At first brush, Dan Rogers’ job as superintendent of New London Country Club sounds like a serene way to earn a living.
After all, he spends his days on beautifully sculpted holes, with undulating fairways that spill into expansive close-cropped greens.
Birds are chirping away as sunshine glistens on the morning dew.
The only unnatural sound is that pleasant whirr and ping of a duffer teeing off.
But ask Rogers and he’ll tell you that maintaining a golf course makes him about as nervous as if he had to sink a 20-foot birdie putt to win the Masters.
“So many people think this is relaxing,” Rogers said, “but I’m always thinking about the course.”
That’s because golf course maintenance is not just minding greens for groundhogs and mowing the grass; it’s a growing field that now requires a degree and several courses in landscape architecture and botany.
Rogers, 26, a Rhode Island native who has been at NLCC for two years, studied ornamental architecture at State University of New York-Cobleskill. “When we hired him we were looking for someone who had the academic training,” said Al Speziali, the club’s general manager. “It’s a hard science.”
Rogers, who has been working on golf courses since his teenage years, worked for several years at Bethpage Golf Course on Long Island, the site of the 2002 U.S. Open.
Staying true to his New England roots, Rogers adheres to the “native plant” movement that is now common in golf courses and gaining acceptance in home gardens.
“It’s our responsibility to be environmentally friendly,” Rogers said.
The golf course uses plants and tall grasses for the rough that are common to the area and therefore do not require any excess watering.
Plus, in 2003 NLCC finished its redesign of its back nine, adding not only more challenging course elements, but improving its environmental standards.
Rogers said the new drainage system allows rainwater to flow from the course into an artificial lake that he uses to water the greens and fairways.
The lake also, incidentally, provides players with a puzzler of a hole as the lake is between the fairway and pin, on a nasty dogleg left.
For Rogers all of the work he does sometimes seven days a week during the peak playing season is for the benefit of the 230 members who pay $3,235 a year, plus a $5,000 initiation fee if you are a new member.
“The expectations are a little higher here,” Speziali said.
After all, the main reason golfers join private clubs, apart from the ability to play more frequently, is that the courses are usually immaculate.
Part of that is because private courses don’t experience the wear and tear municipal golf courses do during the season.
“We usually average less than 10,000 rounds in a year,” Speziali said. “At a public course they can average between 40,000 and 50,000 rounds.”
Rogers said he keeps an eye on the golf course plays, and makes adjustments to the contour of the bunkers and the placement of the pin.
“The way the game is played is different now, because of the newer clubs and balls,” he said. “I watched a tape of the 1978 Masters and I could not believe how different it was.”
For the most part, NLCC is a flat course, unlike say, Shennecossett in Groton or Norwich Golf Course, which are locally famous for punishing hills.
But, the 83-year-old NLCC is no less challenging, as the 2003 redesign added 500 yards in total length to the 125-acre course.
“It’s enjoyable for all abilities,” Kevin Shea, the pro at the club for the past 11 years, said. “But it is a challenge no matter your handicap.”
Rogers sometimes receives some good-natured ribbing from members about the height of the grass or the pin placement.
But then again, Rogers said he and his 15-member staff try to stay behind the scenes.
He usually arrives at the course, with his chocolate Labrador Bunker in tow, from his Waterford home around 5 a.m., well before the first foursome tees off.
“I try to stay ahead of the players,” he said.
Rogers said he has plans to preserve the New England character of the course by maintaining the stone walls that separate the holes and pruning the oaks, maples, and beeches that bracket the course.
“I want to keep it natural,” he said.