For the past 20 years, Tom Hsieh has led efforts to restore the historic Gleneagles Golf Course at McLaren Park to some level of its former glory, and he has had to come up with some inventive ways to do it. Each year, it seems as if he has to come up with a new plan to keep things running.
The nine-hole municipal course in San Francisco has defied the odds for survival so many times, thanks to the innovative ways Hsieh (right) has implemented to overcome the many challenges that such an operation encounters on an almost-daily basis, that Gleneagles appears to have more lives than a cat.
"It's been difficult," Hsieh said. "And there is always uncertainty of what might happen."
When Hsieh took over management of the golf course in 2005, he lacked the resources and support from the city to get it into shape that would attract golfers and keep them coming in the door, so he turned to some private clubs in the area to help out, and they did with equipment, programs, product and personnel.
Like many places, Gleneagles has experienced the ups and downs of the post-pandemic world. The ups included heightened popularity and increased play. The downs include but are not limited to the challenges of finding enough help. Hsieh could not hire more help, at least not much more, even if it were available. The resources just are not there. Still, golfers have their demands, and they will go elsewhere if they do not believe they are getting enough value out of their $25 greens fees.
His solution now is to cross train employees so that anyone can help out almost anywhere in a pinch.
"I'm grateful to have an excellent group of employees who care as much about Gleneagles as I do," Hsieh said.
It was not always an all-hands-on-deck philosophy at Gleneagles.
Hsieh entered into an 18-year lease with the city in 2005. Today, he is in his third successive year of a year-by-year extension.
"That makes it difficult for employees," he said. "It makes it difficult to make long-term plans. And it's difficult for the golfers who love to play Gleneagles."
More than a decade ago, when he needed a long-term solution for on-course labor, Hsieh worked with the city to bring trainees in a union-backed apprenticeship program to work at Gleneagles.
That program paired the Laborers Community Training Foundation and Northern California District Council of Laborers, Local 261 with the golf course to teach career skills to residents of one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods while providing the 62-acre Gleneagles with a pipeline to cost-effective labor.
The program was a favorite project of former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. When Lee died in office in 2017, the apprenticeship program went with him.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, myself included, have been pulling shifts on the golf course to get debris into a chipper, and limbs off the ninth green or off the roof of the building to get back open. That's what it takes to run Gleneagles.
"When he died, that program no longer was a priority, and it needs support from the mayor's office," Hsieh said. "Ed Lee was a great friend to golf. He had a standing tee time at Harding Park every Saturday morning.
"I would love to start that program again: The golf course gets labor while we help train people to go into the workforce. It would be a win-win."
Then came the pandemic. Golf ran the spectrum of a banned vs. approved activity in California. Initially, nothing was allowed to open, and the Internet was rife with photos of families picnicking on fairways and greens and children turning bunkers into their personal sandbox as people looked to get outside.
To keep the course afloat, Hsieh raised $35,000 through a Covid-era GoFundMe initiative.
Eventually, golf became an approved outdoor activity, if not the only approved outdoor activity.
People were not permitted to congregate almost anywhere except a golf course. But while the pandemic created opportunities for golf, it also created problems, namely in the way of labor issues. In response, many properties are learning and leaning more on high-tech advancements like drones, robotic mowers and other forms of autonomous equipment to help meet labor challenges without compromising turf quality.
Gleneagles is not one of those places.
No one is going to mistake Gleneagles for its municipal siblings Lincoln Park, Sharp Park, TPC Fleming Park, Golden Gate Park and TPC Harding Park, the site of the 2009 Presidents Cup and the PGA Championship in 2020.
Here, innovation is limited to finding a way for a front-of-the-house employee to also help on the golf course.
The Jack Fleming design opened with great fanfare in 1962 as the most expensive nine-hole course ever built. Fleming was an associate of Alister MacKenzie, who teamed with the latter on projects like Cypress Point in Pebble Beach and Sharp Park, another San Francisco municipal track.
That much-heralded opening was a long time ago, in more ways than one.
That makes it difficult for employees. It makes it difficult to make long-term plans. And it's difficult for the golfers who love to play Gleneagles.
By the 1980s, the course fell into a state of neglect and disrepair thanks to aging infrastructure and rising crime in the surrounding neighborhood on San Francisco's forgotten southeast side.
Hsieh, a San Francisco native who has spent his career in and around local politics, took over managing and operating the course in 2005. Making a go of it has not been easy. San Francisco's recreation and parks department does not invest in the city's golf courses, and resources in the way of equipment, product and personnel never have been in abundant supply at Gleneagles at any point in the past two decades.
As a campaign advisor who also supports local civic projects like zoos, libraries and senior citizen initiatives through fundraising ventures, Hsieh knows what it takes to get things done. He has invested a lot of his own money in making upgrades to the course and other infrastructure on the property.
He also invests a lot of brain power in finding new ways to tackle old problems.
Currently, the golf course maintenance staff consists of superintendent Ishmael Herrardo, who also is Gleneagles' mechanic, and a part-time greenkeeper.
The bartender is also Gleneagles' starter and on his off days traps gophers on the golf course. He also mows greens when Herrardo is away.
The course has suffered a lot of tree damage during the past two winters. Each event leaves debris scattered about the property and a total of 34 mature trees as old as 80 years or more, have been toppled by high winds (shown at right).
"Everyone, and I mean everyone, myself included, have been pulling shifts on the golf course to get debris into a chipper, and limbs off the ninth green or off the roof of the building to get back open," Hsieh said. "That's what it takes to run Gleneagles.
"We cross-train as much as we can to make things work. It's not ideal, but it's working."
Indeed it is.
Gleneagles has enjoyed the same increased popularity and rise in play that have defined the post-pandemic industry.
"More people are discovering the magic of golf at Gleneagles than we saw at pre-pandemic levels. I've never seen as many women playing here as I have in the past five years," Hsieh said. "Play is up here by about 20 percent. We get wild compliments for our greens. The course looks amazing. It's the best it's been in decades. But it hasn't been easy."