Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my.
Speaker 2: Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 2: egg Fridaygg, Frida egged egg, Frida egg bride egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course game.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 2: and today we're talking to a superintendent who's trying to
Speaker 2: revive his hometown nine hole golf course. Tom Schwab is
Speaker 2: the superintendent at the Municipal Napoleon Golf Course in Napoleon, Ohio. Now,
Speaker 2: Tom has also worked at a number of top flight
Speaker 2: clubs like Marion and Irono, Mink and Kirtland, but a
Speaker 2: few years ago he decided to take the job at
Speaker 2: his hometown nine holer Napoleon, and he's hoping to make
Speaker 2: some major improvements to that course. You know, we've talked
Speaker 2: to a few superintendents this year who have taken on
Speaker 2: these kinds of projects. Clay Payne at Buffalo Dunes in Kansas,
Speaker 2: Stephen Beale at Wolf River in Michigan. And pretty soon
Speaker 2: we'll have a video coming out featuring Len Curtin at
Speaker 2: George Wight Golf Course in Boston. We like highlighting these
Speaker 2: stories and we think they represent a kind of micro
Speaker 2: trend in the industry right now where some of the
Speaker 2: most promising renovation work at public courses is being done
Speaker 2: one on a budget and two spearheaded by skilled, ambitious
Speaker 2: superintendents who could probably work at the private club of
Speaker 2: their choosing, but have decided to take on a challenge.
Speaker 2: Right this is a real challenge trying to get a
Speaker 2: local nine hole course in Napoleon, Ohio back on its feet,
Speaker 2: and that's what Tom Schwab is trying to do. He's
Speaker 2: at the very beginning of his work at Napoleon, so
Speaker 2: I thought it would be fun to talk to him now,
Speaker 2: at this early point in the process and get a
Speaker 2: sense of what his plans are for the future. And
Speaker 2: my hope is as people listen to this episode, they
Speaker 2: think of their own local nine hole courses and think
Speaker 2: of how those can be improved, because it really can happen.
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing that you need is just a
Speaker 2: great superintendent. This episode is brought to you by Toro.
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Speaker 2: evolving at Toro dot Com. All right, let's get to
Speaker 2: my conversation with Tom Schwan. All right, So, Tom, I
Speaker 2: understand that you built a backyard putting green. Tell me
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is prior to me starting with the city. Oh,
Speaker 1: good grief. I think it was maybe twenty eighteen. My
Speaker 1: son and I decided to go on this little adventure together,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was getting into the game of golf,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know what, with my experience, we
Speaker 1: can hammer this hell no problem. And we did. It
Speaker 1: came in great, and it's it's it's wonderful. And we
Speaker 1: have a local high school, Patrick Henry High School, the
Speaker 1: girls and boys teams. They come over a few days
Speaker 1: during the school week to chip and putt and so
Speaker 1: like it's like I got to keep it now. I
Speaker 1: can't get rid of it. But like I might have
Speaker 1: mentioned before, I it's like the last thing I really
Speaker 1: want to mess with as soon as I get home
Speaker 1: from work. But yeah, I'm glad we have it. It's
Speaker 1: it was fun. It kind of filled the kind of
Speaker 1: filled that empty empty space I had. Wallet's kind of
Speaker 1: briefly stepped away from the turf industry and before I
Speaker 1: got back into it, it kind of scratched that hitch,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But it's a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: we still we use it quite a bit. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends come over. We chip and butt
Speaker 1: and have a good time. So it's and it's not
Speaker 1: super big at all. It's only maybe a thousand square feet, so.
Speaker 2: You're still maintaining it like it's it's still pretty good.
Speaker 1: All right. Yeah, Well I just aerified it last week
Speaker 1: and ripped the entire green surround and reseed and all that.
Speaker 1: I know, it's getting kind of late in the fall
Speaker 1: up here in northwest Ohio to be trying to grow grass.
Speaker 1: But my son he's going to be graduating this upcoming spring.
Speaker 1: So instead of doing stuff around the house that I
Speaker 1: should be doing to get prepared for this big graduation party,
Speaker 1: I'm outside messing with the putting green. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think my wife WI probably would rather have
Speaker 1: me at doing something else, but you know, I think
Speaker 1: she's just happy that I'm doing something. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of work, but I wouldn't recommend
Speaker 1: the novice to do this type of thing at all.
Speaker 2: You're at Napoleon golf Course. Now, this is mainly what
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about in this conversation. The work
Speaker 2: that you're doing at this local nine hole course in Ohio,
Speaker 2: Napoleon is just to give people an idea. About forty
Speaker 2: five minutes west south northwest of Toledo, that's about the
Speaker 2: location of it. Did you grow up in the area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I grew up just south in the Point and
Speaker 1: even a smaller town really only about twenty minutes south
Speaker 1: the year, and this kind of was the Honestly, it
Speaker 1: was the first golf course I ever played. It's the
Speaker 1: first time I ever got introduced to the game of golf,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long for me to instantly wonder
Speaker 1: how they maintained the golf course, how they kept you know,
Speaker 1: maintained the greens. Do you how do you cut grass
Speaker 1: that short? You know, Hey, at an early age, I
Speaker 1: would say probably fourteen fifteen, that's, you know, when I
Speaker 1: kind of started dabbling in golf a little bit. And
Speaker 1: the point was always just a place to go because
Speaker 1: really this part of northwest Ohio there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of golf per se. You get closer to Toledo out
Speaker 1: that way, yeah, there's more public access golf. But really
Speaker 1: here in Henry County were it, Man, that's all you got.
