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 fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Fridaygg, Frida egged egg, Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course game. Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking to a superintendent who's trying to revive his hometown nine hole golf course. Tom Schwab is
the superintendent at the Municipal Napoleon Golf Course in Napoleon, Ohio. Now, Tom has also worked at a number of top flight clubs like Marion and Irono, Mink and Kirtland, but a few years ago he decided to take the job at his hometown nine holer Napoleon, and he's hoping to make some major improvements to that course. You know, we've talked to a few superintendents this year who have taken on these kinds of projects. Clay Payne at Buffalo Dunes in Kansas,
Stephen Beale at Wolf River in Michigan. And pretty soon we'll have a video coming out featuring Len Curtin at
George Wight Golf Course in Boston. We like highlighting these stories and we think they represent a kind of micro trend in the industry right now where some of the most promising renovation work at public courses is being done one on a budget and two spearheaded by skilled, ambitious superintendents who could probably work at the private club of their choosing, but have decided to take on a challenge.
Right this is a real challenge trying to get a local nine hole course in Napoleon, Ohio back on its feet, and that's what Tom Schwab is trying to do. He's at the very beginning of his work at Napoleon, so I thought it would be fun to talk to him now, at this early point in the process and get a
sense of what his plans are for the future. And my hope is as people listen to this episode, they think of their own local nine hole courses and think of how those can be improved, because it really can happen. But the biggest thing that you need is just a great superintendent. This episode is brought to you by Toro. Toro is the only brand with a full line of equipment and irrigation products to keep your golf course in
top condition. Toro is serious about R and D and they're always out there listening to superintendents so they can develop products that help you solve your biggest challenges, come to local service and support. Their distributor network is second to none. See how Toro is always solving and always evolving at Toro dot Com. All right, let's get to my conversation with Tom Schwan. All right, So, Tom, I understand that you built a backyard putting green. Tell me about that.
Yeah, so this is prior to me starting with the city. Oh, good grief. I think it was maybe twenty eighteen. My son and I decided to go on this little adventure together, and you know, he was getting into the game of golf, and I thought, you know what, with my experience, we can hammer this hell no problem. And we did. It came in great, and it's it's it's wonderful. And we have a local high school, Patrick Henry High School, the
girls and boys teams. They come over a few days during the school week to chip and putt and so like it's like I got to keep it now. I can't get rid of it. But like I might have mentioned before, I it's like the last thing I really want to mess with as soon as I get home from work. But yeah, I'm glad we have it. It's it was fun. It kind of filled the kind of
filled that empty empty space I had. Wallet's kind of briefly stepped away from the turf industry and before I got back into it, it kind of scratched that hitch, so to speak. But it's a lot of fun and we still we use it quite a bit. I have a lot of friends come over. We chip and butt and have a good time. So it's and it's not super big at all. It's only maybe a thousand square feet, so.
You're still maintaining it like it's it's still pretty good.
All right. Yeah, Well I just aerified it last week and ripped the entire green surround and reseed and all that. I know, it's getting kind of late in the fall up here in northwest Ohio to be trying to grow grass. But my son he's going to be graduating this upcoming spring. So instead of doing stuff around the house that I should be doing to get prepared for this big graduation party,
I'm outside messing with the putting green. So, you know, I don't think my wife WI probably would rather have me at doing something else, but you know, I think she's just happy that I'm doing something. So yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot of work, but I wouldn't recommend the novice to do this type of thing at all.
You're at Napoleon golf Course. Now, this is mainly what we're going to talk about in this conversation. The work that you're doing at this local nine hole course in Ohio, Napoleon is just to give people an idea. About forty five minutes west south northwest of Toledo, that's about the location of it. Did you grow up in the area.
Yeah, I grew up just south in the Point and even a smaller town really only about twenty minutes south the year, and this kind of was the Honestly, it was the first golf course I ever played. It's the first time I ever got introduced to the game of golf, and it didn't take long for me to instantly wonder how they maintained the golf course, how they kept you know, maintained the greens. Do you how do you cut grass
that short? You know, Hey, at an early age, I would say probably fourteen fifteen, that's, you know, when I kind of started dabbling in golf a little bit. And the point was always just a place to go because really this part of northwest Ohio there's not a lot of golf per se. You get closer to Toledo out that way, yeah, there's more public access golf. But really here in Henry County were it, Man, that's all you got.
