19th Hole: Glen MacDonald

By |  April 12, 2023 0 Comments
Photo: Golfdom Staff

Photo: Golfdom Staff

Glen MacDonald

Superintendent // Cripple Creek G&CC, Bethany Beach, Del.

Glen, what can I get you? An aged Grand Marnier — something to sip on — with a glass of water.

Tell me about Cripple Creek. The course was built in 1984. We sit on 145 acres. We have a few holes on the Indian River Bay. Being by the ocean, we have a lot of members who use this as their second club. Even though they’re Dr. Jones back in D.C. and Baltimore, they come here and want to just be Mark.

What happens with coastal flooding there? As beautiful as the 90-acre salt marsh is, we get a flood on seven holes once a year. Usually, the greens and tees are good. The marsh grass comes up about 12 feet wide and 18 inches tall. It gets so bad that we’ll push it off the fairways and take 30-plus trailers to our compost area. It’s a chore and we have to shut down for a couple of days.

Tell me about your family. My wife Megan inspired me to go to turf school. We’ve been together since high school. I coach my daughter Mya’s tennis team. She challenged me yesterday. She said ‘I think I got you, old man.’ I showed her I still got it, a little bit. She’s heading to the University of South Carolina in the fall. My son Jack is 14, he’s into wrestling and martial arts. He started working for me on the crew this last summer.

What was your highlight of the GCSAA Show? After that long day at the trade show, I think seeing you and your team by the poolside bar would be in my top five. It’s also good to see the guys I went to Penn State with or worked with in Colorado or Illinois. There’s a good group of guys from around here as well.

Do you have a most memorable day at work? My first day at work here. I’ve worked at all different levels around the country, but the warm welcome I got here, not just for me but also for my family, stands out.

What are your sports teams? Being from Detroit, there’s not much to cheer for in football. I’ve morphed from a Detroit guy to a Philly guy. I did take my son to Detroit recently, we caught a Phillies game on Friday, the Tigers on Saturday then the Lions’ opening day on Sunday.

If you were a guest on a sports talk show, what argument would you be ready to fight for? I picked up something interesting at the Golfdom Summit. There are no superintendents in the World Golf Hall of Fame. There’s room for a superintendent in there. Maybe not Glen MacDonald, but there’s room for some of the guys creating these great conditions. I would definitely go to bat for that.

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About the Author: Seth Jones

Seth Jones, a 25-year veteran of the golf industry media, is Editor-in-Chief of Golfdom magazine and Athletic Turf. A graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Jones began working for Golf Course Management in 1999 as an intern. In his professional career he has won numerous awards, including a Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) first place general feature writing award for his profile of World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman and a TOCA first place photography award for his work covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In his career, Jones has accumulated an impressive list of interviews, including such names as George H.W. Bush, Samuel L. Jackson, Lance Armstrong and Charles Barkley. Jones has also done in-depth interviews with such golfing luminaries as Norman, Gary Player, Nick Price and Lorena Ochoa, to name only a few. Jones is a member of both the Golf Writers Association of America and the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association. Jones can be reached at sjones@northcoastmedia.net.


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