Speaker 1: You got a nine hole union in Napoleon. In the
Speaker 1: surrounding counties there's there's a handful of others, but there's
Speaker 1: just not a lot of golf. It's it's pretty rich
Speaker 1: farmland and it's flat, super flat, so everything's gobbled up
Speaker 1: by farmland, you know. So it's it's it's it's rural.
Speaker 1: It's it's small town America through and through.
Speaker 2: So you're at Napoleon Golf Course now right, you came
Speaker 2: full circle started there in twenty twenty one, as I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's talk a bit about this golf course. What's it basically, Like,
Speaker 2: what's the piece of land, Like, what's the course?
Speaker 1: Like? Oh, man, okay, yeah, so Napoleon Golf Club is
Speaker 1: it's the nine hole Munia that I don't think anybody's
Speaker 1: ever heard of ever, even neighboring counties. I've Defiance, Ohio
Speaker 1: is only twenty miles to the west. I've had conversations
Speaker 1: with people from Defiance. They said, Napoleon's got a golf course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: were you crazy? So it's Napoint Golf Club. You know.
Speaker 1: The Point is a small town. We're only probably eight
Speaker 1: or nine thousand population wise. It's we were founded in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two and the course was laid out by
Speaker 1: a gentleman named William Rockefeller, which I love talking about
Speaker 1: William Rockefeller because one he was a greenskeeper at Inverness
Speaker 1: and he kind of helped lay out several surrounding area
Speaker 1: courses in his time while he was at Inverness.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Inverness being in Toledo, Ohio, which, as I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, about forty five minutes away from not to Napoleon.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming William Rockefeller is not related to the
Speaker 2: famous Rockefeller family of New York.
Speaker 1: Yes, actually he is. Yeah, all the research I found
Speaker 1: of this guy, yeah, he's a distant cousin. Okay, I
Speaker 1: didn't really I didn't want to get into the whole
Speaker 1: family tree of that. But I think I dabbled in
Speaker 1: that during my research of Rockefeller. And yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Rockefellers, so I didn't really go deep into
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But what really caught my eye
Speaker 1: about William Rockefeller was one like I said, like, wow,
Speaker 1: this guy was a greenskeeper, Like okay, great. You know,
Speaker 1: just like most guys in my position, we all have
Speaker 1: a soft soft spot for old Tom Morris, you know anything.
Speaker 1: You know, I bought a set of Hickory clubs that
Speaker 1: I want to restore at some point here, maybe this
Speaker 1: winter if I got time, just to maybe get myself
Speaker 1: that much closer to old Tom. You know, they try
Speaker 1: to feel that connection with him. I mean, and I
Speaker 1: kind of felt the same with William Rockefeller, you know.
Speaker 1: And I while I was researching and Rockefeller in the
Speaker 1: early history of Napoleon's Golf Club. Michigan State University has
Speaker 1: an incredible archive of the USGA Green Section Monthly I
Speaker 1: guess the.
Speaker 2: Monthly publication location.
Speaker 1: Actually they still do it.
Speaker 2: The Green Section Record, I think is what it's still called.
Speaker 1: In fact, yeah, and I mean, they have these babies
Speaker 1: going all the way back to the twenties, so Rockefeller
Speaker 1: was he was actually really instrumental in the formation of
Speaker 1: the us J Green Section and the GCSA, which was
Speaker 1: I think the first meeting of the g CSA was
Speaker 1: actually at Savania Country Club.
Speaker 2: And this is the Professional Association of Golf of course
Speaker 2: attacks in America, the golf sorry, Superintendent. Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 2: another organization for the architects. The A is the one
Speaker 2: for superow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was. I was just doing a
Speaker 1: deep dive on Rockefeller, and then I started coming across
Speaker 1: all these old articles about Marring Golf Club or even
Speaker 1: Pine Valley, like the struggles that Pine Valley had just
Speaker 1: trying to grow grass, you know, for several years, I
Speaker 1: think it was nearly eight years. They were just they
Speaker 1: could not get grass to grow on the fairways.
Speaker 2: Right, here's a big reason that Pine Valley wasn't finished
Speaker 2: until well after George Crump's death.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like, so oh my lord. I was
Speaker 1: so fast and just going through thumbly, going through all
Speaker 1: these articles of all this old stuff. Yeah, I that
Speaker 1: was great. I loved every second of that. But you know,
Speaker 1: while while the Rockefeller he published a bunch of art
Speaker 1: articles himself and the old USGA green sections, kind of
Speaker 1: reading through some of the struggles that you know, he
Speaker 1: had Inverness early on in the twenties, sodding greens, dealing
Speaker 1: with diseases, trying to figure out, you know, what the
Speaker 1: best way to do stuff. I mean, he was he
Speaker 1: was a pioneer in our profession, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know him, and I'm like, man, this guy
Speaker 1: should actually be talking about more, you know, even just
Speaker 1: cutting cups. You know, he kind of helped standardize the
Speaker 1: practice of cutting a proper cup and putting green. And
Speaker 1: to me, it was just fascinating to read some of
Speaker 1: the articles of some of the stuff they do, and
Speaker 1: you kind of sit back and you think to yourself, God,
Speaker 1: I don't wonder what that was like, you know, or
Speaker 1: every time I think I have it bad, I go well,
Speaker 1: or at least I didn't have it like that, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he so he came over the There was
Speaker 1: a gentleman here in town that reached out to Rockefeller
Speaker 1: to come to Napoleon and take a look at a
Speaker 1: chunk of ground that they bought to see if they
Speaker 1: could fashion some sort of golf course. And I guess
Speaker 1: from reading all the articles at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: the Roaring twenties. I think the Point was a little
Speaker 1: bit of a boom town at the time. And they
Speaker 1: get they get Rockefeller out to take a site visit.