You got a nine hole union in Napoleon. In the surrounding counties there's there's a handful of others, but there's just not a lot of golf. It's it's pretty rich farmland and it's flat, super flat, so everything's gobbled up by farmland, you know. So it's it's it's it's rural. It's it's small town America through and through.
So you're at Napoleon Golf Course now right, you came full circle started there in twenty twenty one, as I understand. Yeah, let's talk a bit about this golf course. What's it basically, Like, what's the piece of land, Like, what's the course?
Like? Oh, man, okay, yeah, so Napoleon Golf Club is it's the nine hole Munia that I don't think anybody's ever heard of ever, even neighboring counties. I've Defiance, Ohio is only twenty miles to the west. I've had conversations with people from Defiance. They said, Napoleon's got a golf course. Yeah, were you crazy? So it's Napoint Golf Club. You know. The Point is a small town. We're only probably eight
or nine thousand population wise. It's we were founded in nineteen twenty two and the course was laid out by a gentleman named William Rockefeller, which I love talking about William Rockefeller because one he was a greenskeeper at Inverness and he kind of helped lay out several surrounding area courses in his time while he was at Inverness.
So yeah, Inverness being in Toledo, Ohio, which, as I mentioned earlier, about forty five minutes away from not to Napoleon. And I'm assuming William Rockefeller is not related to the famous Rockefeller family of New York.
Yes, actually he is. Yeah, all the research I found of this guy, yeah, he's a distant cousin. Okay, I didn't really I didn't want to get into the whole family tree of that. But I think I dabbled in that during my research of Rockefeller. And yeah, there's a lot of Rockefellers, so I didn't really go deep into that sort of thing. But what really caught my eye about William Rockefeller was one like I said, like, wow,
this guy was a greenskeeper, Like okay, great. You know, just like most guys in my position, we all have a soft soft spot for old Tom Morris, you know anything. You know, I bought a set of Hickory clubs that I want to restore at some point here, maybe this winter if I got time, just to maybe get myself that much closer to old Tom. You know, they try to feel that connection with him. I mean, and I kind of felt the same with William Rockefeller, you know.
And I while I was researching and Rockefeller in the early history of Napoleon's Golf Club. Michigan State University has an incredible archive of the USGA Green Section Monthly I guess the.
Monthly publication location.
Actually they still do it.
The Green Section Record, I think is what it's still called.
In fact, yeah, and I mean, they have these babies going all the way back to the twenties, so Rockefeller was he was actually really instrumental in the formation of the us J Green Section and the GCSA, which was I think the first meeting of the g CSA was actually at Savania Country Club.
And this is the Professional Association of Golf of course attacks in America, the golf sorry, Superintendent. Yeah, yeah, there's another organization for the architects. The A is the one for superow.
Yeah, I mean I was. I was just doing a deep dive on Rockefeller, and then I started coming across all these old articles about Marring Golf Club or even Pine Valley, like the struggles that Pine Valley had just trying to grow grass, you know, for several years, I think it was nearly eight years. They were just they could not get grass to grow on the fairways.
Right, here's a big reason that Pine Valley wasn't finished until well after George Crump's death.
Yeah. And it's like, so oh my lord. I was so fast and just going through thumbly, going through all these articles of all this old stuff. Yeah, I that was great. I loved every second of that. But you know, while while the Rockefeller he published a bunch of art articles himself and the old USGA green sections, kind of reading through some of the struggles that you know, he had Inverness early on in the twenties, sodding greens, dealing with diseases, trying to figure out, you know, what the
best way to do stuff. I mean, he was he was a pioneer in our profession, and a lot of people don't know him, and I'm like, man, this guy should actually be talking about more, you know, even just cutting cups. You know, he kind of helped standardize the
practice of cutting a proper cup and putting green. And to me, it was just fascinating to read some of the articles of some of the stuff they do, and you kind of sit back and you think to yourself, God, I don't wonder what that was like, you know, or every time I think I have it bad, I go well, or at least I didn't have it like that, you know.
