The biggest mistake a green committee member makes is ...

[Joel_Stewart]

1.  Votes on issues based on his/her playing ability without regard to the architects wishes.

2.  Doesn't do any type of research.

Please fill in your thoughts based on your experiences.

[DPL11]

Both, and many more self-serving reasons.

So they can say to their regular Saturday group, "Having that waterfall installed in the back left corner of our redan hole, was my idea".

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

That and much more like changing a hole to suit their game. that usually means a tree or trap.

[rgkeller]

Any green committee that does not set SPECIFIC AND MEASURABLE standards/goals/objectives for the superintendent is doing a disservice to the membership and to the superintendent.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Getting on a green committee that has 5 or more members.

[ian]

Re:The biggest mistake a green committee member makes is ..............thinking they know how to grow grass after successfully mowing their own lawn.

Architecture interference is minimal compared to the day to day interference with a superintendent's job.

[Danny Goss]

Why have a Green Committee at all? Why do Clubs the world over persist in appointing people such as accountants, teachers, lawyers etc. etc. to a committee in order to advise a professional golf course superintendent how to do their job?
Why appoint a competent, knowledgable person to the post of Course super if he is to be continually advised, counselled, coached etc. in how to do the job.
And as sure as anything if the course is not up to scratch the blame belongs with the super - not with the Green Committee.
I believe that the person appointed to the job should live or die by the way in which they do their job - and without interference.

[TEPaul]

"Re:The biggest mistake a green committee member makes is ...

Pretty much failing to know--WHAT THEY DON"T KNOW!

[Shane Gurnett]

Danny, I tend to agree.

Royal Melbourne and Claude Crockford would seem to be the ideal combination of how this should work. From what I have read of Crockford, he seemed to have had absolute authority over control of the course, without interference from an overpowering Greens committee.

The resultant quality and intergrity of RM today would tend to suggest this is the way to go.

[Craig Disher]

A flip response would be joining the green committee in the first place. I have often asked myself if it's worth the effort.

A major mistake is to proceed without listening to the membership.  It's their course and if you propose changes that they don't like, you're in for some very unpleasant club politics. Before you start with any new proposal, make sure you educate, educate, educate - in a friendly way of course.

[A_Clay_Man]

It would appear that the a huge mistake would be to stifle open discourse by holding someone's professional career (or standing at the course) over their heads, because of what they opine in this forum.

What a shame!

[TEPaul]

When one looks at all the flack green committee members seem to take from all sides one really should wonder why have a green committee at all? Talk about a thankless job--nobody seems to like or trust green committees! Danny Goss's suggestion or question of why have one at all may have a good deal of merit to it. He suggests just let the superintendent do his job.

But the question is what job is that?

I had a conversation with Gil Hanse about this one time and he mentioned it's so different today than it used to be in the old days simply because these modern green committees are really into some serious micromanaging of everything these days. I told Gil in the old days when my Dad sat on green committees at places like Meadowbrook, Piping, Gulf Stream and Seminole that all the green committee really did was go talk to the superintendent for about 15 minutes in the beginning of the season and tell them basically what they expected and hoped for and then they basically left him alone and watched him do it or not.

NGLA, recently put their course into a really wonderful maintenance process and result. I asked Bill Salinetti, the NGLA superintendent what the club asked of him when they recently hired him. The conversation went like this;

"What did they ask you to do Bill?

Bill said;

"Just one thing."

I asked:

"What was that?'

Bill said;

"Firm and fast."

I asked:

"That's all?"

Bill said;

"That's all!"

In my opinion, that's the old way and the best way. Then another time I asked Matt Burrows when the last time they'd actually seen their green chairman and he said something like;

"I think it's been more than a month now, maybe two!"

As Danny Goss, suggests that may be the best way if a club even has a green committee.

[ForkaB]

I think that the idea than green committees should practice benign ignorance (as Tom Paul seem to be arguing) is both ingenuous and potentinally dangerous.  It is like arguing that the Board of a corporation should just let the IT guys or the Finance guys do their own thing.  I think that was the ethos at places like Enron, World Com and Tyco.

Responsible oversight is NOT equivalent to "micromanagement."  Laissez-faire is NOT equivalent to "best practice," regardless of how skilled you might believe your superintendent to be.

