe is really cool. But you know, there's been like, you know, other than Aarren Hills. It was always like here in Lasnia, it was just something special about him and played him as a kid.
You know, there's it sounds kind of flowery, but you know there's like a spiritual experience with being at a place like this. We're like, I feel good about being here, this is fun, this is what golf should be. And that was Bluemont for me. Yeah, you know, I was just so I mean, I was like like slamming the table in my first interview, you know, I was like just geeking out, you know. And and I and I think they appreciated that I was. I was myself. I got done and I was like, I was like, how'd
it go? And I was like that was me, you know, like I was having a hard time finding words. I was really excited. And I think it were pretty good. They seem to like the fact that I was passionate about what I do or what we you know. And it's been that like I've just been me and that's since I've been here, Like it's been I feel blessed.
Like the membership has been is amazing. I don't have to say that like any I don't know, I'm not trying to call it any other courses, but like, I don't have to be something I'm not right, Like I manage the way I managed, we I act the way I act, you know. I don't like change. I'm the same person at work that I am at home or with my buddies.
Yeah, I mean I think that like authenticity is it's like the number one thing. I was listening to podcasts with this venture capitalist and he said, authenticity will, like, you know, outrun all of your competition because if you're just authentic in yourself, then that's the best thing you can put forth because you're going to be different and unique and you're going to be your best self, you know, if you just act like yourself total.
I mean, that's how I you know, I hate the word. I really do kind of hate the word. I I try not like at least with like the crew, it's a wee thing. And I'm like, again, blast not just with the membership and a great golf course, but like the team we have is which just fun. It's fun coming to work, you know. The senior assistant, my Dan, I say it, Dan, I say to the members, I say in green Scraze, I'm like, he's probably smarter than me, so he can answer this question, you know, and that's fine.
You know, like I can be vulnerable to a degree, like kind of controlled. I was listening to a podcast and I don't recall which one, but you know it's kind of like controlled leading with like controlled vulnerability. I can't say that word. It's vulnerability. Yeah, Like I'll be like the crew will be like, hey, what are we doing now? Or like something will go wrong. I'll be like, I have no idea.
It's it's genuine.
Yeah, I guess genuine. Yeah.
It's a so did you in the staff? Did you inherit?
Like Dan the super assistant was he he was from He came from the previous staff, Steve's staff, everybody for.
The most part. Yeah, it's so it's Dan Voters, our senior assistant. Then Steve ms who is was got promoted to be the assistant. He was an assistant in training and he's I mean just in the kind of a segue here, But like the other thing is they're just good people. They're good dudes. That's I mean, that's like we didn't I inherited like a really cool, good group of people. So yeah, everyone's pretty much the same. Our
assistant mechanic, Kyle I worked for that Aaron Hills. He got out of the industry and he's kind of like a crew for him. And I mean he got cut cups for he did it all at Aaron cutups for the open and then we actually just brought on Brian down at Troy Akers. Was like, hey, we got this guy Matt that you know, super hardworking, right, you need
an assistant. I was like, I'd always take it to the assist right, And so I went, I have a super supportive Greens committee, Green's chair and club president, and you know, I was like, we want to do some really cool things, you know, especially with these bunker projects, Like we need help. We'll take it, like we need skilled bodies. Yeah and yeah we so we heard like October first, So there's three assistants and system mechanics and our mechanics like can fix anything.
Is it tough coming in where you have a staff that's done stuff one way, you know, and introducing new procedures or methods or.
You know, Yeah, yeah, I mean Steve's a great super I mean there's there was stuff that I I was like, oh, that's a good way to do it. But yeah, we've definitely changed quite a few things and it's tough. I mean there are some growing pains with that. Well I've been doing it this way for seven years, this is the way we do it, and I'm like, you know, that's only happened a few times. I think like the
buy in. I mean, one thing that we try to do is just like like why we're doing something that was something at Aaron that you know I kind of learned from Zach. Is like it helps even it helps like the high school guys, you know, if you tell them the rake a bunker this certain way or do whatever more. You know, it's like you just tell them, like, no,
do it this way. It's like no, why are you doing It's like, well, because you're gonna get contamination, you get soil in the bunker, you're gonna bring sand out and see that over there where the bunkers like shrinking. That's why we don't do that.