But yeah, he so he came over the There was a gentleman here in town that reached out to Rockefeller to come to Napoleon and take a look at a chunk of ground that they bought to see if they could fashion some sort of golf course. And I guess from reading all the articles at the time, you know, the Roaring twenties. I think the Point was a little bit of a boom town at the time. And they get they get Rockefeller out to take a site visit.
And here here's an absolutely insane fact. On May fifteenth, nineteen twenty two, Rockefeller made his first visits in the Point, Ohio. I think he hopped on the Walbash railroad that connects you probably used to connect Fort Wayne the Point in Toledo all together. That was May fifteenth. He painted, he
showed up, took a site visit. They kind of picked out the natural green sites and where the teas would be, and he kind of gave the locals some directions on what to do and try to prep the green sites and get some grass growing. And I'm not kidding you. About seven weeks later, Napointing Golf Club had their first men's tournament on July fourth, nineteen twenty two, and about
two weeks later they had the first women's event. So I'm thinking, can you imagine what the state of that golf course was, you know, like so I think I would venture the guess that the golf course was pretty rough and rugged, and the people here in town. They were just so golf hungry. I don't think they really cared, you know. I think they're just like, let's put the green over there and put a flag up, let's do this. So they were so excited to get the game of
golf here in town. I don't think they really cared much. So I think they were willing to kind of you know, push push it, kind of kick the hand down the road until they finally get the golf course into an acceptable, you know fashion, which I find that absolutely fascinating. That that that that you can imagine trying to build, like build just a nine to old golf course and seven weeks and you're like, hey, let's play some golf. You know.
It's not waiting for the growing process too.
Like I said, I'm like, I don't think they really minded much. I think it was more like a pasture style golf time. But I think over the over the years and they started fashioning it back into you know, something more of a of a golf course than originally started off ass But yeah, that's and I know Rockefeller gave he let the city borrow a greensmower from Inverness for a short period of time until they were able to purch just want to it won't get shipped to us,
So that was kind of neat. And I know that he did make He did make several returns back to Napoint throughout that summer. I think he came in July and later in September he made another site visit.
So yeah, yeah, so that golf course emerged pretty quickly. How would you describe the design out there? What are you know, as as far as you can see the architecture of William Rockefeller out there, how would you how would you describe it?
You know, that's kind of weird because I'm not quite sure how to describe it because I'm not so certain how much of our current golf course is really original. Throughout all my research of trying to find everything I can, and it's tough here in town because it seems like every every building in this town must have caught on fire at some point within the last hundred years. Is like hardly any records of anything. So I kind of
get stonewalled with that a lot. But I have a hand drawing that I don't know who drew it, I don't know when they drew it, but it's kind of just a scribble almost on a napkin of the original layout of the poem, and it's nowhere near what we have now, I know, our current state that we're sitting in right now. At least, the oldest aerial image I can find of our golf course is from I think nineteen fifty three or fifty six, and not a whole
lot's changed since then. Obsolutely in the seventies, somebody decided playing a lot of trees that all need to go. But it's the bones are there. I mean, from the early fifties to now. Obviously, the two things that are glaringly obvious our our greens have shrunk tremendously. We have very small greens, and you can if you walk up on one of our putting surfaces, you can kind of look at the shoulders of the greens surround and say
that guarantee was putting green. And looking at that fifty fifty two to fifty three or early nineteen fifties image, you can tell it's very apparent the plane corridors are a little bit wider back then, they weren't so choked off with trees. But so I don't know, like that's another deep dive I got to get into, and I'm not quite sure where to start. So if we if the door's opened in twenty two, twenty two to nineteen fifty, you're looking at what a twenty five twenty seven year window.
