Musings from the Ledge: First impressions define entire golf experiences

My last Musings was about speaking at the Australian Sports Turf Managers Association conference in Sydney, but the journey there deserves a story of its own. After accepting the invitation, my next question was how do I get there?

Being an airplane nerd and knowing that the Airbus A380 jumbo jet was out of production and slowly going out of service, I wanted to fly on one before they went away. So, I looked at trying to find a flight from the U.S. to Australia on one. 

That option had me fly east out of Newark to Singapore, where I’d pick up the A380 to Sydney. That first flight is the longest nonstop flight in the world with an Airbus A350, which crossed two more things from my airplane list. The bonus of all of this was that plane normally seats about 360 people but only carries about 170 split up between premium economy and business class, so it ended up being much cheaper than going west. However, what completely sold me was Singapore Airport offers free city tours for people with long layovers to encourage people to come back there on vacation. 

On the way home, we got on the tour and went into the city. I’ve always known Singapore to be a very clean city, but I wasn’t expecting what we saw. The wow factor started immediately as we drove in on the tour bus. 

The highways were lined with flowers, the medians, the overpasses, the ramps — all perfectly maintained, no trash, neat and tidy and color everywhere. The city was the same: The streets and buildings are immaculate, everything is pristine and perfect from the historical area to the famous marina area. Everything you looked at, everything you touched, everything was perfect (or at least they made it look that way on a state tour!). 

Of course, my superintendent brain kicked in and thought about how important that is in golf. One of the final things I did at LedgeRock was improve the first impressions when someone arrived. Once I had the course “finished,” I really wanted to improve the first impression from the time someone entered the property to the time they set foot on the first tee. The presentation had to at least match the quality of the course. 

The new horticulturalist improved the garden areas, such as making the entrance rock and sign pop, which immediately upped the presentation as you drove in. The club already had an impressive entrance as the course reveals itself as you crest a hill heading to the entrance bridge, but from there it went to a boring parking lot. The original concept was to make it feel like you were entering a country house, so we added white fences to invite you in and subtly direct traffic. 

The next stop was the bag drop, where we added cobblestones to improve the wear on the high-traffic areas — sometimes turf is not the solution! The next problem area was the wear by the range tees from the cart and people traffic being concentrated along the back of the driving range mats. An irrigation pond repair disrupted that area, providing an excuse to really do it right. A fence was added to hide an ugly transformer (and provide an area to hide unused tee/teaching accessories), cobblestone curbs were added and, finally, the worn turf was replaced with EcoPath, a rubberized material to make it look like one big mulch bed, which combined with the curbing, eliminated the wear points from the traffic. 

From the moment you drive in to the time you reach the first tee, it feels warm, clean and comforting — setting the tone for the day, just as it did in Singapore. First impressions help shape the entire experience, so little things that might otherwise stand out during the day go unnoticed. And remember that first impression is the final impression too, leaving you with a lasting, positive impression of the day.