It's interesting.
It's like a human nature thing where if you change the way somebody does something, like they automatically think it's worse, you know, because it's like different than the way they perceive it. I think about it all the time. I used to be in sales and like, if anybody ever change the commission structure, like the natural, every sales raft would be calling each other.
Like can you believe this bullshit?
And then like you like hear the hear the hear it out and you're like, oh, like I actually I'm gonna make way more money. This is great, you know, but like that reaction is and that's gotta be It's gonna be tough, you know. I mean coming in and having like if you change anything, people automatically are like, oh, well, this new guy's changing up everything on me.
You heard a little bit of that. Yeah, you know some of the guys, especially the guys have been here for a long time, but I think they were, you know, buy in. I'm huge on culture, right. I just want people to feel part of And I knew how when I was a crew guy and assistant and even now, you know, it's pretty flat hierarchy. There's times where I'll go to guys and be like, hey, how do I do this? I have no idea. I like, we didn't you know, we didn't have this many trees and Aaron Hills.
We had like three is there a better way to blow these leaves? You know this is not working the way I'm doing it, and you know, just learning from guys. I think guys are like, is he really asking me? Or is he messing with me? And it's like no, I'd like a like a little tutorial on this.
It probably helps a ton being a suit, like what you said off the bat, like you're working super entirely. You're out there doing everything that's got to help a ton because then you know people feel, oh like he's out here.
Doing that, doing working, working his ass off too.
Yeah. I mean that's just like what we came from, you know, like we were, and that's what they I mean, that's what they said they want, and I can assure you I think they're getting that. Like I I feel like whore on the days that I got like meetings or we got you know, once a month we have
our Greens Committee meeting. So and I'm a procrastinator, so sometimes I'm writing my agenda like thirty two minutes before the me The first one I did like these pretty elaborate, The first second, maybe the third one I did like these really elaborate. It took me like forty hours to make. I got all night long, I'd be up making these power points. Yeah, tired. It's like, you know, it's it's October now, Like it's been working, you know, seventy plus hours a week.
You got.
This is gonna be like a three hundred character word, three hundred word agenda and we'll get through it.
Oh you got winter, you know.
Yeah, it's see we got a busy winner out of us too, though.
Yeah, that's true. So let's talk about year one. What have you been doing? I mean I was, I came here, what is it three years ago?
And it's so funny because like I uh, I wrote about the course and h I talked about trees and I talked about one tree on eighteen I singled it out, it's gotta go. And I can't tell you how many messages I've got in the last four months. But yeah, you got to come back. The tree's gone. The tree that you talked about gone. But what what have what have you been up to the last last now ten months?
Yeah, I mean Dan kind of led the took down quite a few trees that was all winter, and that was new to me. I mean, like I said, there weren't a lot of trees in Darion Hills. We've just been focusing on playability, like bottom line, like there's areas that we have neglected that maybe perhaps weren't neglected before. I mean, like clubhouse stop. Just really trying to hammer playability,
trying to break that. There's a disconnect right now between approaches and greens, Like we feel like we got greens where we can get them firm. You've been focusing a lot on approaches, just find detail stuff, you know, learning. I mean I felt like the first six honestly, I felt like until like probably middle September. I mean we
were getting bad. I think getting better throughout the year, but middle September I was like beating our heads against the wall trying to get say green speed firmness up. At least, you know, we figured it out at some point.
What have you been doing to kind of firm up greens and work on the approaches getting them firmer.
It's primarily water management, a lot more hand baring, adjusting irrigation heads, turning off irrigation heads, sand poking holes.
I guess, you know, like the common golfer, they always are you know, aerations Like the worst thing you can say to them about a golf course, what does it do like to promote firmness because like obviously the immediate result is that softens everything and it makes it hard, really hard to put So, like what is the what in terms of long term benefits of air rating and getting the sand in there?
Yeah, I mean for us, especially on approaches, greens are you know, are organic? Matter what you're looking at is organic manner like what is our kind of what's like too little and you're gonna have traffic issues? You know, you're gonna have beare spots, which some bare spots. Firm kind of comes with the territory of firm and fast.
