A who’s who at the Shinnecock maintenance facility

As with any major golf event, it takes a Herculean effort to get the course prepared for the world’s best. A look inside the maintenance hospitality tent was a who’s who of golf course maintenance experts — the Shinnecock Hills crew plus dozens and dozens of volunteers from around the country and even the world.

According to the GCSAA there are 170 volunteers at Shinnecock to support the 40 full-time staffers. At the risk of leaving someone out, I won’t name names (mostly) but it was great to meander around the maintenance tent and see familiar faces, some I see all the time, some I haven’t seen in years. Case in point for the latter: Mike Keohan, superintendent at Sebonack GC, Southampton, N.Y. 

Mike got out of the industry to run his own business for a while; COVID ran him out of business and through a series of fortunate events, Mike is back doing what he’s a natural at, maintaining one of the finest golf courses in the country. (Mike was last seen in Golfdom on the February 2018 cover … along with 70 of his friends.)

There’s so much great golf on Long Island, and the area courses all come together when it comes to the U.S. Open. For an interesting article on this topic, check out this article from 27east.com.

It’s about the people

During the Wednesday afternoon maintenance meeting, the crew grabbed dinner then saw Jon Jennings, CGCS, presented with an award from The Toro Co. Following the presentation was a speech from Rhett Evans, CEO, GCSAA.

Before Evans got going on his talk, he thanked  Jennings for his 40-plus years membership of the GCSAA. He then asked Jennings, in that time, what was something he really got right?

Jennings grabbed the microphone and asked for anyone who worked for him, interned for him or previously volunteered for him, to stand up. About a dozen people quickly rose up. 

“What I’m most proud of is all of you,” Jennings said. 

He then walked over to his group of assistants and addressed them. 

“This group over here, we just had a meeting about tonight, this is the last big thing we’re going to do together as a group,” Jennings said. “Because these guys here are the best assistants in the country, and they’re going to go out and get jobs as superintendents. They’re amazing people. This is the last thing that we’re going to do together that is really monumental.”

Jennings added that he told his assistants to embrace the moment, and that he wanted everyone present to embrace the moment.

“The thing I’m most proud of — and I haven’t done it perfectly my entire career, I’ve learned, I’ve made mistakes… like everybody does, but just the growth and watching people come up in our industry and become successful… and then move on and keep growing in their lives — that’s probably the best part.”

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