Speaker 1: And here here's an absolutely insane fact. On May fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two, Rockefeller made his first visits in the Point, Ohio.
Speaker 1: I think he hopped on the Walbash railroad that connects
Speaker 1: you probably used to connect Fort Wayne the Point in
Speaker 1: Toledo all together. That was May fifteenth. He painted, he
Speaker 1: showed up, took a site visit. They kind of picked
Speaker 1: out the natural green sites and where the teas would be,
Speaker 1: and he kind of gave the locals some directions on
Speaker 1: what to do and try to prep the green sites
Speaker 1: and get some grass growing. And I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 1: About seven weeks later, Napointing Golf Club had their first
Speaker 1: men's tournament on July fourth, nineteen twenty two, and about
Speaker 1: two weeks later they had the first women's event. So
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, can you imagine what the state of that
Speaker 1: golf course was, you know, like so I think I
Speaker 1: would venture the guess that the golf course was pretty
Speaker 1: rough and rugged, and the people here in town. They
Speaker 1: were just so golf hungry. I don't think they really cared,
Speaker 1: you know. I think they're just like, let's put the
Speaker 1: green over there and put a flag up, let's do this.
Speaker 1: So they were so excited to get the game of
Speaker 1: golf here in town. I don't think they really cared much.
Speaker 1: So I think they were willing to kind of you know,
Speaker 1: push push it, kind of kick the hand down the
Speaker 1: road until they finally get the golf course into an acceptable,
Speaker 1: you know fashion, which I find that absolutely fascinating. That
Speaker 1: that that that you can imagine trying to build, like
Speaker 1: build just a nine to old golf course and seven
Speaker 1: weeks and you're like, hey, let's play some golf. You know.
Speaker 2: It's not waiting for the growing process too.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm like, I don't think they really
Speaker 1: minded much. I think it was more like a pasture
Speaker 1: style golf time. But I think over the over the
Speaker 1: years and they started fashioning it back into you know,
Speaker 1: something more of a of a golf course than originally
Speaker 1: started off ass But yeah, that's and I know Rockefeller
Speaker 1: gave he let the city borrow a greensmower from Inverness
Speaker 1: for a short period of time until they were able
Speaker 1: to purch just want to it won't get shipped to us,
Speaker 1: So that was kind of neat. And I know that
Speaker 1: he did make He did make several returns back to
Speaker 1: Napoint throughout that summer. I think he came in July
Speaker 1: and later in September he made another site visit.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, so that golf course emerged pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: How would you describe the design out there? What are
Speaker 2: you know, as as far as you can see the
Speaker 2: architecture of William Rockefeller out there, how would you how
Speaker 2: would you describe it?
Speaker 1: You know, that's kind of weird because I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure how to describe it because I'm not so certain
Speaker 1: how much of our current golf course is really original.
Speaker 1: Throughout all my research of trying to find everything I can,
Speaker 1: and it's tough here in town because it seems like
Speaker 1: every every building in this town must have caught on
Speaker 1: fire at some point within the last hundred years. Is
Speaker 1: like hardly any records of anything. So I kind of
Speaker 1: get stonewalled with that a lot. But I have a
Speaker 1: hand drawing that I don't know who drew it, I
Speaker 1: don't know when they drew it, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: just a scribble almost on a napkin of the original
Speaker 1: layout of the poem, and it's nowhere near what we
Speaker 1: have now, I know, our current state that we're sitting
Speaker 1: in right now. At least, the oldest aerial image I
Speaker 1: can find of our golf course is from I think
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three or fifty six, and not a whole
Speaker 1: lot's changed since then. Obsolutely in the seventies, somebody decided
Speaker 1: playing a lot of trees that all need to go.
Speaker 1: But it's the bones are there. I mean, from the
Speaker 1: early fifties to now. Obviously, the two things that are
Speaker 1: glaringly obvious our our greens have shrunk tremendously. We have
Speaker 1: very small greens, and you can if you walk up
Speaker 1: on one of our putting surfaces, you can kind of
Speaker 1: look at the shoulders of the greens surround and say
Speaker 1: that guarantee was putting green. And looking at that fifty
Speaker 1: fifty two to fifty three or early nineteen fifties image,
Speaker 1: you can tell it's very apparent the plane corridors are
Speaker 1: a little bit wider back then, they weren't so choked
Speaker 1: off with trees. But so I don't know, like that's
Speaker 1: another deep dive I got to get into, and I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure where to start. So if we if
Speaker 1: the door's opened in twenty two, twenty two to nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: you're looking at what a twenty five twenty seven year window.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a whole lot changed in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: during the depression, late twenties, thirties, then we had the
Speaker 1: World War Two? So was there a renaissance in the
Speaker 1: forties after the war. Did somebody decide, Hey, this golf course,
Speaker 1: this current golf course isn't quite big enough. Let's kind
Speaker 1: of stretch it out. I don't know, that's yet to
Speaker 1: be determined. I'm gonna have to keep digging. But current currently, currently,
Speaker 1: the way the golf course sits well, I think kind
Speaker 1: of separates us from our neighbors in the surrounding counties.
