Funny how life changes when one encounters a fork in the road. Life hangs in the balance depending on which route is chosen.
Steve Cook, CGCS MG, director of golf course operations at Medinah Country Club in suburban Chicago, came upon such a fork decades ago when he was a student at the University of Illinois. One route led to a dead end career in forestry, the other to an incredibly successful career as a golf course superintendent.
Cook, who started down one path, backtracked and eventually took the other, will retire Nov. 1 after a 40-year greenkeeping career that has taken him around the world.
As a forestry major, Cook thought he had his career all figured out.
"I had an affinity for forestry," Cook said. "I wanted to be a park ranger."
Things changed when he and his classmates were dispatched to southern Illinois for a series of summer courses.
The class was sent to a facility in Paducah, Kentucky, where lodgepole pines were trimmed and shaped into telephone poles and injected with creosote. Cook talked up one of the workers who was covered head to toe in the tarry substance.
"I asked him how he got a job like that," Cook said. "He told me he had a master's (degree) in forestry, and that was all I heard."
That same year, a forestry professor from the university told the class his priority was to get as many students as possible to drop out of the program.
He asked how many people entered forestry to become a ranger, thinking they'd ride a horse through the mountains of Colorado.
"Of course, my hand shot straight up," Cook said. "Then he told us for every job like that there were 1,000 applicants, and we'd probably end up taking tickets at a state park and cleaning bathrooms."
Clearly, it was time to change majors.
Cook, turning right rather than left, changed majors to horticulture, took a summer job on a golf course and the rest is history.
"You could have heard a pin drop in that room," Cook said. "Honestly, it was depressing to kill someone's dream like that. I was waiting this whole time for someone just to show me how to ride a horse. I thought I would be Smokey the Bear."
Forty years later, Cook is set to take another fork on the road when his retirement is official. Cook worked at Medinah under Pete Wilson before taking the job at Golf de Joyenval in France, where he worked for two years.
That led him in 1992 to the Wakonda Club in Des Moines, Iowa, where he eventually met Rick Tegtmeier.
"When he came here, I reached out and told him whatever he needed to let me know," said Tegtmeier, CGCS at Des Moines Golf and Country Club. "We've leaned on each other a lot over the years."
Sharing information has not been limited to agronomics on the golf course. When Tegtmeier has encountered things in his career that are outside of his control, Cook has been there with advice.
"When I've had concerns, he tells me to get over it," Tegtmeier said. "When I need to get my head straightened out, he's my guy."
That approach has summed up much of Cook's career.
I was waiting this whole time for someone just to show me how to ride a horse. I thought I would be Smokey the Bear.
During the past four decades, Cook has seen tremendous advancements in greenkeeping technology, newer and more effective products make it to market and height of cut drop dramatically, increasing pressure on the turf and those who manage it.
Eight years ago, he scaled almost all 22,349 feet of Ama Dablam in Nepal before his party was forced to turn back due to an injury among one of his colleagues.
Whether it was in France, or Des Moines, at Medinah or at Oakland Hills in suburban Detroit where he spent 21 years and oversaw conditions for the 2004 Ryder Cup Matches, Cook always has put people ahead of the job itself.
"I'm most proud of the relationships I've made," he said. "There have been some tough summers, and some low points. The problem with this job is you take your work home too much, and that robs you of your time. It not only robs you, but it also robs those around you. I'm looking forward to occupying my mind with other things."
Cook is looking forward to spending time at his newly purchased home in Durango, Colorado and seeing the country from his Airstream camper.
"I'm going to continue to hike, bike and climb," he said.
"There have been some tough summers, and some low points. The problem with this job is you take your work home too much, and that robs you of your time. It not only robs you, but it also robs those around you. In the end, nobody remembers the green speed for the club championship. In fact, they probably forget it the next day. What people do remember is what you say to them. It's not the events. They're just a moment in time, and there is no lasting satisfaction in that. It's the people you meet along the way."
Steve was honored in March, 2022 as a TurfNet All Star of Turf:
