Going Home - What Would You Do?

[Mike Hendren]

In the next few weeks I’ll make my annual 6 hours round trip day journey to play the 9 hole course I grew up playing.  I have a 50 plus years love affair with it and next year will be the 50 years anniversary of my first men’s club championship.


I’m saddened by the horrendous pine tree encroachment and periodically  actually dream of taking them out. I suspect the small membership doesn’t care. 


Question:  Should I suggest they take out or at least up-limb some trees and if so should I offer to make a contribution of time or funds to make it happen?  I know the correct answer: Don’t be the Big Ass Pete who moved away and suddenly shows up to tell them how it should be done.  But I almost can’t help myself.


What would YOU do? (Barney, go easy on me.)

[Charlie Goerges]

Make sure you hit a couple of trees with your ball, loudly shout in a joking manner that you would pay to cut them all down. Then later, more quietly tell everyone who will listen that you were deadly serious about it. Bonus points if you can do it on the first and last holes, preferably with a few groups watching.

[A.G._Crockett]

Mike,


If you’re serious about this, here’s what I’d do.  Find a current long-time member who is a very good player, and is older and highly respected.  Walk the course with him, and show him specific trees that you believe have compromised the architectural integrity of the course, and discuss why you feel that way.  Then let him take that up with the head pro/GM and the Superintendent; those are the people that will ultimately make the call on tree cutting.


I think it’s important that you talk about a very few SPECIFIC trees, as opposed to just saying, “The trees have gotten bigger and a lot of them need to be cut.”  Two obvious examples would be trees that have grown up in line between a fairway bunker and the green so that recovery from the bunker becomes impossible, and trees that have filled out to the extent that they take away options off the tee and require everyone to hit the exact same shot.  Both of these are very common on older courses, as I’m sure you already know.  Also, you might include turf health in the discussion, which might get the Super more interested. 


Good luck with this.  I’ve seen it done, but the level of member resistance to tree cutting can be pretty intense.  You have a chance, though, if you’re talking about 3 or 4 trees that members are hitting routinely.

[George Pazin]

I would look at the things that made you fall in love with the game. It might have more to do with the game than the course, but that's what I do.


Always look on the bright side of life, do do, do do do do do do.


I guess if I were to attempt to comment on the course, I'd simply say something like "I don't remember the trees encroaching on play so much, has it always been that way?"


EDIT: I do like AG's wise approach, not surprisingly.

[Kalen Braley]

That's a tough one Bogey.

Perhaps a golf version of getting a divorce! 

P.S.  If its just 9 holes, I'm guessing you can stomach a quick round followed with some chit chat and pressing the flesh in the clubhouse.  Or you can always show up and pass on the round by faking an injury or something?

[Jason Thurman]

AG gives good advice.


The tweak I'd emphasize - conditions matter more to the average player than architecture. I wouldn't get into a conversation about diminished options and start explaining double-hazards. I would focus on sunlight and airflow that makes for better turf. Trees are giant weeds that consume resources from the grass garden. Find a shitty tee box that's inevitably surrounded by a bunch of trees, and call it out visibly.


I'd also say things like "It's these evergreens that really just don't belong on golf courses." People feel smart when they repeat rules of thumb like that. I've heard you speak of this course before. I assume we're not talking about tall, stately, limbed-up Georgia pines like the ones you see at Augusta. We're talking Christmas trees instead, right? They can be limbed up a starting point, but "you ever notice that good courses don't have pine branches hanging out in everybody's backswings?"


And yeah... offering time and money always helps grease the skids.

[mike_beene]

Perhaps make a donation that has three components: a perpetual maintenance fund; a board of honor where past pros or members are honored, and a capital gift to remove some trees to improve conditions.

[Michael Dugger]

Go big, go bold.


Tell anyone who will listen that tree cutting is the newest trend with all the best courses in the USA.


Oakmont did it.  Happen to catch the latest PGA Championship at Oak Hill?


They did it and it revitalized the course.


Trying to keep up with the Joneses has fueled many a change to golf courses over the years.  Why stop now.

[John Kavanaugh]

No one cares. Let happy people be happy.

[Jason Topp]

Mike - I suggest talking to the super.  He likely  will be in agreement and have a sense of where the membership is on the issue and whether it is worth pursuing.

[Alan FitzGerald CGCS MG]

offering to pay for it, would probably go a long way........

[Mike Worth]

offering to pay for it, would probably go a long way........

Along those lines, when I was a member at Hidden Creek, and someone had a suggestion or idea for capital improvement the owner would simply say he would be happy to make the improvement as long as someone wrote him a check for $1.5 million.

[Peter Sayegh]

Mike,
Relive/enjoy the memories.
When you first played/won there, did you concern yourself with corridors/tree encroachment, etc.?
Or did you just play golf...and find a fifty year passion?

The next Mike H. may be there and will be enamored with the course as it plays now.

 
I like Jason's reply. Talk to the super.
Peter

[Mike Hendren]

There are tree problems and there is this.  The picture below is from BEHIND the lower runway tee on the par four 8th hole.  Tree growth has turned the hole into a severe dogleg right where a 15 yards gap in the trees at the far left of the photograph is the line of charm, hopefully with a big slice.  When the course opened there would not have been a single tree in the photograph. 


IMG_0333 by Mike Hendren, on Flickr

In the course's 55 years there has never been a professional or trained superintendent.  It has always been maintained by a farmer and part-time assistant.  Today fairways are mowed by a member who gets free dues and cart usage.  I don't know who cuts the greens and sets the cups.  There has never been fairway irrigation and historically the common bermuda fairways were mowed once weekly and the cups were then moved. Greens might have been mowed twice a week - hence my atypical love of slow greens  This is quintessential small town golf in America.

John hit the nail on the head when he posted "no one cares."  At least I assume they don't as I'm guessing 90% of the members own a chain saw.  Somehow the course survives in a county with 15% unemployment with 150 members and monthly dues of $85. I appreciate your suggestions, which make plenty of sense.  They just don't apply here.

I member one year the superintendent got drunk the night before the annual invitational.  It was the only time I saw my father on a tractor as he mowed the fairways in the dark.  Me?  I got the pleasure of raking the 19 bunkers, likely the only time they were raked all year.  Our dues in the 1970's were $15/month. 

It's home.