Greens Committee

[DCronan]

I had a meeting with our Superintendent this morning and we spoke of something that makes a great deal of sense but I'm not sure I've ever seen/heard of it before: a Mission Statement for the Greens Committee, both current and of more importance, the future.

Our concern is, I'm certain, similar to something everyone has experienced before: a new Greens Chair/Committee decides that he is going to put his "stamp" on the course and while doing so, adversely affects previous work which has been done in accordance with the recently developed Master Plan.

Good idea? Bad idea? Has anyone ever heard or developed such a thing? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Chris Cupit]

Change the name to Green Committee

Actually the idea of a long term mission seems like a good way to me to prevent any one chair or any single year's committee from attempting to put their "stamp" on the course.

[JMEvensky]

If you've got a Master Plan,you shouldn't have to worry about a new GC's stamp.The whole point of the MP is to shortstop this stuff.

If the Mission Statement is going to be made public to the entire membership,I'd think it was a great idea.It would,I assume,just reinforce the Master Plan.

Good things happen when there's a lot of transparency wrt the way the golf course decisions are made.The more the members know on the front end,the less aggravation the hiccups will cause.

[Terry Lavin]

I'm not sure how it should be phrased, but the mission of any green committee chair at a private club should be to minimize any meddling with the good work of the architect and/or superintendent.  During my time as chair, I tried to educate myself on the necessary subjects in order to be able to serve as a good communications officer, bringing messages to the superintendent and from the superintendent and trying at all times to only support initiatives that were supported by the right experts in the field.

[Bill_McBride]

Propose having a competent architect draw up a master plan for the long term.   That will hopefully deter short term meddling.

[RDecker]

A Masterplan that is adopted and written into the club's by-laws is your best protection.

[Michael George]

A mission statement or master plan are only good so long as they are hard to change.

I would suggest that you submit the mission statement or master plan to the Board for approval and ask the board to put in the statement or plan that it require a super majority of the Board to change it later - - - then pray that what was passed is right.  There is nothing worse for a course than a bad mission statement or master plan that is faithfully followed for years.

[Mike Nuzzo]

A Masterplan that is adopted and written into the club's by-laws is your best protection.

As long as it is a good one.

[Mike Nuzzo]

I hope they don't watch the Houston Open...

[Carl Johnson]

Change the name to Green Committee

The traditional name is, in fact, the "reen Committee."  But who cares about tradition?

[Bill Brightly]

It is a good idea. If well written, it spells out what the role is, and EVERYTHING else is off limits.

For example, most states have mandatory training for newly elected school board members. One thing they stress is that good boards don't help run the school, they make sure it is run well. Similar training for board members and committees would be a great idea...

[Forrest Richardson]

Putting "your stamp" on a course is not always a bad thing. Keiser, Fownes, Leeds...those are some pretty remarkable "stamps".

The trick obviously is separating the passionate and educated from the, well, not-so.

I echo "green" — please do your best to remove the s from your fellow members keystroke   

[Tom_Doak]

David:

I've made two or three clubs write a Mission Statement, before I agreed to work with them.  It was clear that they weren't all on the same page, and I've got better things to do than play "musical bunkers" with a subsequent architect.  Somerset Hills was one of the clubs I suggested it to ... they took a whole summer to do it, and said it was really helpful to them.

I actually got the idea from Pasatiempo, where there was a mission statement in place before we started.  It was quite a simple one at that:  that no architectural change should be made to the golf course apart except any changes that restored the original MacKenzie course.

Note that they didn't say they necessarily wanted to restore the whole place precisely, just that they didn't want to make any changes in the opposite direction.

[Mike_Trenham]

See the September 2005 Scott Anderson interview from Ran.  Huntingdon Valley CC's Quality Standards document does a good job of laying out the major categories of features and expectations and philosophy for why they should be maintained as such.   Our Green Committee used this as a template a few years ago and it has helped.  This about much more than the master plan.