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Coming home again
A superintendent puts globe-trotting and big-name layouts behind him to help reinvent his family-owned course in Nevada.
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Tom Brooks, CGCS, begins his days at Carson Valley Golf Course in Gardnerville, Nev., in much the same way that he has throughout his 17-year career in golf course management. After meeting with his crew around sunrise and delegating the day’s chores, he tours the facility to look for trouble spots and decide where best to focus his future attentions.
That, however, may be the only thing that hasn’t changed for the 16-year GCSAA member. After spending most of his professional life traversing the globe to lead renovation efforts and maintenance activities at some of the world’s most-renowned courses, Brooks put the brakes on that fast-paced life to return to his home state, raise a family, help out and eventually take over the family-run business — a golf course tucked along the banks of the Carson River — and in the process, create a junior golf program that stands as a model for others all around the country.
The fast track
A native of Reno, Nev., Brooks wasted little time identifying his future career path. He worked at several courses around his hometown while in high school before eventually attending the University of Nevada-Reno, where he earned degrees in business administration and horticulture.
Brooks’ initiative and expertise impressed the Arnold Palmer Golf Management Group when he helped in the construction of Dayton Valley Golf Club in nearby Dayton, Nev., in 1990. In fact, the Palmer organization was so impressed that they sent him off to the Emerald Isle to complete the renovation of The K Club near Dublin, Ireland, in 1992.
“I was fortunate to be given the chance to work overseas when I did, but it was an easy choice for me as I was single at the time and could put in the very long hours that the job at The K Club required,” Brooks says.
With an eye toward its role as an annual host to a European Tour event and the recently completed Ryder Cup competition, the club was interested in taking its championship layout to the next level. Major drainage changes, improvements on the greens, and the planting of several hundred trees were completed over a three-year period.
After his tenure at The K Club, Brooks’ next challenge was the renovation of the historic Presidio Golf Club in San Francisco that became part of a national park through the decommissioning of the former military base on the cliffs above the Golden Gate Bridge. This old course was instrumental in integrating new environmental standards for the golf course maintenance industry through the innovative programs that Brooks helped to develop during his stay there.
Back in Nevada
But after this whirlwind nine-year period of so many projects in various spots in the world, Brooks came full circle in 1998 when he returned to northern Nevada. He came to the grazing land of Gardnerville where his father had become the owner of the only golf course in town, the 6,000-yard Carson Valley GC.
In the mid-1960s, a rancher named Red Swift caught the golf bug and decided to build a nine-hole course. In 1973, that course was expanded to 18 holes. It was the only course for miles around and served the purpose of a recreational center for the town.
When his father took over the facility, Brooks had plenty of ideas of how Carson Valley could improve its conditioning, and he wasn’t shy about offering up his suggestions. But when the Carson River jumped its banks in 1997 and flooded most of the course, the severe damage that it caused put the course’s future in doubt.
“I made the choice to come and help my dad with the rebuilding of the course, but it grew into more than I expected,” Brooks explained.
Good timing
After traveling the world and working at some of the game’s most revered layouts, Brooks had come home and found an inner peace that drew him to the course and the town. He wanted to raise a family with his Irish-born wife, Manya, and decided to settle down in Nevada. In 2000, he added the titles of owner and general manager to his duties as superintendent.
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As superintendent, Brooks still maintains the golf course but now approaches the agronomy of the course from a new perspective. He must put all of his knowledge and instincts into every facet of the golf operation. And he has come face to face with the same challenges that many courses around the country also are facing: a shrinking number of rounds, more competition, and the nagging questions of where golf is headed.
“Carson Valley Golf Course used to be the only course in our area, but now there are 12 golf courses within 20 miles of us,” Brooks said. “My course is just 6,000 yards long and is an older design that must compete with resort-style courses and newer municipal courses. I know that I can’t change what we are through a major renovation, so I have looked at how to make our product more attractive to the public.”
Brooks knows that he must drive interest in golf in order to bring golfers in and has looked at all of the studies dealing with the pressures that exist in the industry as a whole. But he believed that he needed to find ways to confront the negatives in golf rather than use them as an excuse for dwindling rounds played.