I can't imagine a whole lot changed in the nineteen thirties, during the depression, late twenties, thirties, then we had the World War Two? So was there a renaissance in the forties after the war. Did somebody decide, Hey, this golf course, this current golf course isn't quite big enough. Let's kind of stretch it out. I don't know, that's yet to
be determined. I'm gonna have to keep digging. But current currently, currently, the way the golf course sits well, I think kind of separates us from our neighbors in the surrounding counties. As far as public access courses we have, we have loads of terrain like you wouldn't you wouldn't You wouldn't
know you were in Northwest Ohio. As soon as you step out onto our course coming in, whether you're coming off coming through Northwest Ohio and the or the turnpike, you kind of see like cornfield cornfield, flat flat, flat flat. You you forget real quick what you see because there's just nothing there. Our golf course kind of lays in this in a river valley right next to the Maumee River, which the Mammy runs from Fort Wayne, Indiana kind of
diagonally up through Toledo into the Erie Lake Erie. And I don't know what sort of glacier melt created our golf course, but it's phenomenal it to me. And I've had someone described to me the way our golf course is. On the north edge of the property, we have the the old I don't know if that's the old Walbash railroad that maybe Rockefeller rode in on or not, but it's still in use. A big, a big freight train rumbles slowly past the golf course every once or twice
a day, about five miles an hour. It comes troumbling down the tracks basically for that rail road down through the river valley. It just kind of looks like the whole property cascades and flows right down to Garrett Creek that that dumps into the Malmee River. It's it's it's just it's it's got great terrain. You hit shots here and the point that you just don't hit anywhere else. The eighth hole, which I absolutely love. It's a short
part five. If you poke, if you poke out a good T shot, you know, then you're you're approach shots into this par five green. It's blind, it's it's up probably a thirty thirty five foot elevation change. But to me, like, you just don't hit that. Like a lot of people are like, I don't like that it's blind. I'm like, well,
it's only blind once. And the eighth green it sits right next to the first green, so like if you're putting out on one, you can take a peek to your left and see where the pins cut on eight. I love that whole. I I already I already kind of named most of the golf holes informally. Nothing's on
our scorecards quite yet. But I always call that whole hopeful approach, because you know that that blind approach shot man, you just have to grip it and and whack away, and and as you lumber up the hill, you just you're kind of hopeful that baby sitting on the green for you know, a good chance that either eat or
dirty or eagle. You know, so but the golf course itself, I think we need I don't know, we we we could probably use a little bit of an injection of strategic value maybe to the course, something unique and different. That's what That's what I kind of keep preaching what we're already different from our competition, So just be with
just the way the golf course lays. But I think we just maybe need a fuzz more And that's what I'm kind of I'm in the process of searching for and trying to exactly figure out what to do to try to do some of the things, you know, that would benefit us in the golf course.
Yeah, well, that's that's what I wanted to talk about. You know, you're you're in this interesting position where you have a golf course that sits on really good land. But we're not necessarily talking about precious architecture that needs to be restored. Yeah, this is not a Merran or ironomic situation where you had, you know, Hugh Wilson, William Flynn, Donald Ross's design that you just need to put it back and that's the best that the course can be.
You're in a position where you can you can exercise some creativity, so you said, injecting some strategic value into the course. How are you thinking about doing that? I'm actually carry us at how you know what what might be some of the main ways that that could be accomplished.
Well, I mean, like I said, obviously, since you know, looking at the old aral images, are if if we were just to recapture some of the lost whole locations, that would benefit us greatly. Prior to me starting with the city, I don't I don't think. I don't know if those greens got rolled ever in the hundred years of their existence. Well, I got a cell school greens roller and you know we we I wouldn't say they're lightning fast, but to to the locals, yeah, they're they're
loving it. Like I almost at times think, man, I can't, I got to lay off the roller. These if we get a if we get our putting surfaces, and they're small, but there's there's there's enough, there's enough movement through them to make them a little bit suspicious, you know, like when you're putting your like, all right, you know, I might have a little bit of doubt. Does this go that much to me? A flat puts the hardest, hard, hardest thing in the world because like my brain instantly
thinks it's got to move somewhere. But if we were to if we were to do green expansions, which is kind of a I mean as soon as day one, I started building a nursery for that. So I like, obviously, since we're at a nine home union and you know, we're not flush with cash. You know, I'm trying to attack this at every angle to make it affordable. Anything that we do, it's got to be as cheap as possible. So growing in your own nursery stock is probably one of the best ways to save a ton of money,
you know. So that covers the greens, you know, Like I said, since the greens are so small, and if we get them rolling ten ten and a half, we start losing a whole ofations real quick, real quick. So you just made your your small greens even smaller. So, you know, getting the greens, I think, getting the greens pushed out to where they belong, I don't I wouldn't need.
