The heat has slammed into the High Plains of Nebraska like the fist of God, and Brad Pearson is hand-syringing greens at Holdrege Country Club twice a day in temperatures that soar above 100 degrees for days on end.

The agonizing humidity makes conditions even worse for both greenkeeper and greens. They're not just baking -- they're steaming, too.

It's not likely that Pearson's icon -- Old Tom Morris -- faced quite the same conditions a century and a half ago on the wild, Scottish linksland of St. Andrews. But Pearson finds much to admire in the patron saint of greenkeepers around the world, and when GCSAA commissioned a sculpture of Old Tom Morris to commemorate its 75th anniversary, Pearson knew just how he should look.

"I wanted him to be monumental," he says. "Tom Morris was larger than life."

So Pearson -- full-time superintendent and part-time artist -- crafted a bronze likeness that stands more than 6 feet tall and captures the venerable Scot from the bill of his well-worn golfer's cap to the tip of his self-made club. Following its unveiling and dedication in a ceremony scheduled for Sept. 13, the statue will be permanently ensconced at the front entrance of GCSAA headquarters in Lawrence, Kan.

Early dreams
Golf course management and sculpting make for an unusual career path, particularly for Pearson, who started out from the University of Nebraska in 1968 with a degree in sociology.

First GCSAA's 75th anniversary sculpture of Old Tom Morris started out as a 9-inch clay miniature. Careful measurements from the clay miniature are enlarged and transferred to strips of plastic foam on a full-size armature. The foam forms a lightweight core on which Pearson re-sculpts the sculpture's details in artist's clay.

"When I look back on it now, I realize I probably should have become a landscape architect," he muses.

Several college architecture classes had rekindled a high school interest in drawing, and landscaping would have called on an artist's eye for color and form, but in 1968 the idea flickered and died in the face of the Vietnam wartime draft.

Pearson first went through Peace Corps training, then enlisted in the U.S. Navy. During the four years he was assigned to permanent shore duty in Corpus Christi, Texas, training pilots in flight simulators, Pearson picked up an artist's paintbrush and a new dream.

When he returned to his home town of Holdrege after his stint in the Navy, Pearson had already sold a few paintings. He and his wife, Judy, rented a farmhouse for their growing family, which now included the first of their two daughters, and Pearson looked for a job that would leave time for his art. What he found was considerably more than he had bargained for.

Rookie on the course
From his father, who was Holdrege CC's green committee chair, Pearson learned that the club's superintendent was leaving and stepped forward to ask for the job.

"I had no clue what to do," he admits now. "I learned a little bit at a time -- mostly by attending chapter meetings. Some of it must have rubbed off."

Of course, Pearson points out, the location hasn't hurt. Built in 1917, Holdrege CC rests on flat, virgin prairie topsoil.

"If you can't grow grass in this soil, you can't grow it anywhere," he concedes.

But a growing reliance on irrigating crops in this agricultural breadbasket has led to a rising humidity level, which has forced Pearson to deal with the inevitable turf disease problems.

In 1973, when Pearson began caring for his hometown course, Holdrege CC claimed nine holes with "smallish" USGA greens -- some of the first in the region.

"I'm still taking care of four of those greens," Pearson says. He's also still coddling the old, manual irrigation system on those front greens.

Pearson describes Holdrege CC as "an active course with many tournaments and outings," but with a membership of 275 and 20,000 to 25,0000 annual rounds played, its maintenance budget is far from high-dollar. Pearson is the only full-time salaried employee. His skeleton crew includes a trusted part-time mechanic and a veteran summer assistant, who's actually a teacher and comes around only when school's out. When Pearson says, "It seems like I have to have my hand in just about everything we do," he's probably understating things a bit.

The layout expanded in 1984, when Pearson teamed with golf course architect Jeffrey Brauer and Lincoln, Neb.-based Landscapes Unlimited to help build another nine holes. Pearson himself later redesigned and built several greens on the original layout.

Disaster struck in 1994, when a mid-October twister ripped through the course, downing trees, tearing up the greens and flinging the maintenance building into the pond as it went. Pearson dashed back from Loveland, Colo., where he had been overseeing work on some of his sculptures in the foundry, to begin the cleanup. He was humbled, he says, by the realization that if his artwork hadn't called him away at just that time, he undoubtedly would have been inside that maintenance building when the tornado struck.

Part-time passion
On this windswept patch of the Great Plains, where weather systems barrel straight down from the Rockies, Pearson knew he would have long winter months when the course closed down to nurture his art instead of the grass. But painting eventually gave way to a fascination with sculpting. One of his high school classmates is noted sculptor George Lundeen, and Pearson turned to him for inspiration.

"I asked him for a lesson; what I got was a lump of clay and a book," Pearson recalls.

Pearson turned out his first piece -- a representation of an elderly neighbor with an "interesting face" -- in 1984. He founded his line of vintage golfers with his second work, a 12-inch bronze titled "The Scot." For the fledgling sculptor, it was what present-day lifestyle gurus call "an A-ha! moment."

"I just knew it was going to be a hit," Pearson says without a trace of arrogance.

At the foundry, Art Castings of Colorado in Loveland, metal chaser Ken Hobbs touches up some details on the sculpture's head before it is welded onto the torso.

Art galleries eventually sold nearly two dozen of the limited edition (molds for metal sculpture eventually break down and are destroyed after a certain number of reproductions to preserve the integrity of the work). A 7-foot-tall version of "The Scot" guards the property of golf course builder Bill Kubly, of Landscapes Unlimited.

