By Bruce Grigsby
Troy Youngren, head pro at The Links at Cobble Creek, puts it this way: “I thought I had a good superintendent in Denver, but Paul is the best I’ve ever worked with.” Paul Heide is the superintendent at Cobble Creek and describes his work there as “addictive, bordering on an obsession.”
Heide, 41, has been the groundskeeping superintendent at Cobble Creek from day one at the local course, having previously worked at Fairway Pines and before that in pretty much every facet of golf in his native Michigan.
Starting with the assumption that golf course maintenance is more complex than it appears, upon actually checking into things, it is immediately obvious that the complexity goes far beyond the initial assumption. The issues confronting a course superintendent include directing a staff of employees and deciding how to allocate budget, not to mention being an expert in chemistry, agronomy, entomology, ecology, with a little bit of being something of an onsite emotional therapist for golfers—sometimes a delicate group of folks.
“Why don’t you keep this course like they do at Augusta National for the Masters?” “There are too many dry spots on the fairway.” “I had a good round going until I landed my ball in a puddle on No. 8 because you are over watering!” “These greens are too slow when you aerate and top-dress.” Paul Heide says that he has learned over the years not to take questions like this too personally and tends to tell himself that golfers are excited about their game. When a beavertail sized divot goes unreplaced or a ballmark goes unrepaired, he credits the golfer with being caught up in the moment of anticipation for the next shot. A generous approach, to say the least.
Among the things he and his staff consider a high priority is being responsible to not only the golf course and its patrons, but also to the environment. “When ponds and creeks get overgrown with aquatic vegetation (often because of fertilizers from upstream sources),we could use toxic herbicides to attack the problem, but we won’t send those chemicals to the farmers downstream,” Heide said. “We’ll make the extra effort to muck out the vegetation by hand,which is not always the industry standard.”
Heide gives high praise to his entire crew for their work ethic and initiative, including spray tech Richard Heath and assistant Chris Carter. According to Heide, “Rich is always experimenting to find ways to use the least amount of herbicide to get the job done, often less than the manufacturer’s label rate. Chris makes continual efforts to upgrade our irrigation system, ultimately resulting in water conservation.” Whenever possible he and his crewuse spot solutions for watering and specific problems instead of taking a blanket approach. “It takes extra effort, but we think it’s just the right way to do things.” He is proud of the fact that they always leave a buffer zone free of fertilizer near waterways to prevent leaching into the greater environment. He characterizes his job as a combination of “science and art.”
As a case in point, Heide is a big advocate of incorporating native grasses. They are both naturally acclimated to local conditions and require less artificial support, but they add aesthetically to the course and support the game by providing rewards for keeping the ball in the fairway and properly penalizing a misplayed shot.
Heide started in the golf business just after graduating from high school. His bachelor’s degree is from the University of Eastern Michigan, and he says that he is always studying the science of turf and water management in order to apply it to the art of course maintenance. He clearly loves the job, pointing out how good it is to be able to work outdoors in a beautiful environment, but he will also confess to a paradox: “I don’t sleep well during the summer. I want to provide a perfect product for the golfers, which is obviously impossible. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night worrying about the pumps or sprinkler heads or the computer system, or even the weather, which always seems ready to go wrong at the worst time.”
But then, he’ll tell you that when winter comes and things slow down, he will be counting the days until spring and the grass starts to come back to life. “The thing I like best about the job is stopping on the course and hearing a foursome happy and excited because someone made a long putt—seeing people have fun on our course, our baby.” Asked what he would like to be doing in 20 years, he thought a moment and said, “Probably working on a golf course and at the end of my shift, reporting a problem to the super that I won’t have to solve at 3:30 in the morning.”