I don't think I need a golf course architecture. Last year, when I met you first time for the first time at the National Links Trust Symposium, which was absolutely wonderful. What a great experience that was.
Yeah, that whole that whole you know, program two or three day program was devoted to the idea of improvement projects at municipal courses, the various ways that people have figured out to fund and execute those. And you were you were in attendance, you introduced yourself to me. That's when we first met. But it's certainly relevant. That whole topic was very relevant to what you're trying to figure out right now.
Yeah, I mean, and I god, that was a great experience. That had such a great week there in DC with that, and I talked to Troy Miller. I mean I was talking with every architect there, picking their brain on what to do. And I mean even Troy Miller told me, he goes, you know, I don't really need an architect to do green expansions. Man, it's kind of self explanatory.
And it's this. It would be a project similar to what Kirkland Country Club did when they did their green expansions, even Jeffersonville, you know how they did some of their stuff. It's I mean, that's I'm not worried about the green expansions. That's I think that would be right in my alley. That's easy to me. The hard part would be the actual the architectural integrity of adding stuff, because I mean,
I love everything architecture. Man. Like you know, last night I was up way too late listening to you and Andy talk about Old Barnwell and discussing that and and I mean, I love everything. I love. I love how you know, guys like Alisair Mackenzie, like did the natural. They tried to fit everything and make it look anything artificial. They tried to make natural. But I also love Rayner and you know some of the man made broad shoulders that they did at Chicago and or Langford and Monroe too,
even the old Victorian style stuff. I love it, love it. I love everything like I can't. I can't make my mind up on what I like in the.
Style of it. And you're sort of you're sort of in Langford and Moreau's region in a way. You know, that's I mean, I don't know how many courses they did in Ohio, but but that general region of the Midwest that's kind of like you know that the land of Pete Dye and Langford to Moreau.
Yeah, I I don't know if Langford Monroe did. I don't know if they did anything in Ohio.
Nothing in Ohio. They did a bunch of Indiana, So that sort of surprises me.
So I'm there, you go, I'm gonna have to look that up.
And I said, on another rabbit hole, But you're what you're talking about is sort of like the choice that you need to make at the beginning when you do a project of what style you're pursuing.
Well, yeah, it's it's not really so much style. Like you know, a couple a month or two ago, you guys did that great podcast with Stephen Bielop at Wolf River and I I talked. I talked to him quite a bit, or we message each other back and forth
a little bit. And I was trying to get up there actually earlier this week to visit him, because you know, the amount of work that they did for that money, the amount of money they spent that like instantly like ooh, my years a wide open man, how'd you do it? You know? And really anything that we plan on doing in the future, it's it's small in comparison to what he did. I don't I don't think we need that much.
My issue is personally, it's like, where do you stop? Like, it's not like we need one hundred bunkers out on this little nine ho golf course. Man, we already got the great terrain. You don't really, you know, I think I need help figuring out exactly how many hazards or features we need to give the place enough strategic value for, you know, to get the most bang for our buck and the locals here. If you you mentioned bunkers, you know some of them are like you gotta get rid
of all the bunkers that you know. Or or if you mentioned man, that's a great natural ridge for a bunker placement for a fairway bunker like that, it's at the right yardages. I'm thinking that's a sweet spot. It'd be an easy dig too. And I'm there's you're just trying to make the course too hard. I'm like, ah, no, I actually I can't stand hard golf. I like fun and engaging golf, like that's the best golf. I don't like punishing hard golf, and I don't I'm sure our
locals wouldn't either. There's no way I would ever want to make the golf course harder. I want it more playable and accessible. I don't. The worst thing on earth is looking for your ball. Man, Like, if I could cut everything at fairly high, I would, but my centero irrigation certainly wouldn't support that. That'll be smoked in no time.
