Superintendent Steve Sarro shares stories from when members mix up the two Pinehurst Country Clubs
Editor-in-Chief Seth Jones hosted Steve Sarro, now superintendent at Kelly Plantation GC in Destin, Fla., to chat about his previous role at Pinehurst Country Club in Denver, Colo.
Transcript
Seth Jones: Hey everybody. It’s Seth Jones, editor-in-chief of Golfdom Magazine. We’re at the HOJ. If you’re driving by Lawrence, Kan., in your moving truck, you got to do like Steve does, and stop by. Steve Sarro making the move across the country from Denver to Destin, Fla. So, Steve, you know, it’s funny, because, you know, the US Open was just at Pinehurst. You’re at Pinehurst Country Club in Denver, correct? And it’s, there’s, it’s, whenever I would come see you, you know, you say ‘Pinehurst’. Some people think of Pinehurst, of course. And then you’re at Pinehurst, so I’ve got to think that you’ve had some interesting moments where people were like, ‘Oh, North Carolina.’ I’m just curious, like, how many times did you get a phone call where you’re like, ‘Hey, you got the right Pinehurst here?’
Steve Sarro: Yeah, yeah, no, it’s been fun. And actually, Bob Farren and I have conversed a little bit over the years about some of the confusion. I’ve had phone calls on where to park for the Open, irrigation breaks.
SJ: Just tell them, ‘Bob said, yeah, go park over there’. You talk to them.
SS: So one day, this is maybe six, seven years ago, I’m sitting in my office. It was a Saturday, kind of noon. I was getting ready to get out of there, and I get this message on my office phone, and some member who lived near the golf course, there was an irrigation break on the 13th hole and was starting to flood his property. And I’m thinking, ‘God, there’s no homes on the 13th hole, but, you know, he could have been new to the property’. So I took a drive out on the course, looked around, stopped in the golf shop. No irrigation break, thankfully. And so I wrote down the number. I called him back from my cell phone, and obviously it pops up North Carolina, so okay, I called him back and he didn’t answer, but must have figured it out somehow. But it’s just kind of funny how some of those things work out. But yeah, we had and then we had a hurricane a few years ago, and that’s when I reached out to Bob and said, ‘Okay, I think this is important. You should probably know about this one.’ I didn’t want to bore him with all the, you know, the dumb questions, but yeah, so it’s kind of fun to have a little mix up there.
SJ: Yeah, kind of cosmically connected.
SS: Yeah.
SJ: Well, hey Steve, thanks for stopping by the HOJ.
SS: Absolutely wouldn’t miss it.
SJ: Alright, man. Great, everybody. Steve sorrow. I’m Seth Jones, that’s Charlie. Thanks for watching us here on Golfdom TV.
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About the Author: Seth Jones
Seth Jones, a 25-year veteran of the golf industry media, is Editor-in-Chief of Golfdom magazine and Athletic Turf. A graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Jones began working for Golf Course Management in 1999 as an intern. In his professional career he has won numerous awards, including a Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) first place general feature writing award for his profile of World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman and a TOCA first place photography award for his work covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In his career, Jones has accumulated an impressive list of interviews, including such names as George H.W. Bush, Samuel L. Jackson, Lance Armstrong and Charles Barkley. Jones has also done in-depth interviews with such golfing luminaries as Norman, Gary Player, Nick Price and Lorena Ochoa, to name only a few. Jones is a member of both the Golf Writers Association of America and the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association. Jones can be reached at sjones@northcoastmedia.net.
