high-quality turf on a budget

Sumpwams Creek at a glance Location: Babylon Village, New York Type of course: Public Number of holes: 9 Number of employees: 2 full-time and 1 part-time Type of grass: Tees are Pennlinks/Princeville blend bentgrass; fairways are Pennlinks bentgrass and greens are a mix of Princeville and Penncross bentgrass; roughs are bluegrass, fescue and ryegrass.

Fall 2002 - Superintendent Mike Lang (pictured below) approaches his job according to this mission statement: “To provide the best playing experience by maintaining the best conditions using the most environmentally sound practices and most economically efficient manner possible.”

Lang’s facility, Sumpwams Creek Golf Course, Babylon Village, New York, is routinely praised for its turf quality. In fact, he goes as far as walk-mowing greens.

However, Sumpwams Creek is not a lush private course with a large maintenance budget. It’s a nine-hole public facility with green fees that top out at $8 for residents.

“Everyone seems to enjoy our conditions,” Lang says. “I get a lot of compliments about our greens. Many public courses have dirt on the tees because golfers beat the grass off. Our customers tell me it’s nice to play on our tees. We have an aggressive divot repair program using topsoil, sand and seed with a little fertilizer mixed in. We fill divots every day and it doesn’t cost us very much.”

That’s a good thing because Lang’s budget is $129,000. Beside himself, there is one full-time and one part-time employee. Lang is the consummate hands-on superintendent. He mows greens, changes cups, applies fertilizer and pesticide, and even rakes bunkers.

“I’ve always been attracted to the challenge of giving golfers great conditions without spending lots of money,” he says. “I worked at an exclusive private club and told the superintendent there had to be a way to provide great conditions without spending $1 million a year. The majority of golfers play on public courses, and they don’t have to be dog tracks because of a lack of money.”

Look for reasons not to buy chemicals
Lang takes a frugal approach in managing his course. He looks for reasons not to buy things. When it comes to labor, he strives to complete jobs in the least amount of time. The workday is 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. If it’s 1:30 p.m. and he sees a job won’t be finished, the staff cleans up and resumes the next day to avoid overtime costs. He takes a similar, measured approach to chemical application.

“I’m a huge believer in slow-release fertilizer,” Lang says. “I want nitrogen levels up over a long period of time instead of spoon-feeding. I don’t have the budget for that, so I use materials that will last a long time. I use fertilizers that let me go a month and a half between applications.”

Lang wants his course to be an off-shade of green. “I like a British Open look,” he says. “If I’m lush all the time, that’s what customers expect. If the grass is yellow/green, they don’t know the difference. Agronomically, it’s still healthy turf.”

Lang doesn’t stockpile chemicals.

“I don’t have the storage space,” he says, “and with stockpiling there is a tendency to forget what you have, so material doesn’t get used up. I’ll bet you can find courses where there are 50 to 60 bags of chemicals lying around that nobody knew they had. Whatever I buy I use. And, because of environmental concerns, there are chemicals I won’t use. This also saves money because fungicides are very expensive. I look for off-brand products that do just as good a job. I use organic fertilizer. It may be more expensive, but over the long term it’s cheaper because I’m putting back nutrients the soil needs instead of constantly replenishing. Over time, we don’t have to apply as much.”

“We walk-mow greens often”
Sumpwams Creek’s equipment inventory includes two triplex mowers, three walking greens mowers, four utility vehicles and a bunker rake.

Fairways are mowed with the Jacobsen Greens King IV, and roughs with an older Jacobsen T423D outfront rotary. Jacobsen PGM 22s with 11-blade reels are used on greens.

“We walk-mow greens as often as we can,” Lang says, “usually Monday through Friday. On weekends we use triplexes. I relate walk-mowing to compaction. With our small greens we don’t want the ring on cleanup passes that we’d get with a triplex. I like the PGM 22. Its footprint is light and there’s nothing better than walk-mowing. We get a much nicer cut.”

Former lumberyard
Sumpwams Creek — named for a creek that borders the property — was once a 16-acre lumberyard. Eight years ago the village of Babylon purchased the site and residents voted to build a golf course.

“The architect said it was the ugliest site he had ever seen,” Lang says. “It was just a piece of flat land with a marsh and creek.

Lang arrived during construction in 1997. The course opened two years later. Sumpwams Creek is a for-profit operation; revenue is used to maintain the golf course.

“We need to be self-supporting,” Lang says, “and for the most part we’re succeeding. We don’t want to become a tax burden. We want residents to support the course by playing, and so far that’s happening.”

An evolving career path
Lang, 46, began his career as an army helicopter mechanic. After he was discharged, he couldn’t get a job in aviation, so he became a nurse. After 11 years in a burn unit, it was time for another change.

“I needed to do something different after that experience,” he says. “I always had a love of growing things, so I went to junior college in California to get a degree in landscape horticulture. At a scholarship awards banquet, I was approached to go into turfgrass management. I was a golf fan, not a golfer, but I pursued the degree anyway. This job makes me feel like a magician. I put a little bit of stuff here and there and poof, I have green grass.”

Lang was hired as an assistant at a course in the Bronx in 1988. A year later he was named assistant at Garden City Golf Club, an exclusive private club in the New York area. From there he went to Colonial Springs in Farmingdale, New York, where he was introduced to construction and grow-in. Sumpwams Creek is his first superintendent’s job. His local Textron representative, who is a former superintendent, guided him to the position.

“One of the things I really like about this job is meeting a cross section of people,” Lang says. “At a private club you see the same people all the time. Here, I get to interact with residents and village employees. I live here, my kids go to school in the village, and I’m active in church. I’m a member of the community. Besides, I get to work outdoors on a golf course and I’m paid to do it. How unfair is that?”