But yeah, so that's that's the thing. And you know, like with Steven Beale his bunker style that he did up there, kind of with that, uh that heathln look like perfect flat And for the most part, the bunkers that we currently have now I would I would venture to guess most of them were dug in the in the early fifties or late forties, and there's a zero
drainage in them. If I if we get any complaints about the course, and it usually kind of goes like, man, Tom, the golf course is absolutely awesome, but I'm like the bunkers.
Yeah, that's like so many courses, you know, player complaints, Yeah, they just always center on either greens or bunkers. And you know, it sounds like, you know, you've got your greens ticking along pretty well, if you have a have a capable superintendent such as yourself, you can usually get those greens going nicely. But then people start looking at the bunkers. They get a bad lie in the bunker and it's like, well, yeah, bunkers.
So you know what my strategy kind of is early on here and then this is only my second season at the Helm, so to speak. Yeah, my first goal was actually just improve the plane surfaces, get the greens right. The fairways when I kind of started were spotty. We unfortunately when the Malmie River, since we're so close to the river, if we get you know, usually in the spring, we'll get a flood event or two. You know, I think the month of April this year, Oh good grief,
we were underwater for like three weeks. It was just terrible. We've had flood events in the past, like very untimely ones that are that hit maybe in end of May, June or July, and that's like the kiss of death for our little nine holer because if you have turf grass underwater that long in July eight, it's going to be cooked no matter what. So, you know, so the fairways down along four for four is along part five. Uh, you know that that hole probably gets hit the worst
with any flooding. A lot of that was really thin, undesirable turf. It was kind of left to be just whatever grew grew, and most of it was actually not weed or other weeds. So just the overall just playability of our plane surfaces I wanted to improve, and we got it. We got her back pretty quick, and we busted our tail getting getting everything back up to speed with the plane surfaces. I'm very pleased with where we're at right now, but in my gut, I always think, man,
it's just just temporary to the next bad flood. Fortunately, most of our flooding is always in the spring, after maybe after the ice, you know, ice jams up in the river and that's usually the worst. But the early spring floods, we generally don't loose turf. We don't we don't get swamped by silt and slop. It's it's it's a pretty quick and easy cleanup process compared to most places at work. Savania Country Club, we flooded there and
it's just stilt. It's Curtlin flooded, and so uh yeah, one once I kind of got my grasp on the plane surfaces, Yeah, it's like, okay, the bunkers, let's let's get to these damn things and let's figure it out. And I if I hear one more person say, let's just add sand. You just gotta add sand, You gotta add sand. There's probably eighteen inches this compacted sand in these things, and they they just keep you know, over the last decades, they just kept dumping sand and them.
I'm like, man, before long, you're not gonna have a bunker. I'm like, we're gonna end up with those inverted bunkers like at Garden.
City, with mountains like Bunker Mounts.
Yeah, Bunker Mounts. It's like, so we if we catch a half inch rainfall, most of them are flooded out. We can pump them out, but that only saves about a day. But once once we get they get flooded out, they're unplayable for probably five or six days. If like I said, if we pump them out, maybe four it a's these things are somewhat hittable or playable. They're just they they serve their purpose. Many I keep telling everybody
they just need rebuild. And I'm kind of formulating a plan on like Okay, what's this, what's this going to cost? And how do we get there? And how do I pitch this. I already know that we can't take the Winter Park approach of just shutting it down, knocking it out. There's no way we're doing that. We got too much high school golf and leagues and stuff that pump through our little nine. There's no way we're shutting it down. So okay, well, let's let's phase this baby out and
pick away two to three holes a year. And like Stephen Beale said and in his podcast with you guys, if if you don't have a lot of money, but you have a lot of time, you still can get a lot of stuff done. It just might take it a little bit longer. So that's that's the thing I'm trying to focus in on now is how how can we get this done physically too. I mean, my staff is we're pretty small staff. It's myself and uh three retired gentlemen. And thankfully I have one great young young
man that's he's interested. He's doing turf online turf stuff. He is. He is an absolute rock star. I love that kid. I can't imagine him not being on staff. But I mean, we're doing everything in our power right now to try to absolutely put out the best off course we can every day when mother nature allows. And I'm thinking, okay, if we if we if we mix in mix in a bunker project, even if we're only picking away a whole or two, man, that's gonna be hard.