Speaker 1: As far as public access courses we have, we have
Speaker 1: loads of terrain like you wouldn't you wouldn't You wouldn't
Speaker 1: know you were in Northwest Ohio. As soon as you
Speaker 1: step out onto our course coming in, whether you're coming
Speaker 1: off coming through Northwest Ohio and the or the turnpike,
Speaker 1: you kind of see like cornfield cornfield, flat flat, flat flat.
Speaker 1: You you forget real quick what you see because there's
Speaker 1: just nothing there. Our golf course kind of lays in
Speaker 1: this in a river valley right next to the Maumee River,
Speaker 1: which the Mammy runs from Fort Wayne, Indiana kind of
Speaker 1: diagonally up through Toledo into the Erie Lake Erie. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what sort of glacier melt created our
Speaker 1: golf course, but it's phenomenal it to me. And I've
Speaker 1: had someone described to me the way our golf course is.
Speaker 1: On the north edge of the property, we have the
Speaker 1: the old I don't know if that's the old Walbash
Speaker 1: railroad that maybe Rockefeller rode in on or not, but
Speaker 1: it's still in use. A big, a big freight train
Speaker 1: rumbles slowly past the golf course every once or twice
Speaker 1: a day, about five miles an hour. It comes troumbling
Speaker 1: down the tracks basically for that rail road down through
Speaker 1: the river valley. It just kind of looks like the
Speaker 1: whole property cascades and flows right down to Garrett Creek
Speaker 1: that that dumps into the Malmee River. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's got great terrain. You hit shots here
Speaker 1: and the point that you just don't hit anywhere else.
Speaker 1: The eighth hole, which I absolutely love. It's a short
Speaker 1: part five. If you poke, if you poke out a
Speaker 1: good T shot, you know, then you're you're approach shots
Speaker 1: into this par five green. It's blind, it's it's up
Speaker 1: probably a thirty thirty five foot elevation change. But to me, like,
Speaker 1: you just don't hit that. Like a lot of people
Speaker 1: are like, I don't like that it's blind. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: it's only blind once. And the eighth green it sits
Speaker 1: right next to the first green, so like if you're
Speaker 1: putting out on one, you can take a peek to
Speaker 1: your left and see where the pins cut on eight.
Speaker 1: I love that whole. I I already I already kind
Speaker 1: of named most of the golf holes informally. Nothing's on
Speaker 1: our scorecards quite yet. But I always call that whole
Speaker 1: hopeful approach, because you know that that blind approach shot man,
Speaker 1: you just have to grip it and and whack away,
Speaker 1: and and as you lumber up the hill, you just
Speaker 1: you're kind of hopeful that baby sitting on the green
Speaker 1: for you know, a good chance that either eat or
Speaker 1: dirty or eagle. You know, so but the golf course itself,
Speaker 1: I think we need I don't know, we we we
Speaker 1: could probably use a little bit of an injection of
Speaker 1: strategic value maybe to the course, something unique and different.
Speaker 1: That's what That's what I kind of keep preaching what
Speaker 1: we're already different from our competition, So just be with
Speaker 1: just the way the golf course lays. But I think
Speaker 1: we just maybe need a fuzz more And that's what
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm in the process of searching for
Speaker 1: and trying to exactly figure out what to do to
Speaker 1: try to do some of the things, you know, that
Speaker 1: would benefit us in the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's that's what I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2: You know, you're you're in this interesting position where you
Speaker 2: have a golf course that sits on really good land.
Speaker 2: But we're not necessarily talking about precious architecture that needs
Speaker 2: to be restored. Yeah, this is not a Merran or
Speaker 2: ironomic situation where you had, you know, Hugh Wilson, William Flynn,
Speaker 2: Donald Ross's design that you just need to put it
Speaker 2: back and that's the best that the course can be.
Speaker 2: You're in a position where you can you can exercise
Speaker 2: some creativity, so you said, injecting some strategic value into
Speaker 2: the course. How are you thinking about doing that? I'm
Speaker 2: actually carry us at how you know what what might
Speaker 2: be some of the main ways that that could be accomplished.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, like I said, obviously, since you know,
Speaker 1: looking at the old aral images, are if if we
Speaker 1: were just to recapture some of the lost whole locations,
Speaker 1: that would benefit us greatly. Prior to me starting with
Speaker 1: the city, I don't I don't think. I don't know
Speaker 1: if those greens got rolled ever in the hundred years
Speaker 1: of their existence. Well, I got a cell school greens
Speaker 1: roller and you know we we I wouldn't say they're
Speaker 1: lightning fast, but to to the locals, yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: loving it. Like I almost at times think, man, I can't,
Speaker 1: I got to lay off the roller. These if we
Speaker 1: get a if we get our putting surfaces, and they're small,
Speaker 1: but there's there's there's enough, there's enough movement through them
Speaker 1: to make them a little bit suspicious, you know, like
Speaker 1: when you're putting your like, all right, you know, I
Speaker 1: might have a little bit of doubt. Does this go
Speaker 1: that much to me? A flat puts the hardest, hard,
Speaker 1: hardest thing in the world because like my brain instantly
Speaker 1: thinks it's got to move somewhere. But if we were
Speaker 1: to if we were to do green expansions, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a I mean as soon as day one,
Speaker 1: I started building a nursery for that. So I like, obviously,
Speaker 1: since we're at a nine home union and you know,
Speaker 1: we're not flush with cash. You know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: attack this at every angle to make it affordable. Anything
Speaker 1: that we do, it's got to be as cheap as possible.
