Remember the bad penny?

As I sit down to write this column, which I guess amounts to my return of sorts to the golf course maintenance industry, it suddenly occurs to me that it’s exactly four years to the day since I left the industry. Somewhere, I’m sure, someone is saying something about the bad penny.

I spent about a quarter of my life writing about and advocating for golf course superintendents, first at the late Grounds Maintenance magazine, then as managing editor, editor and editor-in-chief of Golf Course Management magazine at GCSAA.

A lot of my time in the business coincided with golf’s go-go years of the 1990s and early 2000s. Rounds were up then, course openings were through the roof, and money flowed into golf and its support activities — such as maintenance — like there was no tomorrow.

But there was a tomorrow of course, and when it came, it hit golf in the same way it hit just about every other business. The downturn in the economy turned down the fire that had been lit under golf for so many years. It worked its dark magic from rounds played to individual course profitability, to the loss of superintendent positions, and eventually to me.

I spent some time after leaving the golf world wondering what I could do that I’d enjoy as much as I enjoyed working in the game and with superintendents. Many of you know the feeling of being in the thick of things, whether it’s getting ready for a big tournament or being part of a group that helps decide what your industry’s next big step will be. In the forefront, on the front lines, however you describe it, there’s an adrenaline rush to being able to influence events or affect change. How do you give that up?

I’ve realized that you don’t necessarily have to give it up, but you might do well to let go of generous portions of ego, those portions where you say, “I once did this, so I can’t go back now and do that.” A number of superintendents I know have jettisoned some ego and benefitted greatly from it. Take for example superintendents who have taken assistant superintendent positions at larger or more prestigious courses, and eventually found themselves in the top job.

I stayed in the publishing business for a couple more years, but compared with my superintendent-service positions, work was just not as much fun. And fun in your work — as I learned in my four years away from the golf course industry — means everything.

So after three and half decades in journalism, I changed. My wife and I decided to rearrange where we are and how we approach life. She retired. I retired, or semi-retired as it turns out.

Instead of writing this in a bustling office, I’m at my home computer, perched on a hill overlooking a 43,000-acre lake called Table Rock. Good times, right? You betcha. But that thing about participation in and connection to something you’ve spent a quarter of your life doing is a grabber that doesn’t seem to want to let go. So I was pleased when Golfdom Editor-in-Chief Seth Jones invited me to lunch and asked if I was interested in becoming involved with the magazine.

As an editor-at-large I’ll be — what? — a large editor? I’m really not sure yet, but I do know that I’ll be helping out with the magazine’s content and I’ll write occasionally while keeping my semi-retired credentials.

But most importantly, I’ll be reconnecting with so many of you in an industry that I was proud to serve for so long.

I hope to see many of you in San Antonio in February. If it’s been so long that you don’t recognize me, just remember — I’m the one who looks like the bad penny.