Taking vacation to help run one of the biggest tournaments of the year

It takes a special person to take a week’s vacation to go cut grass.

Pam Brown of Dillon is a special person.

Brown is the retired superintendent of the Vail Resorts’ Keystone Golf property. She moved to the mountains from Indiana after college and, professionally, has never left. (She is retired from golf operations and is now is a full-time manager in Keystone’s ski lift operations.)

But you can take Brown away from agronomy, but you can’t take agronomy …. You know what I’m trying to say.

So for the third straight summer, Brown in July traveled to the site of the U.S. Women’s Open to take part in an annual rite. Women who work in turf management at courses all over the country convene at the U.S. Women’s Open to work. They cut greens, help the local crews, do whatever they can to help put on one of the year’s premier events in women’s golf.

Brown first did this in 2021, when the Open was at The Olympic Club in San Francisco. Last summer she went to Pine Needles Lodge in North Carolina. She spent most mornings working with crews mowing greens – she said she scuttled along the edge of the green sliding a protective shield along the edge of the fringe so the mower wouldn’t chew into any of the frog-hair.

“We were helping cut fairways, change cups, working in the wonderful world of divots,” she said.

“I love turf maintenance. I love the game of golf. It’s really cool to see what it takes just to put on a major event like that. Seeing the head superintendent meeting with the USGA every day and seeing what they say and what they want. We had to cut the rough overnight between the practice round and round 1 because it was too long.”

The lure this year for Brown was doubly-strong because the tournament was held at Pebble Beach.

“I think of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and incredible tournaments,” she said before the tournament. “I know I’m going to be the country mouse that goes to big city. In Colorado, just the humidity alone is so low and how it dries out during the day. (There) it may not get over 65 degrees. The ocean and the humidity are far different than anything. With all that moisture the grass does grow a little faster.”

Brown’s career has come a long way. She grew up in rural Indiana, went to Eastern Kentucky University, and came to the rockies to see what mountain life offered. She worked ski lifts her first winter, then got a summer job cutting grass to keep a paycheck coming. When her manager learned she grew up on a farm he gave her more responsibility and pushed her to gain more training.

“For me I’m 60 and for many times I went to conferences I was the only woman in the room,” she said. “To see this evolve and see more women than I ever thought possible, that is what excites me. It’s intimidating if you’re the only woman in the room - especially in your 20s or 30s it can be intimidating. That’s one of the reasons I do it – to be a sounding board for them. I never thought I’d see this.”

Brown is open to more summer trips. The 2024 U.S. Women’s Open is at Lancaster, Pa., Country Club. She’s thinking about making it four trips in a row.

“It keeps my toes in the grass so to speak,” she said. — JIM BEBBINGTON

U.S. OPEN: Pam Brown, center, worked with the local grounkeeping crews at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open in San Francisco.