But on approaches, we've been trying to just get you know, some of the thatch out and get getting There's different sands too, you know, if you put beach sand in, you know, if you say, if you put in like the analogy Zachy's using, you know, you know, you have like different shape sand and different you know. So the
sand that we're using is called twenty three forty. It comes from a well paca, which a lot of the Midwest gets their sand from, and it's it's really helped the firm up greens and approaches because yeah, we were talking before this, like the hardest thing for me to watch is that like week two weeks where holes haven't healed and approaches and say greens are firm and you're just watching balls plug in the approach.
Yeah, soft approaches firm greens is the hardest thing.
It's impossible.
We feel like you have no you.
Have a few complaints with that, And I get it. I'm a golfer, you know, and I kind of I try to manage. We try to manage from like a golfer's perspective.
Yeah, I think that's an interesting thing rather, you know, managing from a golfer's perspective rather than an agronomy perspective.
Or is it a balance?
Kind of it has to be a balance because's hard. Like, for instance, if we want to present the best product to members or guests or say we have a big outing, I mean there's going to be certain things that we kind of do our you know, our calendar gets adjusted based on certain things like we're not going to aerfy I approaches the week before invitation. You know, we have the junior ryder cup and stayed open. Like you know, it's played around that, but like some days it's going
to affect that day's play. You know, it's not just the disruption of like having ten guys out there with backpack blowers and blowing sand around and but you know the effects playability, and that's it's weird from a I know, like I it like irks me. It probably should, and I should probably just be like, no, we got to do it, and we do have to do it, but
it irks me probably more than other maybe supers. I know, they're just like, no, that's what you have to do that stuff, and I'm like like yeah, but like so and so is playing today, he's going to be like, what are you doing?
It's you use the term playability, you know, when you're talking about firming up greens, firming up approaches like and from a lot of standpoints people would say like, oh, that's making the course tougher. But what what do you mean by you know, making it more playable?
Just playing how it's supposed to? I think, you know, like the beer is it's a small green out here, like I never hit that green, like the twenty years I've been playing list I think I've like never parted whole three. It's hard. It's a hard hole. But like you know, if you don't, if there isn't consistency, you have one day they're soft, one day they're firm. Like how do you play that all? Do you land it ten feet short of the green? Do you have to carry it on to the green? Do you land it
twenty yards short and run it through the whale? Like that's what we're talking for. Playability consistency in giving different shot options too. I mean, playability doesn't always make the course, you know, it's just shot options. Like how cool is it to think, like why I can bump this in there? I can fly it in there, I can play it way up on that slope. That's fine, that's super fun. I mean, that's that's a golf.
Yeah, especially with like the rainer, the big bold greens that you have, these shoulders you can use, and it just presents so many more shot options than you know, some courses are much more aerial based, right, you know, and this this is a golf course that you can hit all these different shots if if you want to, or you could just play it aerially, like you.
You have options and that's the thing. We're just trying to give options.
So you you've you just you've alluded to a little bit with h Bruce Happener. You've done a couple of projects this fall, one of them on the short hole. How did that project come about?
I think there's I might be wrong on the exact number, but you know, right now, within our club leadership, it really it's kind of you know, the pedals kind of been they're pushing it further to the middle right. They want to do some really cool stuff to restore not just playability, but also the course back to the original rainer twenty six. So there's there was seventeen bunkers at the beginning of the year. We did three this year.
One of them was you know, our short had two bunkers with a run up and it wasn't you I mean you remember it. It was what maybe and it wasn't even it was rough height. You really couldn't run it up, although some of our members have said, you know that maybe have a hard time flighting the ball higher, like well, I use that to run up, but it wasn't really a run up. And then seven was kind of the same thing.
I mean, it was like a four yard wide run.
Up right, So if you're aiming for that, Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I mean that is like one of the things about you hear that.
Yeah, I mean the thing about the Rainer McDonald shole is like it's funny because everybody loves these short part threes, but they are like as far as like in terms of playout, like you have to hit a high lofted shot in that's the only shot option.
That's all you got.
Yeah, so you know it's you have the old Ariel thirty seven and then did you have old photos to go off of?