I base these statements on my own experiences in golf club governance and what I know of my grandfather's work on the green committees at 2 "golden age" courses.

To me, the biggest mistake any green committee (or any of its members) can make is abdicating their responsbility for leadership and stewardship.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

I understand your points and I do agree but that's not really an absolute. The eternal problem is that responsible stewardship is just not something all golf clubs have or enjoy. It basically boils down to whether or not there are some people in the club who just understand how to do this type of thing, and one probably does need to factor in things like taste and understanding a club's tradition too. The part of my "ideal maintenance meld" idea I like the most is the important distinctions it's intended to make between types and styles an eras of architecture. It's not just supposed to be about something like firm and fast conditions, it's about understanding that old style architecture vs some modern architectural styles really can be very different and they need to be maintained differently. For about fifty years it seems almost all clubs everywhere failed to understand that apparently simple fact and started maintaining everything in the very same ways. Effectively that corrupted certain playabilities and neccessary looks of much of the old style architecture.

Micromanaging today has gotten really prevalent and it may not be inherently a bad thing but can get to be when those micromanaging really have very little understanding of the things they may be asking superintendents to do.

[Patrick_Mucci]

From a maintainance perspective, rgkeller's post hits the nail on the head.

However, from an architectural perspective, everyone is mostly in the dark, and therein lies the threat to the golf course.

TEPaul,

In refering to your Dad's experiences, it's a different world today.  
The selection process alone is vastly different.
In the past it seemed that a few knowledgeable members comprised a green committee, today it seems that a large poliitical cross section of the membership populates a green committee.

Which would you prefer ?

Rich Goodale,

You're correct about corporate oversight, but in the corporate world, peer review is possible because corporate contemporaries possess similar experience and knowledge.
What club members are knowledgeable enough to have an in depth discussion with the superintendent regarding agronomy ?

In addition, most committees rotate their members and chairs too frequently, not allowing them to get up to speed or to reasonable levels of understanding.

The lack of understanding regarding micro climates and soil conditions frequently leads to problems.  All too often a committee member visits a golf course 40 miles from his course and comes back and says, let's do things like they do, when pursuit of that policy would have devastating results at his home course.

I think rgkeller got it right.

Provide a reasonable, attainable objective regarding maintainance and playing conditions, and then get out of the way and let the PROFESSIONAL you hired, the only person qualified, achieve those objectives.

The results should speak for themselves.

The Architectural side is quite different, since the club doesn't retain a full time PROFESSIONAL on their payroll, and every member has their own ideas on how to improve upon the golf course.  

It is in this area where green committees have done far more harm then good.  

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

Admitting to this board that he is on one???

;>D

JWK

Too opinionated to be asked at my club!

[Doug Braunsdorf]

The Architectural side is quite different, since the club doesn't retain a full time PROFESSIONAL on their payroll, and every member has their own ideas on how to improve upon the golf course.  

It is in this area where green committees have done far more harm then good.  

Here's one--have there been any experiences where green committee members have actually been beneficial?  My experiences have shown no, due to lack of knowledge and understanding about the subject matter.  I'm just curious if there have been any positive experiences, and how these came about.

[ForkaB]

Pat

My 30+ years experience in corporate governance, much of it at the very highest level, tells me exactly the opposite of what you posit.

Most executives are in fact not remotely capable of understanding the arcana of corporate finance, law or technology.  In fact, very few of them are really competent in the basics of the "simpler" fields of marketing and human resources, if you really want to  know......  Compared to derivatives accounting or network security, arachnose diagnostics and treatments and bunker maintenance are child's play.  The problem is that committee members see the opportunity of overseeing the relative simplicity of agronomy as a chance to overcome the inadequacies of their performance of their day jobs.  So, they overmanage, and open themselves and their courses to harm.

IMHO.

[Dan Herrmann]

Fortunately, the green cmte. members at my club know that we're amateurs and leave the science to the professionals.  I just hope we can keep that expectation going forward.

Sure - we'd like some "X" and a little "Y" to happen, but we understand the finances and science involved.

Of course, it helps that our super is a great communicator that takes pride in his work.

[Jim Sweeney]

.....thinking that being the green committee chairman makes him an expert on green keeping.....

....thinking that being the green committee chairman gives him power over the design and condition of the course.....