"I actually own five or six of his larger pieces," Kubly says. "I think his series is probably the most special in the golf industry."

Pearson describes himself as a history buff who loves to read about the history of greenkeeping and golf, so it's no wonder that his chosen sculpture subjects are from the sport's golden era. The vintage equipment and garb also make for a "more romantic look" for a work of art, he points out.

Some of Pearson's other works --"The Natural," which shows a barefoot lad in suspendered knickers squaring up with a driver, and "Tee Time," which captures a somewhat older boy clutching his small bag of clubs and resting one bare foot on a bench while he gazes into the distance -- have also been cast in life size. Pearson plans his next project to be a life-size version of "Brassie," a young man caught at the end of his swing with coattails flying.

Examples of Pearson's work can be found in the Beaver Creek (Colo.) Fine Art Gallery, and he also attends a number of art shows every year, most notably Scotsdale's Celebration of Fine Art.

Painstaking process
No project has captured Pearson's imagination in quite the same way as the Old Tom sculpture. Just over a year ago, Pearson had topped a short list of sculptors GCSAA's board of directors was considering for the important commission. The fact that he was a working superintendent and a 17-year member of the association weighed heavily in his favor, along with his talent.

By the October 2000 board meeting, Pearson had completed a fully detailed 9-inch clay maquette, or miniature of Old Tom. With the board's approval, the real work began.

"Fortunately, last winter was perfect," Pearson recalls. "It snowed the first week of November, and I could jump right into this project. We were closed down 'til the first week in March."

From the miniature, Pearson took measurement after meticulous measurement, using old-fashioned calipers to painstakingly transfer every tiny crevice and fold, each button and curl to its finished size -- nearly eight times larger.

"I'm pretty fussy about it," Pearson says.

Those measurements were used to shape 2-inch strips of construction Styrofoam onto an armature, and the plastic foam's blunt edges were softened with a hacksaw. The artist returns the lifelike details by shaping a layer of clay on top of the foam. The foam core reduces the weight of the finished form to 200 pounds, Pearson points out; solid clay would be unmanageably heavy. Even so, he transported the sculpture in the back of his pickup in two pieces to the foundry, where it was reassembled for the multi-step casting process.

Sculptor Brad Pearson (in white shirt) inspects some changes to Old Tom's 2-iron, which emerged from the mold slightly misaligned, with metal chaser Ken Hobbs and quality controller Clay Clark.

Finishing steps
A sculptor's partners in producing a bronze work of art are the skilled artisans at a foundry. For Old Tom Morris, Pearson believes he was fortunate to be able to schedule time with Loveland's Art Castings of Colorado. There, Old Tom underwent an ancient series of steps, based on the centuries-old "lost wax" casting process:

A mold is made by covering the original clay sculpture with a liquid rubber and then applying plaster for support. Even though Old Tom is what Pearson calls a "simple piece," it was cut into pieces to facilitate this step.
In the wax-pouring area, a series of layers of wax are poured into the mold, creating a wall that is 3/16 to 1/8 inch thick. When cool, the rubber mold is pulled away from the wax.
The wax duplicate is taken to wax chasing. Using a variety of tools and hot soldering irons, mold lines are removed and the parts are reattached. The wax duplicate now looks exactly like the original.
During spruing, wax "gates," or sprues, are attached to critical points on the piece. The gates are the avenues for the molten metal to flow into the piece.
A ceramic shell is built up around the wax by dipping it into a slurry, coating it with a fine sand, letting it dry and repeating this process anywhere from eight to 14 times. The completed shell is then placed in an autoclave. Using pressurized steam heat, the wax is melted (lost) from the shell.

In the metal pouring process, the shell is heated in a kiln. When it reaches 1,600 degrees, it's placed in sand for support. The molten bronze is poured into the shell at a temperature of approximately 2,020 degrees. After the metal cools, the ceramic shell is removed with a pneumatic hammer, sprues are cut off and the pieces are extensively sand blasted.
The bronze pieces are carefully realigned and refitted, then welded back together.
In the metal-chasing area, an array of carbide burrs are used to grind down the weld areas and to re-texture the bronze. The piece is then sandblasted.
The sculpture's rich color -- its patina -- is created by spraying on various chemicals. The method of application, temperature of the bronze, and the combination and strength of the chemicals can create an endless variety of patinas.

"The patina pretty much makes the piece," Pearson says. "That's the fun part of the foundry work. It's also the scariest, if it doesn't turn out right." For Old Tom, Pearson wanted a "rich look -- not fancy," that will slowly darken over the years.

Coming home
Pearson's sculpture of Old Tom Morris will be a focus of GCSAA's 75th anniversary celebration later this month, when the larger-than-life bronze -- which stands an impressive 76 inches tall and weighs a hefty 340 pounds -- is unveiled in its place of honor a few paces away from the association headquarters' front doors.

Before he brought Old Tom home to GCSAA, Pearson had to schedule several summer visits to Loveland to supervise parts of the foundry process. Of special concern -- in addition to the patina -- was Morris' delicate pocket watch chain. Fortunately, it emerged from the mold in perfect detail. Only the slender golf club, slightly misaligned, needed Pearson's personal attention.

The drought has competed with the Old Tom Morris sculpture for the superintendent/artist's attention. In Holdrege, it's been 50 days since the last rainfall, and Pearson is summoning all the teachings and talents of the profession he never imagined he'd pursue.

But after nearly 30 years in greenkeeping, Pearson is still finding satisfaction -- just as his icon, Old Tom Morris, did.

"There are still surprises," he says. "It's never a boring job."

Bunny Smith is managing editor of GCM.