We did well, we did on seven the short we had one where you did you see showed that to you the thirty three picture, yeah, I think nineteen thirty three. So momt Mary's, which is a woman's college, is in the background. I mean it's pretty spectacular and it's crazy how close you know, how good Bruce is that other than the trees, and I don't think Mom Mary wants me or Dan or any of our team going cutting down trees on their their campus. But yeah, it looks.
So the club is that you know, you said, pushing the metal, pushing the pedal, down a little bit more. But in terms of the restoration plant, you kind of guys are just tackling project projects every year rather than doing you know, I.
Think that's the plan. I mean when I came in, originally we were going to do three three seventeen. There's cross bunkers more just visual one in the swale maybe one hundred yards out on three, and then kind of the same thing on seventeen, and then we're gonna do eighteen eighteen. Like I asked Brud another kind of a funny story, just young superintendent and not at you know, it was like a total panic moment. But this bunker was we didne A lot of construction at Aaryon Hills
involve with a lot of bunker builds and drainage. And it's obviously Aaron Hills you have slopes you can drain, it's not as challenging to drain.
Well.
We had to do like this kind of levee system. And I'm a little in over my head and this like right starting, I'm like, what how are we going to drain this thing? Well, we're hitting you know. Aaron Hills is also built in two thousand and five. Four we have as builds for everything we have like a
it's right behind over your shoulder. There's like this hand drawn from the past four superintendents, and it's like, you know, there's no drainage going We're hitting everything and pulling out old concrete, clay, tiles, metal, you know, probably something original, right, oh totally which at the time, like now when we find it, I'm like, oh cool, let's repair that. It probably works because Rainer was brilliant at that stuff. It was an engineer by the time. I was like, what
is this stuff? You know, just freaking out? So I call it Bruce that he laughed. We started, we'd go to cut drain entry of this little X fader and I'm in there dating drainage and like water is just pouring out everywhere and flooding our Boner and I call it Bruce. Like within like thirty seconds of the water, I'm like, Bruce, there's water coming out everywhere. He was like, well, man, you know, I don't know what you wanted to jap
at the airport man, now, you know. So I was like, okay, I just all right bye, you know, and I turned it damn, Like I have no clue why I just called it, you know, freaking out, but we figured it out. It's one of the best training parts of the property. We just repaired some of the old drainage.
Then drainage has to be tough, I mean completely different soil, like you know Aaron Hill's is really sandy.
Oh parts, I can tell you it. Hills is not all sandy, but yeah, completely different.
And there's huge hills that you could just yeah water just you know right where it's going like it and versus Blue Mount you've got you've got some nice movement in it. But then there's some flat spots and how have you kind of tackled some of that?
I mean, we haven't done as much drainage this year. I mean that's kind of the plan we got. We did these bunker projects and we saw some equipment here and we want to tackle some kind of trouble trouble spots. But I mean at eighteen we did like and I don't know if it'd be a lobby system, but basically we had no fall. And by no fall, I mean there was it's pancake flat up by the clubhouse there.
So we'd drain like the bunker was deeper than where we needed to drain to there's no way we could get We're basically going uphill to a drain line almost. I mean it was like two inches down. So we'd like run it into a big samp or a big drain and then it would fill up that pipe and then it would go down to the next one. And we kind of did that, and I think that it's proved to be really successful there. I think in spots will just drain into the the creek line that runs
through the property. But it's tough too. I mean like, yeah, we're bordered by roads at air and it was like we're bordered by a marsh on three or two. Yeah, just draining into the marsh or draining into the wetland and thirteen or just off property into the native.
Let me something I've always wanted to do. I'm very fascinated with drainage. But uh, punch bowl the rain or punch bowlm on holy eight. You ever just stood out there when it's like dumping, dump and rain and the watch the water just run out of that. I think it's like one of the most amazing things in the world is out This guy in twenty six figured out how to train a punch full on, like bad bad soil.
No wa and I have I have, I've done on a lot of them. Some of them have like we have some what they call collar dams where water just sits on the collar, which we've also addressed and will addressed more. But yeah, I mean it's crazy. You go to Chicago Golf Club, have you ever seen that big You've seen that big drain on eighteen. It's like the most fascinating thing I've ever seen anywhere. Yeah.