So I'm kind of out spitball in different ideas of how to get a volunteer base to help with some of the heavy lifting. And I'm pretty sure I could. I could gather a few guys. That's a nice thing about this little town. The golf community here. They're passionate about their golf course. I think back in twenty ten, twenty twelve, range some state auditor I think that came into the town and basically told the city close this close that, get rid of him, get rid of her.
You don't need this, you don't need this close the golf course, close these parks, you know. And I mean, our little niner was on the chopping block. And from everything I've been told, this city building was surrounded with people screaming from the rooftop that you can't let that happen. And thankfully it didn't because that would be an absolute tragedy.
But you know this, I always call an appoint a powder keg of potential, and I tell most people I'm just kind of searching for somebody to help me light that fuse, because I'm I don't necessarily care about rankings or oh hey, the points like top fifty nine or in America or the world or whatever. I don't really care about that. I want a place that's welcoming to everybody.
You know, a place if you're whizzing through the turnpike in northwest Ohio on your way to Toledo or up to Detroit, you might say, hey, you know what, I'm going to stop with that nine whore, you know, and for a quick round. So if we can get to a point where we're just sustainable and we can just keep improving the golf course, I mean, that's my ultimate goal right now. I'm fine with temporary fixes. It's just I think we need to focus on permanent solutions to
a lot of things. And and that's the general direction i'd like to go, because it is a wonderful little golf course. I'm kind of worried that maybe being on your podcast, that we might get more visitors because you guys are so well followed, and the locals, the coffee club, the old, the older, the older guys here in town will be like, ah, there's too many people out here because because our rounds have been our rounds since COVID have been just absolutely insane.
Yeah, we've got all you can all right, Well, listeners, stay away, that's the order. This episode is sponsored by Toro. Did you know? Toro has a full line of work vehicles. Whether you're hauling materials, towing equipment, or shuttling VIPs, Toro has a vehicle for just about any need. Their Workman series is your go to for power and payload capacity, and the Vista series is perfect for guest transportation with
a super comfortable ride. Plus, torow has tons of options to customize your work vehicle, including all electric models, so check them out at Toro dot com. You've mentioned a few of the superintendents we've had on recently to talk about what they're trying to do at public and municipal courses. Obviously, Stephen Beale is doing some really interesting work at Wolf River. You've mentioned him a couple of times. Clay Payne I
talked to toward the beginning of this year. He was also at the National Linkstins Symposium.
We talked a lot there.
Yeah, doing really cool things at Buffalo Dunes and Kansas and every situation is different. You know, It's interesting how everybody finds the funding in slightly different ways and gets the work done in slightly different ways. There's no one solution to any of this. It's all kind of innovative logistically, right, And so that's what you're kind of working through right now.
But I'm curious, you know, when you just look at this career change you've made from a larger perspective, what do you think the appeal is for a superintendent, a very skilled superintendent like you, or like Clay, or like
Steve and at Wolf River. What's the appeal of making this kind of career change where you're working at a municipal course and doing these kinds of projects versus, you know, the more maybe traditional career path of settling down at private club X and kind of playing out your career that way. What's what's the argument for taking this path? Do you think?
You know, that's a great question, and I think I have a great answer for you. I oftentimes, you know, last year, my first year, and even earlier this year, I was almost kind of embarrassed to tell people the locals, and most of them they don't know Marion or or ironomic from Invernessy. They've never heard of some of these places.
But I I was always kind of like cautious of telling people where I worked or some of the places I've been and some of the stuff I've done, because I always felt like I would they would perceive me as like a failure. You know, they would be like, oh, man, you work there. Wow, what are you doing here? You know it's a nine home MUNI you know what went wrong? So I was always pretty cautious. And uh, there there's an older gentleman in here in town and he recently passed.
