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Superintendent Spotlight On Max Morgan, CGCS

October 26th, 2007

By the time his service in the US Navy was coming to a close in 1980, Max Morgan knew it was time to make a career choice. Reluctant to transition into a job at a nuclear power plant, as his training would suggest, he decided to try something new. During a career counseling session, one of the other attendees made an offhanded joke that there was “an association for everything you can think of.” He didn’t know it at the time, but this comment marked the beginning of his journey down a long path that would lead him to the greatest heights of a profession.

“The only thing I knew I really liked to do was play golf. So after the class I went up to him and asked if there was anything in his book for greenskeepers. He said, ‘Well, here’s one. The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.’ Morgan wrote to the GCSAA for guidance and followed their advice that he go to school for training, deciding on Horry-Georgetown Technical College in Conway, South Carolina. It turned out to be a fateful choice since the campus sits a short 15-minute ride up US-501 from the heart of the Grand Strand, resort town and golf mecca Myrtle Beach. “I fell right into it, and the first thing I noticed was there was a golf course on every corner. And now we have three times as many as we did back then.”

His first job was working the course at Pine Lakes Country Club, and every position since has also been in a resort setting. “I definitely have a lot of resort background, so I am very in tune with what golfers expect out of a resort golf course.” In many ways it is exactly that, knowing what a patron wants and expects in exchange for their greens fee and giving it to them at a world-class level, that allowed Morgan to achieve his current position as the Director of Golf Course Maintenance Operation for the Myrtle Beach National Company.

Knowing The Golf Course And Leading By Example Have Been The Keys To Success

With a collection of nine premier golf courses to oversee, one might feel it safe to assume his job description changed significantly along with his job title, but from Morgan’s perspective that wasn’t the case. “My job is almost the same, except I have nine courses instead of one.” With all the ongoing tasks required to keep even a single course healthy and manicured for visiting golfers, many expecting to play the best round of their season, it would seem too much to expect any one person to stay on top of, but good work habits established over the course of more than 25 years working as a professional turfgrass manager make it possible. “I always show up at work when the guys show up. It helps me learn about the day-to-day operations of each of the golf courses.” When he’s there he isn’t merely observing. “My philosophy is that you never send anyone out there to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. Whether it’s raking bunkers or weedeating pond banks, I feel to be a good superintendent you have to be the best at every one of those jobs on your golf course. And it’s a good, friendly competitive thing; it’s not a ‘you better do it or else’ kind of thing.”

Over the years the use of competition as a team-building element has not only fostered camaraderie among course workers, it has served to make the day more enjoyable for all involved. Morgan’s challenges to see who could mow the straightest lines brought interest to an otherwise monotonous task, and on Saturday mornings his low-stakes walk mower races make staffers more enthusiastic about their work. “We’d each put a dollar in the pot, and whoever got done first would get the money. But you had to do the job right. The guys would go out and hustle around, and one of them would win the four dollars. I’d always kid them, ‘How come you can get done by 8:15 on Saturdays, but it takes you to 8:45 during the week?’ But it was fun.”

Using Golfers To Maintain The Course Has Made For Better Workers And Results, Playing Golf Has Made For Better Understanding and Opportunity

An in-depth understanding of the natural forces at work on a course are seemingly more important with each passing golf season, but one person’s efforts alone cannot cultivate a golf experience without rival. For that you need a group of workers that gives maximum effort and is invested in the results of their labor. This is no short order under any circumstances, but Morgan has found a way to significantly better his chances of finding just such an individual. “I try to find golfers almost exclusively because we use free golf as a benefit, and I have found that the golfers care so much more than the non-golfers, even in mowing straight lines or picking up cigarette butts. And the job means more to them because golf is very expensive to play and to practice.”

Morgan agrees that another important way a superintendent can learn about their course is to get out and play it to see it from the golfer’s perspective. But there is another, less obvious benefit from being out on the fairways. “If nothing more, if you don’t play golf you can’t play a competitor’s golf course around town and see what is out there. That’s one thing that being a golfer brings to the table. When we have meetings at other golf courses you get a lot of exposure to what else is out there, and that really helps us and our company. For us to see that maybe in some areas we are not as good and need to get better, or if we see that a course isn’t as nice as ours it makes us feel better about our work.”His personal enthusiasm for the game clearly has not waned since it inspired him to begin a career as a golf course superintendent despite never having worked in the field. If anything, it seems his appreciation for the game has been magnified by his love of the work he does to provide the best experience possible to his customers. And people notice. “Our courses are resort golf courses, but we have members, and we have staff members, and they all will recognize you for your golf skills as well as for your position. Scratch golfers normally get the most attention around the club, and the same is true for a superintendent. If they are a very good golfer people are going to know about that and respect him for it.”

