19th Hole: Matt Dachowski

Matt Dachowski (Photo: Seth Jones)

Matt Dachowski

Superintendent // Lake Merced GC, San Francisco

Matt, drinks are on me. What are you having? Michter’s on the rocks if they have it. If not, any decent bourbon will do.

Tell me about Lake Merced GC. We just opened it up about a year ago after a full-course renovation by Gil Hanse. We’ve been open for a year now to rave reviews. I got to play it yesterday. It’s so much more fun than the old course and everybody’s just enjoying it. I feel like we keep getting better condition-wise. We just celebrated our 100th anniversary as we reopened. I’m only the fifth superintendent here in those 100 years.

And you recently became a dad, congratulations! We had twins, Beau and Brooke, who were born in February, so they’re eight months now. That’s why I’m tired right now. They’re a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. They’re really starting to develop and we’re starting to see their personalities. They’re going to be crawling very shortly.

What teams do you root for? I’m a Philly guy, so all the Philadelphia teams … the Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, the Flyers and Penn State.

What is your all-time golf highlight? When I was in school at Penn State, I was in a tournament, I was four over with six holes left to play. I see Joe Pa come walking down the street right next to the course … and then I go birdie, par, eagle, par, birdie, par to finish even and I won the tournament.

You’re from back east. How do you like living in the San Francisco area? I like it a lot. Within a couple hours’ drive in every direction, there’s a ton of nature. I do a lot of fishing and hiking. There are all kinds of opportunities for doing all that around here in Northern California.

What is the strangest thing you’ve seen on the golf course? Last winter, after we opened back up, we had 6 inches of rain and all our drains were backed up. We had water up against an apartment building. It was probably 12-to-15 feet deep backed up and we were trying to open up the drain. My assistant Cade (Cutchen) was out in a wet suit on his surfboard with a big rake trying to find the top of the drain. That was a pretty interesting morning. He lost the surfboard. It ended up going over the fence.