6/21/2011 - By Harrell's

June, July and August. Ah, good old summer time in the Northeast. Remember those carefree days when you were a kid? Every day was a new adventure, you had boundless energy and no risk was too great to take. Well, now you’re a golf course superintendent and June, July and August are now the dreaded “hot one hundred”. Your life has become all about keeping grass alive one day at a time.

You’re the first to arrive at work and the last to leave. One day melts into another and more often than not when your feet hit the floor first thing in the morning, you don’t know what day of the week it is. You’ve got lots of things on your plate during the “hot one hundred”; mowing schedules, disease management, equipment failures, personnel issues, tournaments, weather problems and the list goes on and on.

The bottom line here is that the “hot one hundred’ is not the time to be taking on new projects. You need to be able to prioritize the things that matter and put off the things that don’t until time and resources allow you the freedom and flexibility to accomplish these extra tasks in an efficient and professional way. In other words, don’t take on more than you can handle during the summer months.

OK, so you’ve got that golf course superintendent thing going on in your life. Please don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s a job and it’s not who you are. Who you are can only be defined by your family, friends and community. For me, when I was a superintendent, my number one priority was to have dinner with my family every night. They always had a way of keeping me grounded.

There are a few things that will help you along the way to keep your life in balance…give more than you take, in your relationships with others, don’t keep score, always have time for your kids and find some time to pray every day. Here’s something to think about, when the final chapter of your life is written, will it really matter that you went to work seven days a week or that your greens stimped at 13? I don’t think so.

I remember when my kids were small; every year we would head off to Maine the last week of August. Sometimes we would go for a week or at the very least a long weekend. It was always somewhat difficult to leave work behind but my family had to come first. My golf course was always there when we came home and more often than not, it was in better shape than when I left. All these years later, the memories we share as a family of our times at Goose Rocks Beach are truly the greatest memories of all. So, in the days and weeks ahead, focus on the things that really matter and everything else will fall into place.

By Harrell’s Sales Representative in New York, Peter J Salinetti, CGCS