He was a great guy. Love I loved him. And he's, yes, you he's talking about my past and where I worked, and he's like, well, that's amazing. And I kind of told him, I go, wow, I don't really like telling people, you know, where I've been or what I've done too much, because you know, for that reason. And and he kind of he looked at me dead in the eye and he goes, hey, you know what, nine home unies need superheroes too, And I go oh. And ever since he said that to me, it's it's kind of changed my
perspective on what I do. And it makes you realize that, yeah, I'm at a little niner in nowhere, Ohio, but it means something. It means something to the people of this town. It means something to the surround communities that use our little golf course. You know. Like I said, these people don't care if this is an appoying golf club or National Golf Links of America. It's their little nine, you know,
and they're they're pumped at the direction we're going. My biggest thing is I don't want people to be satisfied of what we're doing, not because there's so much more that we could do. I always tell everybody I haven't done nothing yet. Like I was jokingly I told Colton, my my young buck muscle that helps us out up the golf course. I go, I'm kind of nervous. I don't know what I'm going to talk about because we haven't done nothing. And you kind of look at me.
He is, like, what are you talking about? We haven't done nothing, man, everybody loves this place. We're booming. I go, but I don't. I don't want to be satisfied with that because there's there's so much more, and honestly, I know we could do more. I just, like I said, I just I need someone to help me like that, like that fuse. And I think that that really is. I think the benefit of working at a at a place like Napoleon or Buffalo Dunes or Jeffersonville, it's it's
it's the it's it's they're my people. This is where I'm from, you know. Uh. I think I get a lot more satisfaction out of making people I know and love and that come play here happy and excited to come and return then maybe some CEO of some big corporate conglomerate out in Philly, you know. But I think that's the appeal. Also, my standards are probably higher than anybody else is here, so what they think is great, and I'm usually like losing my mind and freaking out
over stuff they don't notice. I mean, I think that's kind of I call it golfer brain. That might that probably even happens at bigger clubs. You know, people that are out golf and they kind of they're so focused on on their score or something that's meaningless, you know, and they're they're not focused on like what we're looking at, Like, man, is that the cut on the fairways? Don't work, something's wrong, you know, or is that head leak in or crap,
is that dollar spot? You know? Like, so that's I think the appeal. Like and like I said once once that gentleman said that, I was like, yeah, that's I'm right where I should be and I belong so and I don't. I don't think I would change anything a career pathwise because it's kind of made me the person I am. And yeah, I'm happy with it. And so, like I said, as long as as long as we can be pushing towards the next thing. And it's going to be a push with with some things because we
have some big ticket stuff coming uh. Our irrigation system, it's it's struggling. A pump station is desperately going to be needed here shortly. Every you know, every day you're out there on the course, you're kind of thinking, oh, man, is this going to be the last one of the sucker kicks on? You're always kind of you're always kind of fighting that edge. I guess here's the downside of being at a place like mine. You're you're kind you're
always like I feel like you're tiptoeing. You're you're you're riding that fine line of like, Okay, this is great pain, We're awesome, but you know it won't take much to go the other way. Yeah, So you know, yeah, big ticket stuff, and that's gonna be that's going to be a hard push to convince people like, hey, yeah, this is important man. If if you if we want to keep what we have, we're gonna have to invest into the golf course. And really, I mean, I'm thankful for
what we've invested in already. We are leasing equipment this summer. I did receive our day to day mowing equipment, a lot of the stuff that when I first started. I mean, this stuff's all twenty five, thirty, forty years old, so I mean it's it's beat. I mean, I still have a pretty hefty fleet of older stuff that it's it's ticking man. It's about time to replace this stuff. So we do have the possibility of actually a new maintenance facility. I mentioned to you earlier about my shanty and my
maintenance facility. I we're going to see if city Council pushes that through. I hope, I hope, I hope. So we're starting to do a lot of good things and I think we just need to keep keep focused on the future and just don't let our guard down and say that is good enough. And I honestly, I mean,
I think the golf course deserves it. It's it's I almost feel like it's been lane dormant for one hundred years and it's just kind of waiting to bloom out and then become something that, you know, wonderful.
All right, Tom, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been fun talking to you, and thank good luck with what you're doing there in Napoleon.
Yes, thank you for having me.
This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you enjoy this kind of deep dive into America's golf courses, or really golf courses anywhere, then I think you would like clubtfy. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership and
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