“All of the studies, research and surveys in recent years harp on the same reasons why golf interest has dipped,” he said. “People say that it is a hard game to learn, that it is intimidating, that it is expensive, that it takes too long to play and that it takes away from quality time with family. I decided to find ways to address these concerns with what I had to offer.”
Going young
As owner and general manager, Brooks made one of his better hires when he brought on Alan Hoover as the head professional at Carson Valley. Like Brooks, Hoover liked the idea of working at a low-key facility, which would give him more time for his young family. He also had some strong ideas of how he would like to organize a junior golf program.
“Our golf course and small driving range had the makings for a good course to learn the game, but we wanted it to always be considered a full 18-hole golf course, not an executive layout or a beginners’ golf course,” Brooks said. “When we started our junior program, I was encouraged by the initial turnout that we got.”
In the first year, more than 200 kids came to Carson Valley for introductory clinics. Hoover then developed an eight-week series of lessons that focused on not only the swing, but also course etiquette and the rules of the game. Most important, it stressed that golf should be fun.
In 2005, more than 300 kids came out in the spring for the introductory program, and Brooks knew he was on to something that should be expanded. That meant creating special tees for junior golfers so that the new players could play the golf course with the regular golfers.
“I learned about the U.S. Kids Golf Program, which offers scaled-down golf clubs and parameters for creating a concise golf course for kids,” Brooks said. “We added two new tees on each hole — a green tee that plays to about 30 percent of the normal yardage and a yellow tee that plays to 70 percent of the yardage. The kids could now play the course with their family and play the appropriate tee.”
The addition of these tees opened a new income stream for Brooks. He offered an afternoon rate of $10 for adults to come and play with a junior. Suddenly a dad could go and play with his son on the same course at the same time. Brooks has seen a noticeable increase in this type of family play and expects it to continue to grow.
“These types of programs are not being done for the short-term increases. I am looking at all of these types of programs from a long-term perspective,” Brooks said. “We want to grow a sense of ownership for the new players that will translate into loyalty. We don’t offer free golf for the kids because it is important to set a level of value to our product. But we are encouraged by the growth in interest in the last few years.”
Dollars and sense
Brooks works within the parameters of a budget that is 10 times less than what he had at The K Club, so he is careful with his capital expenditures. To build the new junior tees on the course, he factored in many aspects. Brooks wanted the tees to be unobtrusive for the regular golfers. So he located them on the edges of the fairways and near trees or mounds the normal player would want to avoid. He also designed them to be low and with smooth edges, so if a player did land on them, he or she wouldn’t find a difficult lie.
“We developed a very efficient way to build these new tees,” he said. “We cut the sod and rolled it back. We then brought in sand to build up and shape the tee so that the junior players feel that it is a special island for them. After the shaping, we just folded the sod back over the mounds. We were able to build four tees in a day for a cost of around $600 apiece.”
This year he has found other ways to make these new tee additions work for his bottom line. Brooks has created a tournament format for charity events that incorporates the short tees in order to bring nongolfers into the fold.
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“This will encourage corporate groups to bring in players who might be intimidated to play in tournaments,” Brooks said. “It is just another way that we strive to keep golf what it should be — a fun game, not a struggle.”
Others are beginning to take notice of the things going on at Carson Valley as well. Brooks recently learned that the course had received the National Golf Course Owners Association’s Player Development Award for 2006. Additionally, Carson Valley was named the golf course of the year for 2006 by the Nevada Golf Course Owners Association and won a tourism development award from the Nevada Commission on Tourism.
A lucky man
Brooks considers himself lucky to be in the position of owner, operator, superintendent and visionary because he can look at every aspect from a long-term perspective. When you consider that 125 courses opened last year and 93 courses shut their doors, finding innovative approaches to the business must be an important consideration for any manager. Brooks believes that operating his one facility offers the flexibility to try different things.
“We aren’t a management company that looks at numbers each quarter and tries to find immediate solutions,” he said. “We look at things five years out, 10 years out. My approach is just like the maintenance approach; we are being proactive in creating interest in the game in order to make this facility economically sustainable.”
Through it all, Brooks knows that as things change they still remain the same. People have been playing this game for hundreds of years because it is intriguing, confusing, challenging, but most important, it is fun. Through all of the changes in the future, Brooks will continue to stress these constants.
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