did just that George...
Michael Damico
27
Reside: Denver, CO
Born and Raised: Rochester, NY
Education: B.S. Environmental Design/Architecture Univ. Buffalo
M.L.A. Univ. of Colorado
Occupation: Design Associate
Married: not yet
Home course: ?? Wherever is cheapest, quite possibly
Handicap: never established one...around 12 or so now
Other interests: music, beer, hockey, skiing, soccer, bocce, frisbee, bowling, reading, gardening
Born in Rochester, NY I grew up playing a local muni redesigned and re-routed by RTJ Sr. and a small par 3 course with my great grandfather. My best buddy was a member at Monroe C.C. and we would spend every day in the summers of middle school playing numerous holes (avg. of 54/day) with him and our other buddy as the head pro only knew Tommy had 2 siblings; much to our chagrin, he knew not that they were sisters. That went well until Mr. Murva (the pro) came out one blistering afternoon and found Tommy finishing up our second loop without shoes and shirt, Joe shirtless and myself sans cleats and shirt. As I grew older and attended the Jesuit school in the area, I was introduced to all the high end clubs of the area (mostly Ross's). I would later find myself travelling around following a music act and during the days on the road, would subject my buddies to brief walkthroughs of several courses of the NE. Went on to school and recalled reading Bury Me in a Pot Bunker sophomore yr of high school and it was then that I began searching for the 'classics' - which Doak's Anatomy helped to break the ice. I learned that Ross was originally a green keeper and so I started to work on maintenance crews - thinking well, shit, if you're gonna one day be designing them, you better damn well know how they're maintained (and later, built). Worked serveral years at Oak Hill, studying the course and making friends with future superintendents, all the while trying to absorb as much information as possible.
Moved out to Denver for grad school and continued to work maintenance. (Un)fortunately received Renaissance's internship at just the right time. Worked maintenance at CommonGround as things were slow and it offered insight into a smaller maintenance budget. After moving back to Rochester to base myself, I continued to work maintenance in between waiting for anything Renaissance could throw my way; I worked at the local muni I grew up playing on, to again, gain even more perspective on an extremely tight maintenance budget.
It is my overall professional goal to redesign municipal courses...that is if the opportunity ever arises. I was then just recently called by a buddy I made in grad school offering me a job back in Denver...and here I am.
I hope one day public golf is revered as much as I read about of the Old Course