Chris Anderson has a vision for the Nemacolin Resort.
Anderson is Nemacoin’s director of turfgrass management, a post he’s held since August 2018. He has witnessed the evolution of the property over the past four years and is aware of its history. Nemacolin, which is located in Farmington, Pennsylvania, not quite 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, hosted the PGA Tour for four consecutive years from 2003 to 2006. The property features two championship golf courses, Mystic Rock, which hosted the resort’s Tour stop, and Shepherd’s Rock, which debuted in 2017. Both were designed by Pete Dye.
Although the resort is celebrated as one of the premier public-access facilities in Pennsylvania, Anderson would like to see its reputation enhanced even further.
He has a credible frame of reference: Anderson came to Nemacolin after serving as an assistant at the Old White TPC Course at The Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Shortly after he arrived there in April 2016, that portion of West Virginia was devastated by flood waters that forced the cancellation of that year’s Greenbrier Classic, which had been scheduled for July.
For the next year, Anderson and his colleagues focused on restoring the Old White Course and The Greenbrier’s other three championship courses with the goal of being able to host the Greenbrier Classic in 2017.
“We had catastrophic damage,” Anderson recalls. “The golf courses were a mess and we ended up starting a rebuild/renovation project in late July. We rebuilt greens, redid all the bunkers and fairways and did some tee construction on a few holes”
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Anderson’s experiences in the aftermath of the flood shaped his career in turf. He eventually became the superintendent of the Old White Course before moving on to Nemacolin.
“Honestly, as bad as it was flood-wise and damage, it was probably one of the better things to do as an assistant,” he recalls. “Going through basically almost rebuilding the golf course in one year’s time to get ready for the tournament. We pretty much did just about anything you can do on a golf course. It was kind of a whirlwind of everything you can experience, and we did it in one year.”
No superintendent achieves success alone. During his time at Nemacolin, Anderson has placed a high priority on surrounding himself with a quality team. That meant making some changes when he first arrived.
“I started to make a few changes I would say about eight months in,” Anderson says. “I moved Nathan Morrow over to Mystic Rock at the time. Now, he’s back on Shepherd’s Rock (as the superintendent). Then I hired CJ Richter. He’s the superintendent on Mystic Rock right now and I hired an assistant for him who has moved on.”
Anderson works to prepare the members of his team to move forward with their careers after they leave Nemacolin.
“I’m trying to get guys ready to oversee their own golf course,” he says, “and trying to get them as much experience doing as much as possible managing people, budgetary things, building agronomic programs, stuff like that, so they ‘re ready to make the move when they go to their next job.
“I don’t want them to leave, but that’s my goal, to get everybody that’s either an assistant here or a superintendent ready to go to their next job and be successful at that.”
During the golf season, which runs from April through November, Anderson’s full crew ideally numbers 36 to 40. During the winter, when Nemacolin is open to the public as a ski resort, a dozen or so staff remain to assist with snow removal. This summer, however, Anderson is working with a team of 30.
“We have a few open slots we’re still looking to fill,” he says, “and then we’ve had some people retire. We’re working back towards (a full crew) at the rate of one or two a year.”
Anderson relies on the H-2B visa program to fill out his roster of seasonal employees.
“We have 16 seasonal H-2Bs who come in for the season for us,” he says. “They make up a large majority of our seasonal staff. We have a few other seasonal full-timers we hire locally.”
While Anderson would prefer to hire individuals who have experience working on a golf course, he does not shy away from those who do not.
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“Obviously, I would love somebody with experience,” he says, “but we almost like it with guys with zero experience, to be honest. Because, if it’s the first time they’ve ever done anything like this, we can teach them how we do things, how our operation is run, and what we can do to minimize mistakes that make it easier in the training process. We would almost rather start with a clean slate.”
When Anderson arrived at Nemacolin, the crew was divided into two teams, each of which worked exclusively on one golf course. He soon ended that practice.
“Everybody works on both golf courses,” he says. “We’ve got everybody trained and accustomed (to working on both courses). We do a lot of things similarly on both, but there are some differences. Everybody knows about the operations on both golf courses now, so we can kind of divide everybody up.
“It has a lot to do with what we’re mowing that day. It kind of depends on what we’re trying to accomplish where the guys can move around to.”
Anderson is proud of what he and his team have done at Nemacolin and what they are doing on an ongoing basis. He’d like the rest of the golfing world to see their handiwork.
“We’re really trying to improve this course and get people in to play it, just to show people how the golf courses are now,” he says. “In Western Pennsylvania, people know what Nemacolin is, but not too many outside of that know what this place is all about.”
