Shedding light on The Shadow

Last year I needed to take a quick trip to Las Vegas. Before I went I reached out to my friend Troy Flanagan, one-time Las Vegas superintendent, now superintendent at Olympic Club in San Francisco. I asked if 
he had any suggestions for courses to visit while I was there.

“You need to go out to Shadow Creek,” Troy said. “Tim is doing some amazing things there.”

I contacted Shadow Creek Superintendent Tim Cloninger. He said he would be happy to show me around the course while I was in town. Tim asked me what I was looking for in my visit. Was I there to pursue a story? I told him I was in town for a different story, but at the same time I wanted to learn more about a local operation.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was just getting to know Golfdom’s 2017 Herb Graffis Businessperson of the Year Award winner. This was my first time having any good luck in Las Vegas, really.

While we drove the course, and with some prying, Tim told me more about himself and the work he’d accomplished in his five years there. I learned about the tagging of all the trees, then the drip irrigation project. Tim asked me if I was familiar with GIS mapping. That led to me asking about his education, which led to me learning about his graduate certificates in GIS and Water Policy, as well as his Masters from the University of Nebraska in Agronomy.

I’m good at being nosy and affable — it’s my job.

Back home, I reached out to Bill Kreuser, Ph.D., at the University of Nebraska (we seem to be speaking at a lot of the same chapter meetings lately) and asked him if he thought Tim was worthy of the Graffis Award. “He’s impressive… his critical thinking, the ideas he has and the way he values his career,” Kreuser told me. “I think you have your Graffis Award winner.”

After some discussion back at Golfdom headquarters, I called Tim and asked if he would be willing to accept the award. He was flattered, and accepted. Then I got to work.

I learned that this St. Louis kid not only is well educated but also well traveled. He went to Australia, Mexico and the Cayman Islands to learn more about the fine art of growing turf. The gig in the Cayman Islands sounds most interesting. He took a job as a superintendent at a course that was on death row. Management asked him to keep it looking good for as long as he could with the materials that were left.

It was there that Cloninger learned the art of doing more with less. But it was his collective experience — here, abroad, in a classroom — that led him to where he is today.

“I talk to some assistants and I say you have to be willing to take a risk younger in your career to get good experience,” Cloninger told me. “The days of just being a good assistant for three or four years then moving on to a superintendent job… It can happen, but you can also be an assistant for 15 years. My advice is don’t be too picky, and do whatever you think improves your skill set and gives you more responsibility.”

It’s clear to me that Cloninger — only 34 years old — has seen a lot, learned a lot and now has done a lot.

The title of the story is a reference to The Shadow, the classic crime fiction character. Part of the introduction to The Shadow radio program was, “The Shadow knows.” Yes, I’m a comic book geek at heart, and no, I don’t think everyone will get the reference. But after getting to know Cloninger and seeing his operation, I’m happy to get his good work out of the shadows and into the limelight.