New Responsibilities:
Last week I gave a brief introduction to Nutters Crossing. This week I
wanted to blog about what the transition has been like, going from an
Assistant to a full fledged Superintendent.
For me, the rise up the ranks in golf maintenance from entry level to Superintendent is a lot like taking Chemistry in school. If you've ever taken a Chemistry course, you know that everything you learn will be the foundation for the material you will be studying later in the course. It's a pretty brutal step by step process of learning, where you have to completely understand the old material to have any chance of learning the new. Forget what a "mole" is, and you're sunk...Golf maintenance is similar in that you must build upon everything you've learned to take the next step up.
In golf course maintenance you start out learning and doing a wide variety of tasks, mostly hand labor and mowing. You do what you're told. It's mostly stress free. You don't have to make any hard decisions. You just need to follow directions.
For those love golf maintenance enough to make a career out of it, working as an intern is usually the next sequential step in the journey. They usually work very long hours, and in addition to being doers they begin the process of understanding the "why" behind what they do. As an intern you start to learn about all the time and effort put into planning the maintenance schedule. You learn about what is in that fertilizer application you made the other day, and you start to get a glimpse of what it's like to have vision, attention to detail, and the like.
Hopefully the next step in the process is to land an Assistant Superintendents position. This is where the real fun begins. To this point and time, almost your whole career has been focused on doing what others tell you. Now as an assistant you take on a huge amount of new responsibility. You begin to learn how to mentor, teach, delegate, plan, maintain quality control, and above all work on that decision making and vision. The best assistant jobs will be the ones where the Superintendent allows their assistant to make their own judgments and decisions on what the golf course needs to be great. They are allowed to succeed or fail, but when they fail the Superintendent will be there to ensure the course isn't destroyed as a result.
My time at Glen Riddle was great in this regard. Eric, the Director, expected us to take ownership of the golf course, and make our own judgement calls. He provided a safe environment for us to make big time decisions, and learn from our mistakes without jeopardizing our jobs, or his. My time there really prepared me for my new position at Nutters, but like the post says, I've found that there were many things happening behind the scenes that I never knew about.
One of the biggest changes for me has been to take on all of the administrative duties of a Superintendent. I have quickly learned that I am now fully responsible and accountable for all aspects of the maintenance. This includes the budgeting, ordering products, hiring personnel, interacting with sales reps...And did I mention being accountable for everything??? You become just as much businessman as agronomist.
Lest I come off as a complainer, I will stop now and say that I love my job and I've waited for this opportunity my whole career. Nutters Crossing has been a great place to get my feet wet, while not being in any danger of drowning right off the bat. I hope to continue to make great strides in building my career in order to take on greater challenges in the future.
If you've read this far, thank you. I plan to make my future posts about agronomy, and much more to the point. Thanks!
For me, the rise up the ranks in golf maintenance from entry level to Superintendent is a lot like taking Chemistry in school. If you've ever taken a Chemistry course, you know that everything you learn will be the foundation for the material you will be studying later in the course. It's a pretty brutal step by step process of learning, where you have to completely understand the old material to have any chance of learning the new. Forget what a "mole" is, and you're sunk...Golf maintenance is similar in that you must build upon everything you've learned to take the next step up.
In golf course maintenance you start out learning and doing a wide variety of tasks, mostly hand labor and mowing. You do what you're told. It's mostly stress free. You don't have to make any hard decisions. You just need to follow directions.
For those love golf maintenance enough to make a career out of it, working as an intern is usually the next sequential step in the journey. They usually work very long hours, and in addition to being doers they begin the process of understanding the "why" behind what they do. As an intern you start to learn about all the time and effort put into planning the maintenance schedule. You learn about what is in that fertilizer application you made the other day, and you start to get a glimpse of what it's like to have vision, attention to detail, and the like.
Hopefully the next step in the process is to land an Assistant Superintendents position. This is where the real fun begins. To this point and time, almost your whole career has been focused on doing what others tell you. Now as an assistant you take on a huge amount of new responsibility. You begin to learn how to mentor, teach, delegate, plan, maintain quality control, and above all work on that decision making and vision. The best assistant jobs will be the ones where the Superintendent allows their assistant to make their own judgments and decisions on what the golf course needs to be great. They are allowed to succeed or fail, but when they fail the Superintendent will be there to ensure the course isn't destroyed as a result.
My time at Glen Riddle was great in this regard. Eric, the Director, expected us to take ownership of the golf course, and make our own judgement calls. He provided a safe environment for us to make big time decisions, and learn from our mistakes without jeopardizing our jobs, or his. My time there really prepared me for my new position at Nutters, but like the post says, I've found that there were many things happening behind the scenes that I never knew about.
One of the biggest changes for me has been to take on all of the administrative duties of a Superintendent. I have quickly learned that I am now fully responsible and accountable for all aspects of the maintenance. This includes the budgeting, ordering products, hiring personnel, interacting with sales reps...And did I mention being accountable for everything??? You become just as much businessman as agronomist.
Lest I come off as a complainer, I will stop now and say that I love my job and I've waited for this opportunity my whole career. Nutters Crossing has been a great place to get my feet wet, while not being in any danger of drowning right off the bat. I hope to continue to make great strides in building my career in order to take on greater challenges in the future.
If you've read this far, thank you. I plan to make my future posts about agronomy, and much more to the point. Thanks!