[Joe Sponcia]

What does Rembrandt have in common with Donald Ross?  Both were artistic geniuses and with the passage of time, each has only grown in stature.  While no amateur artist would ever consider adding brushstrokes to one of Rembrandt’s masterpieces, the same can’t be said for Mr. Ross’s works of art.  Ditto that for many of golf’s National treasures designed by the likes of MacKenzie, Raynor, Tillinghast, and Macdonald.

Alister MacKenzie and A.W. Tillinghast were especially sensitive to Green Committees altering their work, but with the passage of time, even they couldn’t overcome the lure of the amateur architect.

In recent years, clubs have rediscovered their roots, and have demanded a return to their original design.  The spark for this change usually starts on the very committee that did the damage in the first place…and such is life. 

Green Committees serve an important function, but without a few guiding principles, democracy of the inexperienced usually wins, and the game is usually worse for it.

Is simply being a steward too much to ask?

http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/sponcia-joe-green-committee-primer/

[Patrick_Mucci]

Joe,


There's a significant distinction.


Rembrant's works of art are static, inert and only interact with the observers eye/brain, whereas Ross's work/s of art isn't/aren't static and interact with the golfer's eye, brain and physical efforts.


Had there been no improvement in I&B since Ross produced his work/s of art, I think you'd have a better case.


But once the interaction morphed, via a vis improvements in the I&B, Ross's works of art could no longer remain static if they were to accomplish their intended purpose.

[Brad Treadwell]

Very well done Joe....thanks!

[ChipRoyce]

Great quote I once saw on a sign...


"God so loved the world, he didn't send a committee"

[Jeff_Mingay]

What a great resource, Joe; nice work!


The one's who already know this stuff will be the firsts to read this, and offer compliment. How do we get the numbskulls who need to read this, to read it?

[Alfonso Erhardt]

Excellent guide. Thank you for writing and compiling.

[Steve Lang]

   Great reading and resources to go beyond the primer! 


ps.... Thanks, now do you have anything for the handicap chair to read? 

[Rob Collins]

Great job, Joe, as always!

[Dan Boerger]

A great read. Thanks for sharing. I'm on the Greens Committee at my club and just passed it along to the team.

[BCowan]

Joe,

  Great job. 

[Kevin_Reilly]

Joe, thanks for this.

If I might share one comment, in the prospective committee member vetting section, I think a literal usage of questions 3 and 4 would unnecessarily weed out most prospective members. 

It's been my experience that it would be unusual for a golf or country club member to have read any architecture or agronomy books prior to green committee service.  Rare enough to have read them while on the committee!

Question 4 might serve as an interesting topic, but without first describing the various "schools" to the prospective committee member, it would be difficult to answer.  And (I think) most fine courses will have examples of all three schools, so I'm not sure how this will help with the vetting process, unless of course someone says that the course needs to be more penal throughout.  My guess is that most will lean toward "strategic" in a conversation like this, even though elements of penal and heroic can have their place.

[Ed Homsey]

Thanks, Joe.  Passed it along to the Super and Green Committee Chair at my club.  The Superintendent was very impressed and appreciative.  Haven't heard from the Chairman, but I know that he and the Super are working well together. 

Re vetting green committee members, I've always believed that the best green committee members are those with no particular axe to grind with the Superintendent, who are willing to listen, learn, and contribute ideas to the care and upkeep of the course.  Though, when I was Green Chairman, many years ago, I deliberately brought on-board a fellow who had spent most of his time complaining about the care of the golf course.  As I'd hoped, after a few months, he gradually became a vocal supporter of our Superintendent's work, supportive of our plan to work with an architect in developing a long range golf course master plan, and a contributing member of the committee. 

[Joe Sponcia]

What a great resource, Joe; nice work!


The one's who already know this stuff will be the firsts to read this, and offer compliment. How do we get the numbskulls who need to read this, to read it?