Speaker 1: So growing in your own nursery stock is probably one
Speaker 1: of the best ways to save a ton of money,
Speaker 1: you know. So that covers the greens, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I said, since the greens are so small, and if
Speaker 1: we get them rolling ten ten and a half, we
Speaker 1: start losing a whole ofations real quick, real quick. So
Speaker 1: you just made your your small greens even smaller. So,
Speaker 1: you know, getting the greens, I think, getting the greens
Speaker 1: pushed out to where they belong, I don't I wouldn't need.
Speaker 1: I don't think I need a golf course architecture. Last year,
Speaker 1: when I met you first time for the first time
Speaker 1: at the National Links Trust Symposium, which was absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: What a great experience that was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that whole that whole you know, program two or
Speaker 2: three day program was devoted to the idea of improvement
Speaker 2: projects at municipal courses, the various ways that people have
Speaker 2: figured out to fund and execute those. And you were
Speaker 2: you were in attendance, you introduced yourself to me. That's
Speaker 2: when we first met. But it's certainly relevant. That whole
Speaker 2: topic was very relevant to what you're trying to figure
Speaker 2: out right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I god, that was a great experience.
Speaker 1: That had such a great week there in DC with that,
Speaker 1: and I talked to Troy Miller. I mean I was
Speaker 1: talking with every architect there, picking their brain on what
Speaker 1: to do. And I mean even Troy Miller told me,
Speaker 1: he goes, you know, I don't really need an architect
Speaker 1: to do green expansions. Man, it's kind of self explanatory.
Speaker 1: And it's this. It would be a project similar to
Speaker 1: what Kirkland Country Club did when they did their green expansions,
Speaker 1: even Jeffersonville, you know how they did some of their stuff.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, that's I'm not worried about the green expansions.
Speaker 1: That's I think that would be right in my alley.
Speaker 1: That's easy to me. The hard part would be the
Speaker 1: actual the architectural integrity of adding stuff, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I love everything architecture. Man. Like you know, last night
Speaker 1: I was up way too late listening to you and
Speaker 1: Andy talk about Old Barnwell and discussing that and and
Speaker 1: I mean, I love everything. I love. I love how
Speaker 1: you know, guys like Alisair Mackenzie, like did the natural.
Speaker 1: They tried to fit everything and make it look anything artificial.
Speaker 1: They tried to make natural. But I also love Rayner
Speaker 1: and you know some of the man made broad shoulders
Speaker 1: that they did at Chicago and or Langford and Monroe too,
Speaker 1: even the old Victorian style stuff. I love it, love it.
Speaker 1: I love everything like I can't. I can't make my
Speaker 1: mind up on what I like in the.
Speaker 2: Style of it. And you're sort of you're sort of
Speaker 2: in Langford and Moreau's region in a way. You know,
Speaker 2: that's I mean, I don't know how many courses they
Speaker 2: did in Ohio, but but that general region of the
Speaker 2: Midwest that's kind of like you know that the land
Speaker 2: of Pete Dye and Langford to Moreau.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I don't know if Langford Monroe did. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they did anything in Ohio.
Speaker 2: Nothing in Ohio. They did a bunch of Indiana, So
Speaker 2: that sort of surprises me.
Speaker 1: So I'm there, you go, I'm gonna have to look
Speaker 1: that up.
Speaker 2: And I said, on another rabbit hole, But you're what
Speaker 2: you're talking about is sort of like the choice that
Speaker 2: you need to make at the beginning when you do
Speaker 2: a project of what style you're pursuing.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's it's not really so much style. Like
Speaker 1: you know, a couple a month or two ago, you
Speaker 1: guys did that great podcast with Stephen Bielop at Wolf
Speaker 1: River and I I talked. I talked to him quite
Speaker 1: a bit, or we message each other back and forth
Speaker 1: a little bit. And I was trying to get up
Speaker 1: there actually earlier this week to visit him, because you know,
Speaker 1: the amount of work that they did for that money,
Speaker 1: the amount of money they spent that like instantly like ooh,
Speaker 1: my years a wide open man, how'd you do it?
Speaker 1: You know? And really anything that we plan on doing
Speaker 1: in the future, it's it's small in comparison to what
Speaker 1: he did. I don't I don't think we need that much.
Speaker 1: My issue is personally, it's like, where do you stop? Like,
Speaker 1: it's not like we need one hundred bunkers out on
Speaker 1: this little nine ho golf course. Man, we already got
Speaker 1: the great terrain. You don't really, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I need help figuring out exactly how many hazards or
Speaker 1: features we need to give the place enough strategic value for,
Speaker 1: you know, to get the most bang for our buck
Speaker 1: and the locals here. If you you mentioned bunkers, you
Speaker 1: know some of them are like you gotta get rid
Speaker 1: of all the bunkers that you know. Or or if
Speaker 1: you mentioned man, that's a great natural ridge for a
Speaker 1: bunker placement for a fairway bunker like that, it's at
Speaker 1: the right yardages. I'm thinking that's a sweet spot. It'd
Speaker 1: be an easy dig too. And I'm there's you're just
Speaker 1: trying to make the course too hard. I'm like, ah, no,
Speaker 1: I actually I can't stand hard golf. I like fun
Speaker 1: and engaging golf, like that's the best golf. I don't
Speaker 1: like punishing hard golf, and I don't I'm sure our
Speaker 1: locals wouldn't either. There's no way I would ever want
Speaker 1: to make the golf course harder. I want it more
Speaker 1: playable and accessible. I don't. The worst thing on earth
Speaker 1: is looking for your ball. Man, Like, if I could
Speaker 1: cut everything at fairly high, I would, but my centero
Speaker 1: irrigation certainly wouldn't support that. That'll be smoked in no time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's that's the thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: like with Steven Beale his bunker style that he did
Speaker 1: up there, kind of with that, uh that heathln look
Speaker 1: like perfect flat And for the most part, the bunkers
Speaker 1: that we currently have now I would I would venture
Speaker 1: to guess most of them were dug in the in
Speaker 1: the early fifties or late forties, and there's a zero
Speaker 1: drainage in them. If I if we get any complaints
Speaker 1: about the course, and it usually kind of goes like, man, Tom,
Speaker 1: the golf course is absolutely awesome, but I'm like the bunkers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like so many courses, you know, player complaints, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they just always center on either greens or bunkers. And
Speaker 2: you know, it sounds like, you know, you've got your
Speaker 2: greens ticking along pretty well, if you have a have
Speaker 2: a capable superintendent such as yourself, you can usually get
Speaker 2: those greens going nicely. But then people start looking at
Speaker 2: the bunkers. They get a bad lie in the bunker
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, yeah, bunkers.
