Charles Joachim a mentor and friend

Charles Joachim and I first met over ten years ago when a local golf contractor asked me to GPS map their bunker work at Champions Golf Club.  Charles was the superintendent for 28 years over both courses, Cypress Creek and Jack Rabbit.  During his tenure he was responsible for a USGA Amateur Championship and five PGA Tour Championships.  He oversaw the complete remodel to Jack Rabbit, and improved the Cypress Creek course in countless ways, including resurfacing all the greens - which includes floating out and shaping the huge historic putting surfaces - they average over 10,000 square feet.

Charles office has been a breeding ground for highly successful superintendents.  One very proud accomplishment of his was how he mentored several assistants who have gone on to manage other highly regarded clubs.  He spent so much time teaching and still answers their questions when they could use great advice.

Charles gave me countless tours of Cypress Creek and Jack Rabbit.  We would talk about all the details we could improve and what was the next priority.  I acted part architect and part stenographer when compiling all of our notes over the years.

I am lucky to have had his help away from Champions over the years too, always adding great practical suggestions and lessons learned.  Fortunately we will continue to work together, as he is helping Don Mahaffey and myself on a current Greens renovation project south of Houston.

Pictured above is Charles, myself and Mr. Jackie Burke Jr., owner of Champions and the 1956 Masters Champion.  It was hard to tell where Charles ended and Mr. Burke began as they are both full of so much history, golf and business knowledge.

Charles will always be a dear friend.  Thank you.

You can find Charles here on LinkedIn if you'd like some help too:

• www.linkedin.com/pub/charles-joachim/46/a90/b58/

Don Mahaffey -- Part 3 -- Supertendent of the Year Finalist

Don Mahaffey was recently selected as a finalist for Superintendent of the Year for 2007 by Turfnet - formerly Golfweek's Supernews. It is an honor well deserved.
Congratulations Don.

Here is a link to the article.
Here are my three favorite quotes:

"Don is a superintendent who not only is a skilled greenkeeper, but also is a dogged and determined project manager who is not afraid to stand up to architects and construction crews for what he believes is best for the golf course and the checkbook of the man paying the bills."

"His steadfast determination has shaved $2 million-$3 million from the project's original $6.5 million anticipated price tag"

"He has been preaching a practical golf course maintenance program as if he were Jim Arthur," Nuzzo said. "The golf course is already healthy and vibrant and is going to play firm and fast."

The picture above is from the approach at 16 the creek wraps behind the green too.
Here are the two past blogs about Don:
Part 1
Part 2

An old friend

Today please notice some changes to the right side of this blog: I've added a separate header to easily find the latest references to each golf hole. Further down on the right I've added the label features - If you click a label - for example: the team label - all previous posts about the crew will be listed - including this one.

While going through and labeling past entries I noticed I missed someone important. Bobby O - pictured above on the right. He was the local farmer that was instrumental with our mass excavations. He spent a lot of time in his nice tractor - Scraper last spring.
Don is on the left, and that is me in the middle.

Bobby O has the best sweet corn I've ever tasted and makes a great picante sauce. I'm looking forward to the day when he returns - it looks very, very different - and I want to hear his thoughts of what we accomplished.

Happy Thanksgiving

The crew put in an extra effort yesterday. Two truck loads of sod -- as can seen by the mud on the front of everyones shirts. The beers tast that much better in a perfect setting sun.

Don -- Part 2 -- Creative too.

Someone doesn’t just become a task master, it is a continual process. Don Mahaffey really excels because he started with himself – caring about and carrying out all the details or insuring they are handled properly – from making sure the 2” irrigation drill bit really is 2” – it wasn’t – to making sure there are no bird baths or puddles – that everything drains even on a small scale.

In my opinion his creativeness is on par with his taskmaster abilities. Although he is very creative in the way that he manages all the details, he is also creative in an artistic sense. I drew detailed plans for the entire golf course, but the intent was to improvise in the field on both a large and small scale. To improve functionality – drainage and irrigation – playability, aesthetics and construction production effectiveness. The detailed shaping and finished playing surfaces are works of art. The fairways are unique and varied, the greens are magnificent -- and they all work functionaly and look like they play great. I think the course is going to be a tremendous amount of fun.

Pictured above, Don is planning the next few days of grassing with Wayne.

I'll have one more part in the near future...
In case you missed it -- here was Don part 1

Don -- Part 1 -- Taskmaster First

Don Mahaffey has been on site for 18 months. He has been a superintendent for a long time and has a thorough knowledge of all matters golf. Work started fairly slow, but as we’ve progressed Don has taken on more and more work – he has been the construction superintendent, maintenance superintendent and project manager – all of those roles get harder as the project comes to completion – and he is steadily getting better and better.

As his work load has increased his taskmaster side has really kicked into full gear – there is just no room for loose ends with his work load. Don “worries” about all the details –- worry means practicality, logical, planned or well thought out. All of which leads to an efficient project that will benefit future ease of maintenance and most excellent playability.

He communicates most effectively with the entire team.
He doesn't mix words.
He will almost always come around to a good idea.
We get to play good cop / bad cop with our vendors -- it can be fun.
Don was nearly an Olympic Water Polo team member – he’ll say he was 3rd or 4th alternate and that is miles away from the Olympics -- I guess I could agree with him...

Sodbuster Wayne

This spring Wayne Hansen (pictured above) was added to the team. Don Mahaffey found a most excellent local farmer with no golf experience and trained him in the world of golf agronomics. Technically he is the mechanic, as he can fix anything. Farmers generally don’t wait for service calls to harvest the fields.

