A special place.

As you may have learned, I will be leaving Suffield Country Club at the end of the month. I am taking a new position at Pine Orchard Yacht and Country Club in Branford, CT, and while I am very excited about the new position and the opportunities it offers, I am very sad to leave a club that has allowed me to grow, both personally and professionally.


When I came to Suffield four years ago, I was very eager to become a head superintendent and lead a maintenance department. I had worked extremely hard as an assistant to develop the skills necessary to grow healthy turf and produce superior playing conditions, and yet I was not prepared for how difficult it would be to develop into an effective superintendent. The learning curve that first year was very steep, and I am proud of the lessons learned and the progress we made on the golf course, especially over the last few years.

None of this would have been possible without the support, and patience, of the membership. I hate to think about some of the mistakes I made that first year, but it would be worse if I allowed myself to forget them. The thing I will always remember is that you never lost faith that we were working hard in the best interest of the golf course, and ultimately the membership.

As I spent more time on the golf course, I began to recognize and appreciate some of the things that the members have come to love about their golf course. The subtle features and the unique challenges that are found throughout this quaint little golf course grow on you with every round played. Even more than this, it was the people that I encountered on my countless trips around the course, and how much they appreciated the work we do that has made my time here special.

When the course was in good shape, you always let us know that we were doing a good job. When things were a bit more difficult you went out of your way to tell us that you recognized how hard we were working, and that our hard work and dedication were appreciated. Even when we had to “ruin” the greens “just as they were getting good” people were patient and understanding. For this I thank you, and hope you understand just how much it has meant to me and the guys on the crew.

I am proud of the work we have done, and the progress we have made. Throughout the process your passion for the golf course, and investment in the recent projects have inspired me to work harder and look for every opportunity to improve the course and its condition. I hope you feel that I am leaving the course in better shape than I found it. I regret that I will not be able to complete my vision of restoring some of the features that make this property so unique, but it is time for me to move on to new challenges.

As I prepare to take the next step in my professional development I find myself looking back at all the lessons learned along the way; developing management programs for the golf course, trying to provide a positive return on every dollar invested in the operation, and communicating what we do and why (especially when we want to take down a tree). The greatest lesson I have learned, especially over the last two years, is that everything we do is about the golfer, not the golf course. I have tried to be mindful of this when scheduling and completing our aerations, or when making decisions about accessibility of the course and how we perform our day to day maintenance. While it is obvious that without golfers there is no golf course, it took me a while to realize that a great golf course is made up of the people that play it, not the grass they play on. This is perhaps the most valuable lesson a golf course superintendent can learn, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
I wish you all the best, and want you to know that I am a better person and superintendent for having been part of Suffield Country Club.