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Life’s a beach
The Caribbean can offer plenty of perks (and challenges) to superintendents who call the islands home.
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Out on an island, literally, but not alone. That’s the nature of the job for GCSAA superintendents Peter Stormes, Keith Stein and Alan Bakos, CGCS, as they find new challenges and new opportunities at their respective golf courses in the Caribbean.
While the Four Seasons Resort Nevis, Royal St. Kitts Golf Club and White Witch at the Ritz Carlton Rose Hall in Jamaica all may be competitors in some sense for sun-seeking Caribbean golfing visitors, the superintendents know they must all work together at their ocean paradise courses to make sure the region keeps up its reputation as a golfing haven.
“If something breaks on the tractor or we need something for the fertilizer, I can’t just run down to the store and get it. It may take a month to get it shipped here, so I always have to plan in advance,” says Stormes, the six-year GCSAA member who heads maintenance at the Marriott Golf-operated St. Kitts Golf Club on the small, but very sunny island that is just across the waters from Nevis.
“I’ll help out another course if they need something, just like they will help me. We have to plan and work together.”
In fact, Stormes worked with Stein, a fellow native Canadian, at the White Witch in Jamaica. They learned the ways of course maintenance in the Caribbean, where the idyllic island conditions can be interrupted by dozens of inches of rain in one day, or a hurricane can shut down the island and the course for a week or more.
“I’ve worked at other courses in the states, but once I came here and saw the beauty and saw the lifestyle, my family and I were hooked,” says Bakos, director of resort landscaping and golf course maintenance at the Four Seasons Resort Nevis.
“It’s a lot different than being a superintendent in the States where everything is just a phone call away at the store, but it’s one my family and I certainly enjoy. We are living an adventure and experiencing a different culture first hand.”
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Although they work on different islands, three superintendents have learned that cooperation and communication are key to survival in the Caribbean. Pictured are (above) Peter Stormes at Royal St. Kitts GC; Alan Bakos, CGCS (below, middle), at the Four Seasons Resort Nevis; and Keith Stein (below, bottom) at the White Witch in Jamaica. Photos courtesy of P. Stormes, A. Bakos and K. Stein |
The island climate
All three men say organization and communication are the keys to their jobs in the sun-splashed paradise that can turn rough at any minute.
“I have to be three to four months ahead of my maintenance, watering and feeding schedule,” says Stein, the Class A GCSAA member whose official title — superintendent of golf grounds — at the Ritz Carlton, another Marriott Golf-operated property, puts him in charge of the care of several dozen acres of the lush Jamaican landscape.
“If I run out of something or need something, then it’s a long process to get it shipped here. I can get it Fed-exed, but it’s very expensive, so we all have to work together.”
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So it helps that Stein is just a phone call away from Stormes, who is actually a few hundred miles of ocean away on the map. Bakos is just a 30-minute boat ride from the small island of St. Kitts to the even smaller and exclusive enclave of Nevis.
Each superintendent faces unique and shared challenges in this island climate. Of the three, the Royal St. Kitts has the most direct access to the ocean. Holes 15, 16 and 17 on the par-71 course, which was totally renovated by Canadian architect Thomas McBroom in 2004, lie directly along the Atlantic Ocean and Half Moon Bay. The green of the par-4 third hole directly faces the Caribbean Sea.
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“In any coastal region, salt spray from the ocean can turn the bermudagrass brown in a hurry,” Stormes says.
That’s why the introduction of salt-tolerant seashore paspalum has been such a lifesaver for Royal St. Kitts and other island courses.
“It makes life a lot easier for us now,” Stormes admits. “We could actually water with salt water now, even though we don’t, and we also have a desaltation plant.”
With the course at sea level at many places, he also faces many other challenges due to the ever-changing weather.
“When you have a storm surge with a hurricane, there’s not much you can do,” Stormes says.
“You spend a lot of time watching the Weather Channel. Anything that is loose you batten down and prepare the best you can.”
When hurricanes decide to play through their area, the three superintendents count it as just one more obstacle they have to face in their island adventure.
“Our course is higher up in the mountains, so we don’t get the water right off the ocean, but it can rain 14 inches in a 24-hour period,” Stein says. “That’s a lot of water to drain off your course in a short period of time.”
Four-legged challenge
All three men have had hurricane experience of some kind while they’ve been in the Caribbean, but say that isn’t the main challenge to their jobs.
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At the Four Seasons Resort Nevis, Bakos has had to learn how to gently coax four-legged “visitors” off the greens to avoid the damage of a stampede. |
For Bakos, a GCSAA member who moved from a job in Naples, Fla., to Nevis, the greatest challenge can come with four legs.
“Animals roam freely on our island, so I’ve learned how to gently coax cows off a green, so they’ll gently walk off instead of run, which would cause even more damage,” he says.
Like the par-71 White Witch course overseen by Stein, Bakos’ par-70 Four Seasons Nevis course is mainly set in the mountains overlooking the islands. The Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed course offers drop-dead beautiful views but plenty of superintendent-related challenges.
“Even though I came from southwestern Florida, which is a great place to grow warm-season grass, the grass and the weeds grow even better here,” Bakos admits. “That means even more weed control, more aeration, more dethatching and more topdressing.”
Because the conditions are always changing in the Caribbean depending on the weather or the unique seasons of the year, Stormes has to adjust his greenkeeping game plan accordingly.
“We often use a lot less fertilizer here; it takes less nitrogen and we use a lot more liquids,” he explains. “It’s not always the same amount all the time; you just have to adjust to the conditions.
“You have to be proactive, not reactive in the islands, but after a while you learn what’s going on and focus on the rhythms of the seasons,” he adds.
Keeping up appearances
Another part of the island challenge is the often inexperienced group of workers the superintendents must put together.
At Royal St. Kitts, Stormes has a crew of 24 people, two mechanics and assistant superintendent Steve Williams. Many of the people on the St. Kitts crew knew little or nothing about golf when they first started.
“They had to learn the standards we need and learn how to operate the machinery,” Stormes says. “The concept of golf didn’t exist with them. They started from scratch, which can be a good thing because they didn’t have any preconceived ideas.
“Part of what makes it rewarding is to see young guys take over and be successful. We try to improve every day.”
Bakos, who manages a similar-sized crew, says mastering the tricks of the Caribbean superintendent trade is critical to overall success.
“It’s important to keep the irrigation tanks full of water when it is not raining,” he says. “We can irrigate faster than the water comes into the tanks. A couple of hours of lost pumping can mean thousands of gallons of critical water lost.
“Weed management is an ongoing challenge and it’s important to have an aggressive renovation program.”
Another trick of the island trade is keeping the tourists happy.
Royal St. Kitts, like Four Seasons Nevis and White Witch (a par-71 von Hagge, Smelek, Baril design), has a small number of local members with the vast majority of its play coming from American visitors eager to escape their U.S. surroundings for a highly scenic and well-manicured piece of paradise.
“I don’t like hearing, ‘It’s a good course for the Caribbean,’” Stormes says. “I don’t want people to see any difference between Florida and the Caribbean for any of our courses.”
Editor’s note: In late October, Peter Stormes left Royal St. Kitts GC to become superintendent at El Camaleon Golf Course at Mayakoba in Mexico, home of the PGA’s Mayakoba Classic.
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