The problem, however, might not be with the person in the position, but with the organization as a whole.

With the possible exception a very few well known national clubs, where there are few if any committees and the membership acquieces to the chairman on all matters related to the upkeep of the course (i.e., the "benevolent dictator" model), clubs that have problems with napoleonic green chairmen are most likely devoid of strong board leadership and direction and planning and have only themselves to blame for the unavoidable disasterous fallout.

[Bob_Huntley]

Pat

My 30+ years experience in corporate governance, much of it at the very highest level, tells me exactly the opposite of what you posit.

Most executives are in fact not remotely capable of understanding the arcana of corporate finance, law or technology.  In fact, very few of them are really competent in the basics of the "simpler" fields of marketing and human resources, if you really want to  know......  Compared to derivatives accounting or network security, arachnose diagnostics and treatments and bunker maintenance are child's play.  The problem is that committee members see the opportunity of overseeing the relative simplicity of agronomy as a chance to overcome the inadequacies of their performance of their day jobs.  So, they overmanage, and open themselves and their courses to harm.

IMHO.

Rich,

Wow, who upset you this morning?

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

I would say that making suggestions about the architecture is not really the role of the green committee.  Perhaps clubs should have a separate, ARCHITECTURE committee so everyone at the club would be aware of the separation of church and state.  Many architectural changes have been made, in-house, under the guise of agronomy.

I was on the green committee at Crystal Downs for two years and one suggestion stands out [pardon if I've told this before]:

Committee member:  A couple of members have commented to me that the forward tee on #11 is too small for the two sets of markers we now have, and the tee should be lengthened.

Chairman:  That sounds like a reasonable idea.

Me:  (to superintendent) You don't have any trouble with wear on that tee, do you?

Superintendent:  No, it's just fine.

Professional:  Was that Mr. So-and-So who suggested lengthening the tee?

Committee Member:  Yes.

Professional:  He just wants you to lengthen the tee because he doesn't know what club to hit from where it is; he's between clubs!  

[ForkaB]

Pat

My 30+ years experience in corporate governance, much of it at the very highest level, tells me exactly the opposite of what you posit.

Most executives are in fact not remotely capable of understanding the arcana of corporate finance, law or technology.  In fact, very few of them are really competent in the basics of the "simpler" fields of marketing and human resources, if you really want to  know......  Compared to derivatives accounting or network security, arachnose diagnostics and treatments and bunker maintenance are child's play.  The problem is that committee members see the opportunity of overseeing the relative simplicity of agronomy as a chance to overcome the inadequacies of their performance of their day jobs.  So, they overmanage, and open themselves and their courses to harm.

IMHO.

Rich,

Wow, who upset you this morning?

Bob

Hi Bob

It's been a wonderful day in Fife.  Clear blue skies, dwindling gaggles of tourists, golfing vistas to die for, wife and children all doing fine.

I'm feeling great too.  Just have to express my opinions from time to time as the Ex-Officio Chairman of The Campaign to Wipe out Stupidity (an office bestowed upon me in 1981 when I retired from Arthur D. Little).  Sorry if I upset your brunch.

rich

[Don_Mahaffey]

"...Compared to derivatives accounting or network security, arachnose diagnostics and treatments and bunker maintenance are child's play.  The problem is that committee members see the opportunity of overseeing the relative simplicity of agronomy…….."

Ahhh…Rich,what’s arachnose??? Some turf disease discovered by an arrogant former greens committee member? Of course, we all know you probably mean anthracnose, right? If your going to call us supers simpletons you ought to at least use the correct names for the agronomic  terms you throw out, no?

Greens committees work when there is mutual respect between all parties involved. When either the members or the super slides into their “I’m smarter then they are” mode, it all goes downhill from there. The more personal it is with terms like Rich used above then the more emotional the relationship becomes and that’s not a good thing, IMO. Goal setting should be the duty of the committee and the process management needed to reach the goals should be the duty of the super. It should be simple, but it rarely is.

[Bill_McBride]

I'm no longer on our green committee, but I recall our biggest challenge being to convince the board of directors to increase our outstanding young superintendent's salary so he wouldn't get snapped up by another club!  It's amazing how much they teach these young guys about dealing with the myriad problems that face turf in all kinds of climates and environments.