14 minute read
Member Spotlight
Dan Johnson
Golf Course Superintendent at Jackson’s Old Hickory Country Club in Old Hickory, Tennessee
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Dan Johnson is a current TTA Board member and has previously served as MTGCSA president. He invited us to visit him at Jackson’s Old Hickory Country Club and shared some great insight about the industry, building and keeping a great crew and the highlights of working as a golf course superintendent.
How did you decide to become a golf course superintendent and what was the path to your current position?
I’ve been working in this industry for 23 years now. I started at age 14 weed-eating and changing cups at my local country club. I grew up in upstate, northern New York. I have always done golf in some capacity from outside on the grounds to picking up range balls to working in pro shops and ultimately as I got closer to college it was 100% out on the course. I played golf for two years in college down in Louisiana and worked at a couple of clubs there. After Hurricane Rita I came to MTSU and finished my last two years of my business degree there. I took an assistant superintendent job down in Dalton, Georgia at The Farm Golf Club. I worked there for four years. During that time I did the two-year online Penn State Turf degree.
I’ve had the privilege to work under some really great superintendents here in Tennessee and also in New York. I worked for Michael Brownlee at Stone River for a year and a half, and Tim Parsons, who is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I worked for him for a year and a half at Riverbend Country Club. Then I worked for Trey Cutshall – four really valuable years for me down in Georgia. I owe a lot to all three of those in different ways – me growing as a professional and quite frankly, me growing up.
I’ve been here ten years. I’m just incredibly blessed to be here, I’ve seen the lowest of lows and truly it’s been special to be part of something that’s on the way up. I’ve worked for some really great people here at this club, I owe a lot to the people who hired me here. Joey Hickman, the golf professional who’s no longer with us, was one of the guys who hired me. Another gentleman named Ron Graham, who’s also part owner at Champion’s Run down in Eagleville, Tennessee. We were always broke or struggling and then that’s where Steve and Leah Smith and their other business partner who’s now deceased, Allen Ross, bought the club three and a half years ago and transitioned it into something great. Their vision is great. It’s a process, construction is ongoing, every day year-round, so we’re always under construction and will be for a number of years to come. I want to be here a long time.
Dan with his crew
What is the history of the club, and where is it going from here?
It was founded in 1926 by Dupont and it’s President Andrew Jackson’s piece of property. It’s always been known as a blue collar, working man’s country club. The membership here, the people are great. They treat me well, they treat my staff well, there’s no uppity-ness. My first day here, Jim Hickman said to me, “Welcome home.” That was our member slogan back in the day, and it truly was like one giant family.
Since the Smiths have taken over, our membership has continued to explode and we have a lot of unique clientele. Basically every singer, songwriter, or musician in Nashville who is a golfer is a member here, then also we get some professional golfers out here – John Daly has been out here numerous times. We had the opportunity to do some projects out on the golf course together. We built a set of new championship tee boxes and that was neat to work with John, who has been my favorite golfer since I was eight years old.
Staff wise, I’ve got such a good group of guys. I run anywhere from ten to fifteen employees. Ten to twelve year-round, two or three seasonal. I try to cross-train everyone. When I worked on a crew, I didn’t like doing the same thing every day. I guess part of my philosophy is that my guys know that they might be weedeating all day Monday, but then Tuesday they’re mowing fairways and Wednesday they’re mowing greens, Thursday they’re mowing tees, Friday they’re raking bunkers. That way it spreads the load on the entire crew. I take a lot of pride in that.
Is it a mix of excitement of going into your busy season and also realizing it’s about to get crazy and you’re about to be working around a lot more golfers on the course?
It is. Since the pandemic and our unique clientele of having a lot of musicians, we’re busy all the time now. We went from, back in the day, doing 18,000 rounds a year to where we’re doing 28,000+. The singers and songwriters, they’ll work from seven in the morning until one or two o’clock, so obviously they’re out here every day. There’s probably 30 or 40 of them total.
We’ve been busy with all the construction, doing cart path work, we just built a brand new bathroom/halfway house out on the course and landscaping it. We built a new driving range net, among other projects. So we’ve been under construction almost every day. It’s fun, it’s a great problem to have because we’re improving. It’s all gone well and I’ve got a good crew to take care of the pieces.
Have have you dealt with any of the labor challenges that we’re hearing consistently across the board, where it’s hard to find and keep good staff?
I am blessed that I have good retention. Crew dynamics can change, but I think most of the guys on my staff have been with me between three and ten years. I have a couple newer employees who have done well to this point – we’ll see if they can thrive. It’s getting better in terms of clubs finally starting to pay people a little more to where it’s a little more attractive. But it’s tough to make living. I lot of my guys, when the pandemic hit, lost their second jobs, and it put a real crunch on them financially. Steve and Leah have been so great, have stepped up numerous occasions and have given me what I need to retain good employees. So myself and my two assistants, Randy McClanahan and Sundance Lawrence, we demand a lot out of the guys, but we really want everyone to be close and feel like they’re part of something. You’ve got to get creative in ways to keep employees in this business because the pay is not that great unless you’re in one of the higher up positions. The Nashville market is flat out tough, the cost of living has exploded, as everyone knows, so we’re really happy and blessed to have the guys I do have. Hopefully we can keep them for many years to come.
Jackson’s Old Hickory Clubhouse
What makes you want to be involved and be a part of industry associations like TTA?
My best friends are superintendents, sales reps, professors at the university. It’s one of the most unique industries where we are all competing as clubs, but it’s crazy how close we all are, in that I’d pretty much do anything for any other superintendent or sales rep because they’re truly some of my closest friends. Whether it’s giving advice or loading equipment, everyone reciprocates really well in Tennessee. TTA does a lot, I did go on the board this year in an advisory role.