In The World Of A Golf Course Superintendent The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

When asked how the golf course industry has changed since he first got involved more than two decades ago, Morgan’s answer is perhaps a little surprising. “The career side is exactly the same, in my opinion, because you still have to go to work and do the fundamentals.” And those basics cut across every market and apply to every golf course in operation anywhere golf is played. “You have to manage people correctly; you still have to turn in payroll; you still have to pay invoices on time; you still have to train and discipline people; you still have to hire. Most of what we are doing is the same, it’s slightly different, but in 20 years we’re still going to have to do the same things.”

That the work being done is the same everywhere might suggest that the results would be similar across the board, but clearly some courses are in better condition than others, regardless of budget or geography. So what sets the cream of the crop apart from the pack? “The agronomics are not the most difficult part of the job. It’s the managing of the facility and the people is the most difficult part of the job. You have to learn what N, P and K are and about air and root zone, but once you get the basics, from then on it becomes how do you do the basics perfectly? How do you do the fundamentals as economically as possible?”

In Morgan’s case the answer goes back to his work force and knowing his customers. By building a crew filled with people that care about their work, enjoy their jobs, and see the course from the player’s perspective, the rest falls into place. “There’s really not a lot of voodoo and magic that goes on at a golf course, it’s mostly just fundamental maintenance. If it is done correctly, and with golfers in mind, you’re pretty much good to go.”

Clearly there is an evolution at work within the industry, golf today is not what it was in 1980, but it has been more the result of gradual improvements as opposed to quick shifts. “Over time we’ll get some better mowing equipment; we’ll get some better pesticides; and we’ll get some better sprinklers. When you look back 20 years it seems like there were dramatic changes in the industry, but from year to year they occur very slowly.”

An Increased Awareness Of Chemical Use Has Impacted The Work Being Done, But Not To The Extent Some Might Believe

Everyone agrees that the better understanding of the science underlying the work done by superintendents and maintenance crews around the country has been very positive for the growth of the profession, but not all the modifications to turfgrass products have been beneficial when it comes to the workload and challenge of maintaining a golf course. “The most dramatic changes are the pesticides we use. They are safer now for the sprayer and the golfers certainly, but they are more specific, so it seems we have more individual pests than we used to. We have weeds we didn’t used to have because when we used to blanket spray the golf course we probably killed all our rye grass and a lot of the broadleaf leaves that we have now as a result of shifting over to pre-emergent herbicides.”

But for Morgan any added challenges that may have come about due to the development of increasingly more environmentally-friendly chemistries is clearly worth the time they require to address. And he believes the same holds true for his peers. “I don’t know any superintendents that don’t care about the environment. We like our fish in our ponds and our waterfowl; we like our snakes and reptiles. You know, that’s a part of the neat thing about working on a golf course. I certainly don’t want to do anything to jeopardize their well being, and I don’t know anybody that would. Environmentalism is very important, and I think it is an inherent part of this job.”

His belief that superintendents are not the environment abusers that many people outside the industry take them to be is nothing new. “I never knew of anybody that didn’t care. I guess maybe it just gets more exposure now.” The fact that more attention is now being paid to the work has helped to change this negative perception somewhat, but Morgan believes a greater understanding of the realities of how golf courses are actually maintained is still needed. “People don’t appreciate how much pesticides cost; if they did, they would realize we can’t afford to spray everything wall-to-wall all the time.”

The Secret To Success For Career Advancement Is Not Really A Secret At All: It’s The Golden Rule

When asked for a bit of advice on how to get ahead in the field, Morgan quickly returns to personal relationships, answering that you have to treat people both above you and below you in the organization with respect and dignity. “You’ve got to treat them as human beings that have the same issues you have at home. Other than that, you have to educate them; you have to provide them with the tools to do the job right.”

Entry Filed under: Superintendent Spotlight