Speaker 1: So you know what my strategy kind of is early
Speaker 1: on here and then this is only my second season
Speaker 1: at the Helm, so to speak. Yeah, my first goal
Speaker 1: was actually just improve the plane surfaces, get the greens right.
Speaker 1: The fairways when I kind of started were spotty. We
Speaker 1: unfortunately when the Malmie River, since we're so close to
Speaker 1: the river, if we get you know, usually in the spring,
Speaker 1: we'll get a flood event or two. You know, I
Speaker 1: think the month of April this year, Oh good grief,
Speaker 1: we were underwater for like three weeks. It was just terrible.
Speaker 1: We've had flood events in the past, like very untimely
Speaker 1: ones that are that hit maybe in end of May,
Speaker 1: June or July, and that's like the kiss of death
Speaker 1: for our little nine holer because if you have turf
Speaker 1: grass underwater that long in July eight, it's going to
Speaker 1: be cooked no matter what. So, you know, so the
Speaker 1: fairways down along four for four is along part five. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know that that hole probably gets hit the worst
Speaker 1: with any flooding. A lot of that was really thin,
Speaker 1: undesirable turf. It was kind of left to be just
Speaker 1: whatever grew grew, and most of it was actually not
Speaker 1: weed or other weeds. So just the overall just playability
Speaker 1: of our plane surfaces I wanted to improve, and we
Speaker 1: got it. We got her back pretty quick, and we
Speaker 1: busted our tail getting getting everything back up to speed
Speaker 1: with the plane surfaces. I'm very pleased with where we're
Speaker 1: at right now, but in my gut, I always think, man,
Speaker 1: it's just just temporary to the next bad flood. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: most of our flooding is always in the spring, after
Speaker 1: maybe after the ice, you know, ice jams up in
Speaker 1: the river and that's usually the worst. But the early
Speaker 1: spring floods, we generally don't loose turf. We don't we
Speaker 1: don't get swamped by silt and slop. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: a pretty quick and easy cleanup process compared to most
Speaker 1: places at work. Savania Country Club, we flooded there and
Speaker 1: it's just stilt. It's Curtlin flooded, and so uh yeah,
Speaker 1: one once I kind of got my grasp on the
Speaker 1: plane surfaces, Yeah, it's like, okay, the bunkers, let's let's
Speaker 1: get to these damn things and let's figure it out.
Speaker 1: And I if I hear one more person say, let's
Speaker 1: just add sand. You just gotta add sand, You gotta
Speaker 1: add sand. There's probably eighteen inches this compacted sand in
Speaker 1: these things, and they they just keep you know, over
Speaker 1: the last decades, they just kept dumping sand and them.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, before long, you're not gonna have a bunker.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we're gonna end up with those inverted bunkers
Speaker 1: like at Garden.
Speaker 2: City, with mountains like Bunker Mounts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bunker Mounts. It's like, so we if we catch
Speaker 1: a half inch rainfall, most of them are flooded out.
Speaker 1: We can pump them out, but that only saves about
Speaker 1: a day. But once once we get they get flooded out,
Speaker 1: they're unplayable for probably five or six days. If like
Speaker 1: I said, if we pump them out, maybe four it
Speaker 1: a's these things are somewhat hittable or playable. They're just
Speaker 1: they they serve their purpose. Many I keep telling everybody
Speaker 1: they just need rebuild. And I'm kind of formulating a
Speaker 1: plan on like Okay, what's this, what's this going to cost?
Speaker 1: And how do we get there? And how do I
Speaker 1: pitch this. I already know that we can't take the
Speaker 1: Winter Park approach of just shutting it down, knocking it out.
Speaker 1: There's no way we're doing that. We got too much
Speaker 1: high school golf and leagues and stuff that pump through
Speaker 1: our little nine. There's no way we're shutting it down.
Speaker 1: So okay, well, let's let's phase this baby out and
Speaker 1: pick away two to three holes a year. And like
Speaker 1: Stephen Beale said and in his podcast with you guys,
Speaker 1: if if you don't have a lot of money, but
Speaker 1: you have a lot of time, you still can get
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff done. It just might take it
Speaker 1: a little bit longer. So that's that's the thing I'm
Speaker 1: trying to focus in on now is how how can
Speaker 1: we get this done physically too. I mean, my staff
Speaker 1: is we're pretty small staff. It's myself and uh three
Speaker 1: retired gentlemen. And thankfully I have one great young young
Speaker 1: man that's he's interested. He's doing turf online turf stuff.