I was talking to Scott. He's like, I don't even think we could do this today. No, And the thing was built and it's beautiful, it's like twenty five. That was yeah, twenty five, and he doesn't think they could do it like with modern technology.
I'd never seen it until the last time I was there. And he and Scott's been just another awesome mentory, Like and he's awesome. He's just like so passionate about Everything's like, it's just not the coolest thing you've ever seen it like this.
It might be that's the story Chicago Golf Strains.
Yeah, that's what.
You talked about him being a mentor, like being a younger superintendent. How how helpful are area superintendents and other superintendents around the country super helpful.
I mean I have no you know, I have like a few quotes that run through my hand pretty consistently, you know, And my favorite quote of all time is humility is remaining teachable. And I just love learning stuff. I mean, like, I know so little compared to like even like, you know, it's not necessarily from like the Chicago golf clubs or the Aaron Hills, Like how much you learned just from you know, there's a lot of
guys like our vendors. A lot of our vendors are superintendents, you know, maybe at lesser known courses that are now retired or just one didn't want to work the hours anymore. Just learning from those guys too. They've been everyone's been super hepple. I've called on probably twenty five different supers this year, and there's will They're generous, you know, with
their time and knowledge. That's the part about it. I really dig about our community of superintents, at least within the state and people I met, you know, working at Aaron Hills. Is people are really generous with their time and really generous with you know, their intellectual property.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's I mean, getting to know supers is like the best community of people.
You know, there's some good people. Yeah, it's good salt of the earth people.
Yeah.
It's so you've taken down a good amount of trees, and obviously that can always be a hot topic at clubs. But you know, how how's how's the member reception been over the last.
Year with the with the tree removal? Yeah yeah, really positive, like resounding maybe other than one person. I really like that tree in eighteen beautiful tree. It's like, yeah, but it's blocked half of a really cool green.
That green's awesome. By the way, that might be the coolest green out here.
It's not my it is. It is awesome. But that's the thing about these greens though, right like I'll be in an hole that I'm like, eh, this, you know, like.
Fifteen fourteen or yeah, fifteen fifteen greens unbelieving, Yeah, the right.
Side right like fifteen.
I was kind of like, you know, someone asked me like, what, you know, what are your least favorite holes. I'm like, you know, it's hard because the greens are all great.
It might you know, see I think that's the best I I one of my pet peeves is.
What's your favorite hole?
Yeah? I don't get on.
It's like, well, that's a really great golf course, but I think like the best, like great golf course is the best?
Question is I always ask what's the weakest hole?
Yeah, And it's like that because then you start like talking and you like really golf courses. A lot of times you're like, what, I don't know what the week is all like, it's like you feel like bad saying wholes week, But I think, yeah, until you get that, Yeah, I agree with that.
I think, yeah, I look at four differently now. I mean it's only been a week, but I'm like, because the green's cool.
Yeah, it's the It reminds me a lot of Country Club of Charleston's Alps, like it got flattened and it's like they're also You're like, oh, well this probably was really cool and I know they like are planning to restore it in the near future. But it's like it's just funny how like things like that happened. Like it's like just the blindness just.
It's just flatten It's great.
Mm hmm.
It's what what future hole that you haven't gone to work? That you think has the most potential that people made members or other golfers that have played a Blue Mound don't know. It could be really cool, like most room for improvement. I'm just stumbling all over my questions.
Here, You're good. This is good for me because I stumble my responses. I think, yeah, like, who are these two mumblers? What is this? I can't understand where these guys were said.
Are you going to get Is this even gonna make it? Yeah? That's will make it.
This is quality.
Yeah, I just feel like we're tying.
We talked for an hour before. Yeah, exactly.
This is basically just an extension of over.
Yeah. Honestly, I think like eleven and we're not really doing other, you know, other than just kind of the plan around that. As we're looking at this area in the office here around five eight, eleven nine, all those trees around the pond, I think it's gonna be so cool once we take them all that.
That's the thing I noticed most coming back was, like I remember I wrote in my article about like how like when you get to see an architect on flat land like I and then like by removing some of the trees, like the vistas have opened up, and you're like all sudden, like, well, this land's actually really got some interesting stuff going on, and like that area of eleven twelve eight, all those holes in there play over really nice ground, and it's like then it's just that
you look as like, well, Rainer just like used all his tricks on the flat land, which is like one, two, three four, you know, seventeen eighteen where.
