Weather’s unreliable, but Baker sure isn’t
Golfers aren’t alone in trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
“You can call it global warming or call it whatever you want but the changing weather patterns are probably the biggest challenge we’re facing,” says Dean Baker, superintendent of Burlington Golf and Country Club.
He should know. He has been named the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association/Bayer Superintendent of the Year for 2018.
“I’ve been in this business for 37 years and the weather seems to become more and more unpredictable every year.”
Baker got into the business when he was a teenager and rode his bike from his home in Bronte up to Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville for a part-time summer job.
“Back then, Glen Abbey was the only thing north of the QEW,” said Baker who went into the electrical business before deciding that his heart was on the golf course.
“I went to the University of Guelph for their turf management program and then went back to Glen Abbey.”
He served a couple of years as the assistant superintendent there before becoming the top guy.
He worked there for 12 years as the superintendent and felt the pressure of getting the course ready for a dozen Canadian Opens.
After his time at Glen Abbey, Baker moved to the Club at North Halton in Georgetown for a dozen years and has seen Burlington G&CC through some dramatic changes for the last six years as their superintendent.
Baker’s job like many other superintendents is an interesting one when you think about it. We all have plants at home that we fuss over.
His plants, his grass plants, on the greens, have to be kept to one-eighth of an inch; exactly one-eighth of an inch tall, no more, no less. And he has thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of them to keep healthy and exactly one-eighth of an inch tall.
He says the job has changed a lot over the years, not the least of which is government regulations on the use of pesticide on golf courses and the amount of communications superintendents are required to do, not only with their members but with the public at large.
Baker is also going through, at Burlington G&CC, what many superintendents across the country are going through, balancing the needs of the grass with trees and keeping the members happy in the process.
“If you look at this property in 1922 when Stanley Thompson built the golf course, there were no trees here,” he says. “In the 1930s and ’40s and ’50s all these trees were planted, not just here but on many golf courses and now we have to find a happy medium.”
The trees, the grass, the ponds. He can deal with all of those but the weather is another matter.
“It used to be you knew when winter was and when spring was and when summer was. Now it’s all so unpredictable,” he says. ★★★
Whole-in-one: Willow Valley had another three singletons recently. Keith McCutcheon on the 128-yard 15th hole with a nine iron, Jim McCarthy on the 108yard 17th hole with a 60-degree wedge and James Mills on the eighth hole with a pitching wedge.
Mike Sampson made a hole-inone on the 113-yard eighth hole at Whistlebear with a pitching wedge. And John Thachuk made his third career ace on the 15th hole at Dundas Valley with an eight iron.