Speaker 1: He is. He is an absolute rock star. I love
Speaker 1: that kid. I can't imagine him not being on staff.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we're doing everything in our power right
Speaker 1: now to try to absolutely put out the best off
Speaker 1: course we can every day when mother nature allows. And
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, if we if we if we mix
Speaker 1: in mix in a bunker project, even if we're only
Speaker 1: picking away a whole or two, man, that's gonna be hard.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of out spitball in different ideas of
Speaker 1: how to get a volunteer base to help with some
Speaker 1: of the heavy lifting. And I'm pretty sure I could.
Speaker 1: I could gather a few guys. That's a nice thing
Speaker 1: about this little town. The golf community here. They're passionate
Speaker 1: about their golf course. I think back in twenty ten,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, range some state auditor I think that came
Speaker 1: into the town and basically told the city close this
Speaker 1: close that, get rid of him, get rid of her.
Speaker 1: You don't need this, you don't need this close the
Speaker 1: golf course, close these parks, you know. And I mean,
Speaker 1: our little niner was on the chopping block. And from
Speaker 1: everything I've been told, this city building was surrounded with
Speaker 1: people screaming from the rooftop that you can't let that happen.
Speaker 1: And thankfully it didn't because that would be an absolute tragedy.
Speaker 1: But you know this, I always call an appoint a
Speaker 1: powder keg of potential, and I tell most people I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of searching for somebody to help me light
Speaker 1: that fuse, because I'm I don't necessarily care about rankings
Speaker 1: or oh hey, the points like top fifty nine or
Speaker 1: in America or the world or whatever. I don't really
Speaker 1: care about that. I want a place that's welcoming to everybody.
Speaker 1: You know, a place if you're whizzing through the turnpike
Speaker 1: in northwest Ohio on your way to Toledo or up
Speaker 1: to Detroit, you might say, hey, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going to stop with that nine whore, you know, and
Speaker 1: for a quick round. So if we can get to
Speaker 1: a point where we're just sustainable and we can just
Speaker 1: keep improving the golf course, I mean, that's my ultimate
Speaker 1: goal right now. I'm fine with temporary fixes. It's just
Speaker 1: I think we need to focus on permanent solutions to
Speaker 1: a lot of things. And and that's the general direction
Speaker 1: i'd like to go, because it is a wonderful little
Speaker 1: golf course. I'm kind of worried that maybe being on
Speaker 1: your podcast, that we might get more visitors because you
Speaker 1: guys are so well followed, and the locals, the coffee club,
Speaker 1: the old, the older, the older guys here in town
Speaker 1: will be like, ah, there's too many people out here
Speaker 1: because because our rounds have been our rounds since COVID
Speaker 1: have been just absolutely insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got all you can all right, Well, listeners,
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Speaker 2: check them out at Toro dot com. You've mentioned a
Speaker 2: few of the superintendents we've had on recently to talk
Speaker 2: about what they're trying to do at public and municipal courses. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Stephen Beale is doing some really interesting work at Wolf River.
Speaker 2: You've mentioned him a couple of times. Clay Payne I
Speaker 2: talked to toward the beginning of this year. He was
Speaker 2: also at the National Linkstins Symposium.
Speaker 1: We talked a lot there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, doing really cool things at Buffalo Dunes and Kansas
Speaker 2: and every situation is different. You know, It's interesting how
Speaker 2: everybody finds the funding in slightly different ways and gets
Speaker 2: the work done in slightly different ways. There's no one
Speaker 2: solution to any of this. It's all kind of innovative logistically, right,
Speaker 2: And so that's what you're kind of working through right now.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious, you know, when you just look at
Speaker 2: this career change you've made from a larger perspective, what
Speaker 2: do you think the appeal is for a superintendent, a
Speaker 2: very skilled superintendent like you, or like Clay, or like
Speaker 2: Steve and at Wolf River. What's the appeal of making
Speaker 2: this kind of career change where you're working at a
Speaker 2: municipal course and doing these kinds of projects versus, you know,
Speaker 2: the more maybe traditional career path of settling down at
Speaker 2: private club X and kind of playing out your career
Speaker 2: that way. What's what's the argument for taking this path?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 1: You know, that's a great question, and I think I
Speaker 1: have a great answer for you. I oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 1: last year, my first year, and even earlier this year,
Speaker 1: I was almost kind of embarrassed to tell people the locals,
Speaker 1: and most of them they don't know Marion or or
Speaker 1: ironomic from Invernessy. They've never heard of some of these places.
Speaker 1: But I I was always kind of like cautious of
Speaker 1: telling people where I worked or some of the places
Speaker 1: I've been and some of the stuff I've done, because
Speaker 1: I always felt like I would they would perceive me
Speaker 1: as like a failure. You know, they would be like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: you work there. Wow, what are you doing here? You
Speaker 1: know it's a nine home MUNI you know what went wrong?
Speaker 1: So I was always pretty cautious. And uh, there there's
Speaker 1: an older gentleman in here in town and he recently passed.
