There are bound to be some mixed emotions that accompany retirement after spending 80 percent of your life in a single vocation.
That is the case for Rick Tegtmeier, CGCS, who retired Oct. 31 as director of grounds from Des Moines (Iowa) Golf and Country Club.
Recipient of the 2017 TurfNet Superintendent of the Year award, Tegtmeier, 65, had been working on golf courses since he was 13 years old when he started moving sod and using a push mower on a daily fee course in his hometown of Rockford, Iowa. Between then and now, Tegtmeier spent nearly 25 years in two stints at DMGCC, including the past 18 as director of grounds, 17 years at Elmcrest Country Club in Cedar Rapids and a year at Hinsdale Golf Club in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.
"It's bittersweet," said Tegtmeier, who upon retiring changed his title on his LinkedIn to Director of Nothing. "All these years, you work for this moment, and then it's over. "No more paycheck. No more solving problems. No more having answers. But, I think I'm ready for it."
From being the host superintendent of the Solheim Cup, to overseeing a four-year renovation of 36-hole DMGCC in advance of the tournament to volunteering at The Open Championship to mastering a half-century-long career filled with change, Tegtmeier definitely did things his way.
"There are so many challenges in this business," he said. "You have to be thick-skinned, and you know me, I'm not thick-skinned.
"Looking back, I can say I did things my way. And I'm proud of that."
Much has changed in those 52 years, including mowing technology, chemical products and fertilizers and the way in which superintendents communicate with each other and seek and share information.
"When I started, you turned a screw on a bar to set the height of cut. Now, it's so precise," he said. "Everything we do is managed to a number. When you ran irrigation, you asked 'are we watering for 10 minutes or 5?' Now, it is based on the volumetric water content of the greens. Everything is based on a number."
Whether it was print magazines and newsletters, online forums, in-person meetings or social media, connecting with other superintendents has been a cornerstone of success, said Tegtmeier, a graduate of Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa.
"I didn't have a four-year degree. I learned everything I needed to know through the school of hard knocks," Tegtmeier said. "It has been a lifetime of learning, and I have enjoyed it all."
Those changes in technology included gradually transitioning from handwritten files to digitizing tasks like soil monitoring and irrigation control. Eventually, he taught himself, and mastered, AutoCad software for mapping the property at DMGCC.
"When I started at Elmcrest in 1989, they told me the maintenance department had a computer," he said. "I had never used one before. It ran on MS-DOS. The first time I used it, I typed a letter and it said 'error.' So, I taught myself MS-DOS. Then Apple came along. Now, there are 10 or 12 computers in the office, and I have three myself, and that doesn't count the one that runs irrigation.
Among the most difficult challenges he has faced in the past 52 years in turf maintenance have been the weather and golfers.
"Mother Nature, that's a battle you can never win," he said.
"There are so many things you face every day. Golfers are one thing I'm not going to miss. You have to eat a lot of crow in this business. We are a very busy golf course. We do more than 50,000 rounds a year. You have to manage the golf course to the masses, not the 1 percent or 2 percent of them who are going to complain."
Throughout Tegtmeier's career, among his goals has been to show off the skills of Iowa superintendents. That effort was put on a global stage in 2017 when Des Moines Golf and Country Club was the site of the Solheim Cup, and other superintendents throughout the state comprised the bulk of volunteers helping that week.
In the wake of that event, he was named TurfNet Superintendent of the Year award (at right accepting the award from Stephanie Schwenke of Syngenta), and among those nominating him for the award was LPGA Hall of Famer and Solheim Cup captain Juli Inkster. In 2019, he was inducted into the Iowa Golf Association Hall of Fame.
"The Iowa guys are a close-knit group," he said. "I wanted to show the Iowa guys that what we're doing is as important as what the big boys are doing."
The event was a smash hit among Iowans, as it set attendance records by attracting 124,426 fans, topping by 4,000 the previous record set at the 2009 Solheim Cup at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
"We set a record for attendance that still stands today," he said.
"I brought women in to work on the golf course. We were doing things in that area before it ever became a movement."
In retirement, Tegtmeier plans to spend a lot of time with his family. His three children and grandchildren all live in the Des Moines area. He also plans to travel extensively with wife of 40 years, Sherry.
"My plan," he said, "is not to be the richest man in the cemetery. I am going to spend what I have worked my life to earn."
Tegtmeier capped his career by volunteering at the 2022 Open Championship at The Old Course at St. Andrews as part of the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association volunteer support team.
Before the tournament started, volunteers were told to avoid the famed Swilcan Bridge and cross the creek over a nearby berm. After the first day, Tegtmeier led a revolt among those on his team to disregard that message.
As the other volunteers assembled the following day, someone asked if he really ignored the missive and crossed the fame bridge.
"I told them I didn't come 3,500 miles not to cross that bridge, so the next day I walked over it," he said. "After that, we all did it."
He definitely did things "his way."
