back n i n e ◗ David mcpherson
Diplomat and Friend to Superintendents Bids Adieu to Life as a GM ◗ From his “Wild-West days” in Fort McMurray to his current 10-year reign at one of Canada’s top golf courses, George Pinches has had a long, sometimes strange, but always fun trip. I meet the affable executive on a grey, mid-May morning. We settle in a quiet corner of the clubhouse at Hamilton Golf & Country Club. Behind us, sweeping views of the 18th fairway provide the perfect backdrop. This is the golf course Pinches has called home for the past decade. He’s led the private club to a good governance model and watched it host a pair of successful Canadian Opens. Come October 31, the Chief Operating Officer retires to join Global Golf Advisors as a senior associate. A friend to superintendents and a champion for their causes, Pinches admires the integral role these unsung heroes play. “If somebody said to me ‘George I’ll write you a blank cheque and I want you to start a golf club,’ the first and the most important hire would be the superintendent.” GMs tend to change jobs more often, whereas superintendents, Pinches jokes, “can put down roots.” Over a 33-year golf career, he’s worked in three provinces with a handful of greenkeepers. Flash back to 1980. Fort McMurray, Alberta is booming. Pinches gets a call from Miskanaw Golf Club who wants him to manage their club. During his five-year tenure working with Ken MacKenzie, the club went from nine holes and sand greens to 18 holes with grass greens. Money was no object. The oil companies gave them whatever they needed. “The standard operating instructions were: I don’t care what you have to do or how you have to do it, just get it done,” he says. Pinches moved on to Edmonton’s Royal Mayfair where he worked with Debbie Amirault, who would later go on to become the CGSA’s first female president. Working with Debbie provided an opportunity to expand his knowledge 42 greenMaster | www.golfsupers.com
George pinches
of turfgrass and course maintenance best practices. Pinches’ stay at Royal Mayfair was brief. The next stop was Vancouver’s Point Grey Golf & Country Club where he worked with Colin Softly and Frank “The Bull” Vargas. Vancouver, with its climate, provided a new host of challenges. “We had to take bold actions to get bold results,” he recalls of a multi-million dollar project to overhaul the drainage at this prestigious private club where 60 per cent of the course was below sea level. “We had to convince the members it was in their best interest to close the course for one week in the spring and one week in the fall when we vertidrained, topdressed and overseeded from dripline to dripline at a huge expense,” Pinches explains. “The alternative was to basically rebuild the whole golf course which would have cost millions. Doing it the way we did, members lost one week in spring and one week in fall, but could play golf year-round and the conditions improved gradually every time we did it.” This mammoth project took five years to complete. “It was the most fun I ever had,” he adds. “I kept rubber boots in my office and I would go out there in the winter and find areas where the
water was ponding… I’m certainly not a greenkeeper, but I love learning about it.” In 2003, it was time for one more job on this wondrous career journey and one more superintendent to meet. According to Pinches, Hamilton’s head greenkeeper Rhod Trainor is one of the best he’s ever worked with. “Being a superintendent is part science and part art and Rhod does both,” he explains. “He knows all about agronomy and all the latest products, sometimes he won’t try them because he’s done his research. He understands the role of being a greens superintendent and the technology behind the golf industry needed to maintain and develop a golf course. “But, he also has this intuitive skill that I call the ‘art’ of knowing when to do something and knowing what is going to happen with the weather,” he adds. For his part, Trainor says he’ll miss Pinches. “George is a big picture man and a great supporter for what is the right thing to do,” he concludes. “The golf course is at the top of his list as that is what most members are at a club for. If the golf course is good, somehow the hamburgers taste better too.” GM