He has been a huge asset and has taken to the job like a fish to water. Since we’ve started grassing Wayne has been keeping a collection of bugs found amongst our crops. Just this week he was instrumental in fending off our first invader – no small task. He has been able to really get into the grow-in and watch every sprinkler and develop his own best practices which are helping our subsequent spriggings. The course is in great hands with Don and Wayne.

Wayne is a bright guy, we’ve taken to discussing gravity over dinner – and beers. He is also very practical – he likes the new Miller Chill, not because it is gimmicky, but because it is easier when they add the lime and salt for you.

Intern Rob

Our first intern is on his way back to school. I was very glad to have the opportunity to help bring on a young enthusiastic student, interested in architecture, to the project – Don did whip him into shape – and especially that is was Rob (you may recognize him from my first post). He got a very diverse education, unfortunately it included the rainiest summer in history, but fortunately it did include several new beer tasting classes. I think it will take a while for him look back on this summer and realize how much learned – but I think it will make an impact for his future. In truth he may have been more interested in finishing the course as opposed to going back to class.

Rob very much enjoyed the camradarier at the end of business hours –- I did mention the beers already…
He sure did fill up the trailer with lots of stuff, mainly guitars and video game systems.
He was most generous -- he lent me his fan the night the air went out –- it was hot.
He is an inquisitive fellow, and at one of the post business barbeques he retained the Wolf Point Arm Wrestling Title –- mostly because I wasn’t available.
Hit ‘em well Rob.

Rainmaker Lupe

When hiring a subcontract there are several important factors – price, schedule and experience. All of which directly relate to the quality of the guy running the job on site –- the irrigation is a most critical component. Depending on the number of crews, the quality of the job can vary depending on who is running the show.

Lupe lead our irrigation installation. I can’t say enough about him. It also was most helpful having a very experienced super –- from an irrigation perspective –- manage the installation. Don and Lupe worked very well together.

Lupe never asked any of his guys to perform a task that he wouldn’t do himself. He was dirty, cold and wet, especially this winter -- setting the intake pipe shown in the backgroung.
*The intake pipe supplies water to the pump station.

Grandpa Joe

Joe Hancock, pictured above, visited our site several times early in the project. He spent a good deal of time on several greens and helped our land forms take shape. It was a good learning experience for me to see someone that patient on the bulldozer. I’ve never seen someone move so little with the blade on purpose before – that is a compliment. We haven’t seen him in a while, especially after we got Jacob on site. Joe really helped get the shaping ball rolling.

Joe really is a grandpa, a couple times over.
He likes Fish Cancun, and can eat the good meal every day – although maybe shouldn’t.
His music is old and he gets bored working in the same place for too long.
He didn’t quite get some of my terms, but that is because no one has ever used the image of a slug to describe a shape before.
He likes practical jokes and I could have shown a few other pictures... but chose the high road. :)
What did he bring back to Michigan with him? That real architects stock the fridge with the good stuff, I don’t think he was used to that one.

We definitely had fun.

Spillway Pat

Pat, who it inspecting from the top, was responsible for our bridges and the spillway – shown above. The pipe is so for draining the lake - there is a valve a few hundred feet away. The spillway is built to handle quite a bit of overflow rain. It will be working overtime tonight. The cement truck poured the cement into the excavator bucket which was then spread across the framing and rebar structure. See there are lots of uses for an excavator. I have a nice photo of the finished flagstoned surface.
Like many of our visitors - Pat liked to fish. We could count on him to be on site often – and then be off looking for a catch. The locals know of most of the hot spots, and do share a few from time to time.

Johnny Scraper

This next theme is the people who helped make the project be a success.
I introduced you to the scraper team previously, and the gentleman above is who banded them together. I affectionately called him Johnny Scraper. He was very bright, and kept the details in order in regard to the excavation. I will say we did make the job easy by showing them where all the fill should be placed – paint by numbers if you will – we staked all the areas using plans embedded in our GPS unit.

Johnny was very interested in everything we did. It wasn’t long before he got the gist of the nuances of golf design – in the above image he is sharing his thoughts on green design.
I am thankful of the work they did, and they were a far cry better than the first person who bid the job – I could swear when that person came to visit the site he was driving a vehicle from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Jacob Cope

It is hard to remember how long Jacob was on site – as he was so instrumental and it seems like he was there the whole time. Jacob was our Shaper. We had other shaping support, but he was the one who really put the course in shape. I was most impressed by his abilities. He worked with detailed instruction, vague instruction, no instruction and dual instruction (when Don and I gave him opposite instructions). He handled everything in stride.
As young as he looks, he has been on helping to build courses for a long time now – he took to the work at a very young age, and his abilities on the dozer are fantastic.
A few important facts:
He likes his tea sweet and ice cream isn't ice cream unless it's Bluebell!
He's not used to walking as much as the architect, especially in mud and he is a true Texan and friend.
I hope to get him back to work for us soon.

New Found Friends

Clayton our dozer operator and Robert our intern have become fast friends. It is especially helpful as it has gotten quite hot this month, and plating sand 10 hours a day quickly becomes tedious. It didn't take long for Clayton to break the young guy in, he now has a mouth like a sailor after only a few days. Clayton has been working on site intermittently since the beginning of the project. He has taken to heart the surrounding natural terrain characteristics and imbued them throughout our course.

They are standing left of the 5th green. The tee is far behind them on this long par 4.