He put it. But like that other half of the properties like got like.
In what removing the trees is doing to me is like it's opening up, like it's the property is becoming much more like muscular, like you see these like the roles, and then you see the greens all over the play and I mean like in one spot I remember looking, I can't remember where I was, like, holy cow, Like there's that bunker in the distance and it matches up and it's like, all of a sudden, you're like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It's like some Robert Hunter stuff, right. Yeah. No, I it should be pretty, it should be a good productive winner, And I'm really excited for next year. I'm excited for next year too, because I just feel like we figured out a lot of stuff aeronomically.
I imagine like in a way like as a super like it's probably like people buying a house. You go in, you get your inspection, and then once you own it, you're like, oh shit, there's a lot of things strong with this that I didn't know, or like there's a lot of things to you, and it's just you're for the first year. You got to feel like you're just learning the property.
Yeah, and I can fully relate with that. Aut It is exactly like that, like we had you know, it dawned on us, well, we just bought a house and we're like, where our floors is squeaky when we walked in. We're watching YouTube videos this morning, like how does you
know fix a? But yeah, no, it's exactly like that because when I had no idea some of the potential issues, right, Like, so we drain all this water through our property from I don't know, three hundred acres of kind of like commercial industrial and this was a bad year for snow and ice. A lot of salt went down and we had like a saltwater. I mean it was like seawater
ocean water in our irrigation pod. No way, oh yeah, we had water tested and it was you know, twenty three times what it should be to go on grass, you know, So I'm freaking out. I mean, there's certain things like that you just don't think of until you're in.
You could have could have stocked the ponds with some saltwater fish total.
I guarantee you they would have lived this break.
This is off topic.
Did you see that the the uh, the alligator that got in the Humbolt Park lagoon in Chicago. You didn't hear about that. There's an alligator that got in like a pond in the city of Chicago, in a neighborhood and uh, it's cost the city like thirty five grand to remove it. It was like a two and a half foot alligator. They had to fly an alligator guy up from Florida.
To get them. Yeah, attle guy.
One of the craziest stories of the year. But you could have you could have been having.
You could have sharks out there, yeah, the spring might Yeah, but no, I mean we got that sorted out.
And that's the thing. I mean, I think our grass is a little salt tolerant because it was either going to die from droughder back from watering.
Yeah, that's it.
It's uh so you'll get you got year two in and uh more rest well yeah.
Yeah, I was here. I mean like when the members are telling you, like, go home, we'll be out like handwater and like alcohol. Yeah, it's okay. You know, gol of course is great. Go home and that's nice. I mean it is a lot self inflected.
Yeah, it's ah, but if you're doing what you love, so it doesn't feel like work right.
Right for the most part. I mean there's certain days where I'm like, you know, I would like to go home, but this green isn't doing so well, you know, silvery.
I mean that's got to be hard.
What do you like, You you get these big projects and you always feel like you're working towards it, but like it takes so much time to finish them where it's hard to put down. It'd be like, you know, like if you put together TV stand and like you can't stop putting together until it's done.
Yeah.
I feel like that would be if I was a super that's.
For us, for at least me specifically for construction, and I think all the guys that are on our team just paying this out. I mean, we worked, but it's fine. I mean constructions fun. You're building stuff, right, like cool stuff and Bruce is Bruce Happeners building it, but I mean you're finishing it off. You want to see it with grass and played on. Yeah.
Curtis James talked about how it's he loves it for his crew because it also breaks up the maniacal nature, like or not the monotony maniacal that's completely the wrong word, but the monotony it can get kind of You don't if all you're doing is just you know, doing the same mow.
And you're just cutting grass, right, Yeah, No, definitely, And that was that was why I always look forward to the Fall and Aaron Hill building something, doing something.
Yeah, all right, well we'll we'll probably check in next year.
That's gone anytime.
Yeah, but been pleasure having you on, Thanks for coming on, Thanks for having We'll look forward to seeing what happens in your two sounds good.
Thanks all right. M