One of my big passions and one of the biggest benefits is the University of Tennessee Turfgrass program. The professors, the three I work closest with are Dr. Sorochan, Dr. Horvath and Dr. Brosnan. The research assistants, the grad assistants, two key guys who are retiring, and this whole state owes so much gratitude for, Dr. Tom Samples and Dr. Alan Windham. Being here in the Tennessee Turfgrass industry in all these meetings where we have the privilege of going and learning from these really great group of professors, it’s like you’re basically getting a free college education. It’s amazing what these guys do for each individual golf course, but the overall industry, the amount of effort and time and care that all of these different professors at the University of Tennessee. I tell people all the time that we have at UT the best turfgrass program in the nation and there’s some really good ones. I don’t want to knock anyone else, I flat-out think that UT does it better than anyone else. So I’m really passionate about doing whatever we can as TTA, MTGCSA, ETCGSA, MAGCSA, helping out the university in any way that we can, and we’ve got some good ideas flowing and we need to keep them moving forward because they give us so much.
We’re looking forward to seeing what we can do and continuing to raise funds for the University of Tennessee. I don’t know what all of that looks like yet, numbers-wise, but the ball is rolling and we want to do whatever we can. Getting back to Dr. Samples and Dr. Windham, they have both personally helped me so many times over the years, looking at soil samples, if I’ve got disease pressure, insect pressure, they love what they do. Both of them are really great guys who the whole industry is really going to miss working with. really hope and believe that UT will eventually, when they look at filling those positions, because they’re two of the most important positions in the state. I look forward to eventually see who will be in their place. It’s two key positions that we really need to continue and pass the torch onto two of the next really great minds. Personally, I just want to thank Dr. Samples and Dr. Windham.
What are some changes or improvements that you hope to see in the industry over the next ten years?
It’s getting better in terms of the payscale, but it needs to continue to go up, we need to keep paying our assistants higher wages, our technicians. My number one asset, and I’ve got two fantastic assistants and my technician Matt McClanahan is a really special, talented, unbelievable asset to me, so I want to continue to pay the key positions and really make it to where you can make a living on the crew.
It’s really important to continue to treat your employees well. The cost of replacement in any business, but the turfgrass business, I feel like I’ve got about 10 guys that can do everything so it’s continuing to grow employees. People get tired of hearing that but it’s every industry right now, with inflation, it’s going to be a common theme across the board. The cost of replacement is way more. It takes a while to make a valuable, quality golf course employee because there’s so many different machines and so many job duties and a level of care and attention to detail, it’s easier to continue to invest in the people you’ve got than to constantly be trying to hire people cheap. I’d like to see each golf course continue to invest in people. A lot of courses turn a profit now, invest it back.
What would be your advice for somebody who is considering entering this profession now?
There’s no greater job on earth, I feel really lucky to be a superintendent. It comes with headaches, it comes with long hours, it comes with weekends and holidays. It’s still a service industry job, so you’ve really got to love it, you’ve got to love golf. Anyone can learn. The best people I’ve worked for over the years, some have had turf degrees, some haven’t. They’ve all been fantastic in different ways. I think you just have to be geared a little different. Most of the superintendents I know, we all have very similar personalities. Seems like most of us are all type A, most of us a little bit ADD, the attention to detail, maybe that’s why we all get along so well.
You have to have all of that, but ultimately, you don’t just get out of turf school and go to the top. That’s tough because on your way up, you have be patient with yourself for a number of years because not everyone goes right from turf school to a high end assistant or superintendent job or they could go into sales, or for the chemical or fertilizer companies.
I would recommend this business to everybody, but it’s not for everybody. You’ve got to have, I don’t want to necessarily call it a skill set, because you can learn how to do anything, but you’ve gotta love golf. It doesn’t necessarily mean working all hours of the day anymore, but it’s a different lifestyle. You’re up at 4:30 or 5:00 every day, you’re starting work at 6. It’s not for everybody, but you’ve got to love it.
What do you do when you’re not working?
My wife Laura and I have been married almost 10 years and we have two beautiful kids. My daughter Evelyn just turned four, my son Owen just turned 9 months. We love to travel when we can. Her family and we’re really close to my family so they live in Denver and her family lives in Cleveland, Tennessee.
Dan with his family
It’s nice that most of my best friends are all industry people here in middle Tennessee, so we get together a lot, go on a lot of golf trips. My wife and I like to travel to the beach with the kids and we love Nashville. You’ve got 10 state parks within 30 miles, two lakes, Titans, Predators, Sounds, we have a soccer team, a racetrack, Broadway, which is a blast, but the food, the music scene, everything about the city is great. My wife and I live in East Nashville, it’s a fun, eclectic part of town. I just feel like it has a lot to offer. I don’t have a ton of free time since I have kids, it’s a blast. I’ve had some really good advice from other supers talking about work/life balance. Once I had kids, it forced me to look at this job a little bit differently.
My assistant’s wife watches my kids. They live right across the street from the golf course so I actually bring my kids to work every morning from 5:30 to about 6:15 and then I take them to daycare. The crew loves interacting with both kids, so that’s been pretty cool. Both kids love riding around the golf course. Sometimes my daughter says, “Hey Dad, wanna go ride, wanna go hit golf balls?” After a long day, as much as I love this club, I don’t always want to come back after I go pick them up. But I would love both kids to get into golf. It’s offered me so many opportunities. I’ve traveled all over the world playing golf, I’ve worked all over the United States, I think five or six different country clubs over a 23-year period.