Jeff,

I wish there was a sure fire way to get the 'numbskulls' around, but that is their set point it seems.  Many in my experience don't have a sincere desire to learn and are in fact offended when one on the committee simply shares information (forward a USGA paper at your own risk).  Their lives are essentially a 'full cup'.  The biggest issue I see is people simply don't travel much beyond a few vacation rounds per year.  Playing 99% of your rounds at home nearly ensures a myopic view.  I know in my own experience, once I began to see what others clubs did (even in my home town)…and began playing with players that could articulate many of the attributes we all celebrate, my interest for why and how became insatiable.

My wife is a real estate broker and she often re-tells the story of dumbfounded looks (and comments) people give her when she lists the things that need to improved to be able to move forward and attract buyers for the price they want. It's almost the same scenario as, "your kid is ugly or just doesn't have the talent to start on the team".  It is difficult to unglue objectivity from emotion when they don’t know what they don’t know.

Essentially what I have tried to outline is a way to eliminate armchair architect cronyism, but that assumes there are principles in place that 80% of the group can agree upon from the start.  C.S. Lewis explains the phenomenon better than anyone, but suffice it to say, loosening the reins of control isn’t an easy thing to do, especially when everything you’ve ever believed is challenged.

As Rob Collins said succinctly as we were walking my former club, “If you don’t have width, you don’t have options. Without options, there is no strategy. Without strategy, you have what amounts to a very one-dimensional game that is boring to the scratch player and not very fun for the bogey golfer”. 

That one statement encapsulates a stake in the ground one either understands or doesn't? 

Dunlop White has told me several times, “always start with turf (conditioning)”.  As you have undoubtedly already experienced, the biggest fight 90-some-odd-percent of the time for Green Committees in any town USA is about trees.  I have another ‘In my opinion’ essay in the works to address that very topic… but anecdotally, I can say I’ve that sat through meetings where resodding the same areas over and over again is somehow acceptable, moving tees instead of removing trees is actually debated, and that sub twenty-five yard fairways are what’s called ‘championship golf’. 

Instead of debating the merits of ____________________ (insert topic), the easiest route most take is to shoot the messenger.  Eventually water wears down rock.   

[Brad Treadwell]

Have you been talking to people at my club Joe?  You pretty much summarized everything we are dealing with and of course we are vilified for trying to fix the problems others can't see.  I've even been told by a fellow Green Committee Member that when I forward on educational information like this or from the USGA, I'm "hurting the cause". 

[Don Mahaffey]

Brad, as much as I may get attacked for my comments, you may in actuality be hurting the cause.
if you have consultants, and a superintendent, and they are advising a course of action, and some recently educated members who read a few links now know a better way, the cause is being hurt.

Sorry to interrupt the love fest, but I'm not a doctor if you send me 50 medical links. Good committee members are not made up of experts on the subject, they are made up of critical thinkers who can smell BS, but also know what they don't know. You want chaos, create a committee of recently educated experts.

[Brad Treadwell]

I appreciate the comments Don, and maybe you're correct.  I will say however that we have employed experts that consist of: our regional USGA Agronmist, a quality GCA, and Arborcom, not to mention our Superintendent and all have been challenged by a vocal minority.  If passing along the occasional article or information written by these individuals or experts from yesteryear is hurting the cause, I guess I just don't get it.  Politics was never my calling anyways.   

[Don Mahaffey]

Brad, I don't think being challenged is a bad thing.   If it is, then it sounds like more of a macro club issue vs a sub committee issue.   A little Knowledge is always good, but using people who spent a lifetime gathering it and implementing it successfully is better and they should have enough wisdom to handle being challenged.    I work with consultants of all type and the ones I will not work with again are the ones who feel like they should never be questioned.

[PCCraig]

Joe,


Terrific work. Thank you for writing and compiling this fantastic resource piece.[size=78%] [/size]

[Brad Treadwell]

Brad, as much as I may get attacked for my comments, you may in actuality be hurting the cause.
if you have consultants, and a superintendent, and they are advising a course of action, and some recently educated members who read a few links now know a better way, the cause is being hurt.

I read this a little closer and without getting sidetracked and taking away from Joe's work here, I just wanted to clarify our situation a bit.  We started with hiring "the experts" and those of us that want progress want to do nothing but follow their advice and expertise.  If continuing to forward on similar, educational information to the Green Committee that reinforces what has been introduced by these experts is a negative, then I'm guilty as charged.  But isn't the goal to educate that committee?