Speaker 1: He was a great guy. Love I loved him. And he's, yes,
Speaker 1: you he's talking about my past and where I worked,
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, that's amazing. And I kind of
Speaker 1: told him, I go, wow, I don't really like telling people,
Speaker 1: you know, where I've been or what I've done too much,
Speaker 1: because you know, for that reason. And and he kind
Speaker 1: of he looked at me dead in the eye and
Speaker 1: he goes, hey, you know what, nine home unies need
Speaker 1: superheroes too, And I go oh. And ever since he
Speaker 1: said that to me, it's it's kind of changed my
Speaker 1: perspective on what I do. And it makes you realize that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm at a little niner in nowhere, Ohio, but it
Speaker 1: means something. It means something to the people of this town.
Speaker 1: It means something to the surround communities that use our
Speaker 1: little golf course. You know. Like I said, these people
Speaker 1: don't care if this is an appoying golf club or
Speaker 1: National Golf Links of America. It's their little nine, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're they're pumped at the direction we're going. My
Speaker 1: biggest thing is I don't want people to be satisfied
Speaker 1: of what we're doing, not because there's so much more
Speaker 1: that we could do. I always tell everybody I haven't
Speaker 1: done nothing yet. Like I was jokingly I told Colton,
Speaker 1: my my young buck muscle that helps us out up
Speaker 1: the golf course. I go, I'm kind of nervous. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm going to talk about because we
Speaker 1: haven't done nothing. And you kind of look at me.
Speaker 1: He is, like, what are you talking about? We haven't
Speaker 1: done nothing, man, everybody loves this place. We're booming. I go,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't want to be satisfied with
Speaker 1: that because there's there's so much more, and honestly, I
Speaker 1: know we could do more. I just, like I said,
Speaker 1: I just I need someone to help me like that,
Speaker 1: like that fuse. And I think that that really is.
Speaker 1: I think the benefit of working at a at a
Speaker 1: place like Napoleon or Buffalo Dunes or Jeffersonville, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's the it's it's they're my people. This is where
Speaker 1: I'm from, you know. Uh. I think I get a
Speaker 1: lot more satisfaction out of making people I know and
Speaker 1: love and that come play here happy and excited to
Speaker 1: come and return then maybe some CEO of some big
Speaker 1: corporate conglomerate out in Philly, you know. But I think
Speaker 1: that's the appeal. Also, my standards are probably higher than
Speaker 1: anybody else is here, so what they think is great,
Speaker 1: and I'm usually like losing my mind and freaking out
Speaker 1: over stuff they don't notice. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of I call it golfer brain. That might that
Speaker 1: probably even happens at bigger clubs. You know, people that
Speaker 1: are out golf and they kind of they're so focused
Speaker 1: on on their score or something that's meaningless, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're they're not focused on like what we're looking at, Like, man,
Speaker 1: is that the cut on the fairways? Don't work, something's wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, or is that head leak in or crap,
Speaker 1: is that dollar spot? You know? Like, so that's I
Speaker 1: think the appeal. Like and like I said once once
Speaker 1: that gentleman said that, I was like, yeah, that's I'm
Speaker 1: right where I should be and I belong so and
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I would change anything a
Speaker 1: career pathwise because it's kind of made me the person
Speaker 1: I am. And yeah, I'm happy with it. And so,
Speaker 1: like I said, as long as as long as we
Speaker 1: can be pushing towards the next thing. And it's going
Speaker 1: to be a push with with some things because we
Speaker 1: have some big ticket stuff coming uh. Our irrigation system,
Speaker 1: it's it's struggling. A pump station is desperately going to
Speaker 1: be needed here shortly. Every you know, every day you're
Speaker 1: out there on the course, you're kind of thinking, oh, man,
Speaker 1: is this going to be the last one of the
Speaker 1: sucker kicks on? You're always kind of you're always kind
Speaker 1: of fighting that edge. I guess here's the downside of
Speaker 1: being at a place like mine. You're you're kind you're
Speaker 1: always like I feel like you're tiptoeing. You're you're you're
Speaker 1: riding that fine line of like, Okay, this is great pain,
Speaker 1: We're awesome, but you know it won't take much to
Speaker 1: go the other way. Yeah, So you know, yeah, big
Speaker 1: ticket stuff, and that's gonna be that's going to be
Speaker 1: a hard push to convince people like, hey, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is important man. If if you if we want to
Speaker 1: keep what we have, we're gonna have to invest into
Speaker 1: the golf course. And really, I mean, I'm thankful for
Speaker 1: what we've invested in already. We are leasing equipment this summer.
Speaker 1: I did receive our day to day mowing equipment, a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that when I first started. I mean,
Speaker 1: this stuff's all twenty five, thirty, forty years old, so
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's beat. I mean, I still have
Speaker 1: a pretty hefty fleet of older stuff that it's it's
Speaker 1: ticking man. It's about time to replace this stuff. So
Speaker 1: we do have the possibility of actually a new maintenance facility.
Speaker 1: I mentioned to you earlier about my shanty and my
Speaker 1: maintenance facility. I we're going to see if city Council
Speaker 1: pushes that through. I hope, I hope, I hope. So
Speaker 1: we're starting to do a lot of good things and
Speaker 1: I think we just need to keep keep focused on
Speaker 1: the future and just don't let our guard down and
Speaker 1: say that is good enough. And I honestly, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the golf course deserves it. It's it's I
Speaker 1: almost feel like it's been lane dormant for one hundred
Speaker 1: years and it's just kind of waiting to bloom out
Speaker 1: and then become something that, you know, wonderful.
Speaker 2: All right, Tom, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: the podcast. It's been fun talking to you, and thank
Speaker 2: good luck with what you're doing there in Napoleon.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced
Speaker 2: by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you enjoy this
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