NCGA Bootcamp Part II: The Transition to GCS

 

Sims, a 2006 bootcamp alumnus when he was an intern at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, was on hand to give this year's class tips on making the transition to head superintendent. He warned attendees not to come into the shop riding high and looking down at their new staff..

 

"Just because you come in as the new superintendent doesn't mean they're going to respect you," Sims said. "You wouldn't do that for someone else, either, and you know it. 

 

"Don't come in and say 'I'm the boss, I'm the superintendent.' As soon as you do that, they're going to stop listening to you because you're going to sound like an idiot. If you have to tell someone what your title is, you probably suck at your job. You have to build up your street cred and earn their respect."

 

Like many, Sims first worked to become a superintendent because he enjoyed working outside. It wasn't until he began working for Pat Finlen in San Francisco that he realized the options available to him.

 

"I didn't know what kinds of jobs were available until I got here and started working at the Olympic Club," Sims said. "I didn't know what kind of earning potential was there."

 

Once he did, he quickly realized he needed a plan to get to the level he wanted to achieve.

 

There are two routes you can go, he said, the first of which is staying tied to a desired market, and the second is a willingness to relocate to just about anywhere.

 

"Someone who is willing to go anywhere already as a 50 times better chance of getting a job than someone who wants to stay in say California," Sims told the group. "If you're open to go anywhere, it increases your chances of getting a job.

 

"You have to be flexible to increase the number of options you have. It's harder now to get a job than it was when I was in your shoes."

 

Sims, a native of southern Illinois, made several moves along his career path between Olympic and Alotian, including at Augusta National, where he was an assistant superintendent. In fact, he moved so many times, many of his colleagues worried, unnecessarily it turns out, whether he would be able to land a gig as a head superintendent.

 

"I moved all over the place," he said. "My buddies thought I was crazy - 'man, he won't stay anywhere.' "

 

Sims, however, already knew where he wanted to go and he had a plan to get there.

 

"To me it was like a competition," he said. "When I competed with other people in an interview, I wanted to make sure the board was more interested in me, so what could I do to make that happen?

 

"Know what you want, and have a plan to get there. You're not playing checkers; you're playing chess."

 

The trick, of course, is identifying the right kind of job for that next career move and recognizing when it is time to move on. 

 

One of the attendees asked that very question, stating they wanted to stay at their current facility until they had the chance to work through a professional tournament.

 

"Don't stay for an event that is years away," Sims said. "Between now and then you could probably work at three other top 25 golf courses and be an assistant at one of them by then."

 

Case in point: Sims described a former co-worker who stayed years at one club, far longer than anyone else. Refusing to break out of that comfort zone is a phenomenon that Sims called "inside the bamboo."

 

"He was there for nine years. He was like your mother-in-law who comes over and never leaves," he said. "He was scared to death to leave, because he didn't know how he could ever function at another course. That's a bad way of thinking."

 

Leaving for the right job at the right time, Sims said, is more important.

 

"Every time I moved, it was for a better position. It was all logical, it was random with no rhyme or reason," he said. 

 

"It has nothing to do with being loyal or not. It's a chess match, and you have to do things to separate yourself from others. I guarantee you, some of you in here will be interviewing against each other."

 

Job-hopping was a question Sims said he had to answer for when he interviewed at Augusta National.

 

"I told them that this was the ultimate goal, to work at Augusta," he said. "The only reason I would have to move from there was to become a head superintendent."

 

And when is that right time to move forward? Good question.

 

"The minute you come into work and feeling like you have plateaued," he said. "When I was doing the same things every day, there was nowhere to go up because I there were people in front of me who weren't going anywhere, that's when I knew I'd gotten everything I could out of a place. That's when I knew it was time to go."

 

That advice was a comfort to Jeremy Nicholas, an assistant in training at Pebble Beach Golf Links. A graduate of Penn State, Nicholas also had worked at other courses, including Eugene Country Club in Oregon.

 

"I've moved around a lot, and I want to constantly progress," Nicholas said. "Each time I move I'm bettering myself. As long as I'm not going backward I'm OK. It gave me some relief to hear that from someone who already has been through what I'm going through."

 

Developing goals and a strategy to achieve them applies to starting at a new job as much as it does securing one.

 

Sims recommends, whenever possible, starting with small projects first before tackling big projects and renovations. He said he has seen many colleagues start a new job with a disaster plan because they excel at construction projects, but struggle in the day-to-day managerial aspects of the job.

 

"Most of the time, you're going to get a 'get out of jail free' card during construction, but don't invent problems. That's not a good way to operate," he said. "Make easy changes first. Changes that are simple and don't cost money."

 

Don't be that superintendent who, with every new job, says the place needs a new irrigation system, new drainage the greens are horrible.

 

"They do this, and then they get stuck and get fired," he said, "because a lot of superintendents are good at construction projects and inventing problems and making mountains out of mole hills to disguise the fact that they are not good at the day-to-day stuff."

 

There will be plenty of times when the problems facing the superintendent are real. It's always best, Sims said, to be honest with club administration when confronting problems.

 

"Be honest, and don't be afraid to say 'I don't know.' The job has to be about honesty and integrity over everything," he said. 

 

"Don't come off as the geeky science guy. Members hate that. Give them the facts, and empower them to make decisions. 

 

"Do what the members want. It's their course, not yours."