Our current issue is we have a small group of people at our club (in a position of power) that have never read a book on GCA, never played a course that "get's it", and loves every open gap on the golf course to be filled with trees.  This is the group of people that thinks they know better, not those of us trying to support the experts we have employed. 

I've played golf at my home course off and on for nearly 35 years.  It was only about 5 years ago a friend turning me onto this discussion group.  I have learned a tremendous amount since then but also have enough self awareness to know that I don't know better than the GCA's (or Superintendent's) out there.  I would think people at clubs like mine would benefit from education, and all I've tried to do is pass that along, not deliver it myself. 

[Thomas Dai]

This is a most interesting piece and a great deal of time and effort has obviously gone into producing it so a big well done.


However, there is a saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I reckon that this saying particularly applies to committee's at golf clubs. IMO the persons who best know how to operate a golf club are the professionals in that trade, the staff. Too often though committee's populated by well meaning folk who have limited knowledge interfere and attempt to micro-manage the expert they employ.


Committee's, if you have to have them, should be small in size and those who sit on them should not be able to do so for long as politics and turf protection normally result. The committee's role is not to tell the expert what to do, it is instead to hire good staff and then stand back and let them get on with the job. No interference, just positive support. If the expert proves to be not up to the job then the committee should not step in and micro-manage him/her they should instead quickly replace him/her and then stand back and let the appointed successor get on with the job.


Committee's should set policy, objectives and standards, supervise and delegate. They should not micro-management and interfere.


A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.


Irrespective of my comments above well done again for writing this thought provoking piece.


Atb

[jvisser]

Dear Joe,

Excellent piece of work and very timely for the discussion we have at our club!

Thanks,

  Jan

[David Davis]

Joe,


A big thanks from me as well! It's a great reference and indeed just might serve useful for our specific situation. Though today the numbskulls are in solid control! Sadly!

[Alan Joss]

Joe,

What an excellent article.
My club are currently in the process of establishing a green committee, your article is a great reference along with the information contained in the Scott Anderson feature interview.
I particularly like the following statement in the list of attributes for the Ideal Green Committee Chairman: Understands the Plight of every Member – Whether he be scratch or a higher handicap, he should be able to easily discern the challenge and common issues all members face, regardless of ability. Making a course play hard is an easy task, but is rarely in the club’s best interest. Making it fair and fun for everyone while still providing challenge is ideal.

[Ryan Coles]

I've seen committees make a big mess of things but on the other side of the coin:

Do we want our local clubs to be sterile, corporate and full of management consultants with so many policies that they have to have a policy, policy?

If I was a prospective greens chairman reading this I'd be wondering if I was volunteering my time or taking a job with a six figure salary.

Leave professionalism to professional staff and get over yourself guys, it's just grass. You're setting your subs for the following year, not managing the national debt.

If we're honest, our criteria for the ideal greens chairman is: 'I want one who agrees with me all the time'.

[Don Mahaffey]

Joe and I had an offline conversation and while I will not go into the details of what he wrote to me, I will summarize my position, and try to explain why I'm somewhat against this desire to teach all the members the finer points of design and maintenance. Obviously my position is one many here will disagree with, but I hope you will see that I am not against committees or members searching out information. 

I view the ideal committee as one that operates at the governance level; they set policy and measure outcomes. I've been fortunate to be involved with a committee or two that worked at this level and it was highly successful.
I've also worked with committees where every meeting seemed like a rehash of turf or design 101, and these meetings were often not what I would call efficient. More like, "so and so does this", or "I read that", or "why don't you do this".  There is nothing wrong with questions and all the professionals involved should be able to present reports that back up their recommendations, but if you really want to get things done, or protect what you have, using professionals with a proven track record that are vetted, selected and managed by a committee that sees their job as one of governance, not operations, is a good way to go.

IMO, well managed clubs have a strong hierarchy and they don't cross lines.   Committee members don't guide day to day activities and employees don't make policy.

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