Quiet conversations on warm days are best held somewhere on a golf course and this point is not open for debate. Not in my world, at least.
In fact, it was a day last week when this opinion passed the test once again. On a day when my passion for pitching and chipping and E-clubbing golf balls in a pulsating sunshine was interrupted for the most glorious of reasons – the chance to speak with a superintendent who is saturated in integrity – my beliefs were reinforced.
The conversation with Rodney Hine, who has been caring for Boston Golf Club since it opened in 2005, might not have solved world problems. But it sure unleashed so many thoughts that bounce around in my mind – most especially this notion about the importance of caring.
Now Rodney Hine popped into my world more than 20 years ago thanks to the most blessed friendship ever, that with a man named John Mineck. Most assuredly a force of nature who mentored me in ways that still resonate, John’s vision for Boston Golf Club in Hingham, Mass., was put in motion and carried out by a long line of brilliant people he swept into his mission.
In possession of an uncanny ability to see into the souls of his friends, John placed a high premium on the commodity of “caring” and in Rob Ketterson (business partner), Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (course designers), Hank Gilpin (furniture-maker extraordinaire), Sarah Stearns (environmental engineer), Ron Byleckie (horticulturist), and Hine (agronomist) it was an all-star cast of people who were the best at what they did and cared deeply for their crafts and for partnerships.
So it was hardly a surprise to watch Hine – even as we discussed our children and our thoughts on topics within the world of golf – casually reach down and pull out a weed. Our conversation flowed seamlessly. Then, another weed. Yet words continued without a blip.
Nothing forced, nothing contrived. Just a modest act to prove that what Edward Albert once said has merit: “The simple act of caring is heroic.”
It brought to mind those days when walks along a very young Boston Golf Club enthralled me. Always, my eyes would follow the way in which John Mineck would nonchalantly collect pebbles and small rocks that are part of the growing-in process but should be removed to promote better growth. He would toss them aside and without pontificating, his actions offering a profound message: Take care of our golf courses.
To be around the artistry of Hanse and Wagner, to study the passion to craftsmanship extended by Gilpin and Byleckie, to marvel at the commitment to quality that both Mineck and Hine demanded of themselves . . . all of it greatly enhanced my appreciation of what goes into building and caring for a golf course.
When you know it is there, it is a beautiful thing, like a head professional named Scott Allen who is often seen with his trusty ball mark repair tool, casually and with little fanfare repairing small pitch marks in the greens at George Wright GC inside the borders of Boston. That he and superintendent Len Curtin care for “the Wright” with relentless dedication would be offered as testimony by a long parade of players.
First blessed with the opportunity to cover the competition upon Monterey Peninsula CC’s Shore Course during the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, then afforded the chance to play it, my curiosity led me to read about the legend of Michael Strantz.
His creative genius was at the heart of Maverick Golf Design, his partner being former PGA Tour player Forrest Fezler, and while their credits are much heralded – Tobacco Road, Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, True Blue Golf Club – it is the masterpiece of a renovation along 17 Mile Drive next door to Cypress Point and Pebble Beach that is awe-inspiring.
A clean tee box is a happy tee box. Actually, who knows if it's happy; but it's clean and that's a good thing. Now do your part.
What jumps out at you as you read about those years (2002-05) when Strantz was consumed with creating such an artistic jewel at the edge of the Pacific is the level of care he provided. Having witnessed first-hand how such care from craftsmen brought Boston Golf Club to life, it moved my spirit to read of Strantz and how those years spent on the Shore Course ran concurrently with his chemotherapy sessions to battle cancer.
A sketch book that Strantz used to pencil-draw his vision of what these 18 holes on the Shore Course would look like. An outcropping of rocks where he could sit and peer out at Cypress Point, watch waves crash, or study the sunset. A camaraderie with Fezler. Priceless moments at home in nature.
Strantz cared deeply for all of that.
Now it may seem to be a stretch to connect Rodney Hine pulling out some weeds, even while engaged in conversation, to John Mineck’s penchant for ridding young fairways of pebbles and small rocks to provide healthier growth, to Gil Hanse’s countless hours in his collegiate years watching golf being played at The Old Course and North Berwick, to Michael Strantz’s sketch book and perch atop an outcropping of rocks on the edge of the Pacific.
But in my mind the dots are easily sewn together to form a blanket of care that we owe the game. Should you accept the notion that “the simple act of caring is heroic,” why not show your appreciation to the efforts of so many who provide so many great golf courses?
Personally, my desire to clean tee boxes of broken and discarded tees could be categorized as obsessive but it’s one that is firmly embraced. Feel free to join the movement, but there is more, so much more – from repairing pitch marks to keeping your carts out of the rough and fescue to raking bunkers to knocking sand off your shoes before walking onto the green to filling divot holes to entering bunkers on the low side.
Simple stuff. But it shows you care.
