Member volunteers joined staff at Waialae Country Club for a “Fill Our Divots” walk that helped everyone learn to take even better care of the championship course that hosts the Sony Open. |
Military personnel know them as “FOD walks.” In service parlance, FOD stands for Foreign Object Debris, and the practice of FOD walks started on naval air carriers. Sailors would form a tight line across the flight deck and walk slowly together in lockstep, from one end of the ship to the other, with all eyes focused downward to find and sweep the surface of any loose items that could pose a potentially disastrous hazard to tires, landing gear or high-powered jet engines.
When the golf and management staff at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii was discussing how to best address the age-old problem of unfilled or improperly repaired divots on the golf course, someone remembered conducting FOD walks while in the service as the best way to conduct a truly thorough inspection.
Someone else then realized that “FOD” could also stand for “Fill Our Divots”—and an idea for a new event was born at Waialae, the private club that is the annual host of the Sony Open and home of the famous “W” formation of palm trees.
THE GOAL:Take a cue from military practices to conduct a slow and sweeping walk of the entire golf course at Waialae Country Club for comprehensive divot repair.THE PLAN: Invite members to volunteer to join staff for a special event; start with instruction on proper repair and create a casual atmosphere for the work by providing beverage service.
THE PAYOFF: An enjoyable way to get a course in prime shape—with the unexpected side benefits of improved member knowledge of good maintenance practices, and a valuable opportunity for informal interchanges between members and staff. |
An announcement in the club’s newsletter put out the call to invite members to volunteer to join Waialae staff members on a special FOD walk that would be intended to thoroughly and properly repair all divots and add even more quality to the club’s championship course.
A healthy contingent of member volunteers came out for the event, which started with a briefing by Waialae’s Golf Course Superintendent, Dave Nakama, on proper divot repair techniques (add sand in the divot below the grass level, then swipe the top with your foot, to create a flat lie and protect the grass stolons and allow the grass to fill in faster).
The volunteers than fanned out with staff members to start on a slow walk from one side of each fairway to the other, with everyone carrying bottles of sand (see photo below). A truck filled with replenishment sand stayed in front of the group—and just as importantly, a beverage cart brought up the rear, to add to the enjoyment of the informal event.
Waialae’s Fill Our Divots walk, reports General Manager, Allan Lum, proved to be a great way to help members become invested in the maintenance and upkeep of the course, and promote a greater sense of their own ownership in its ongoing care. The FOD walk has helped the club expand its cadre of unofficial “divot monitors” who can now help instruct other players on the right and wrong ways to make repairs.
Another unanticipated benefit of the event, Lum says, was the opportunity that the Fill Our Divots walk presented to him and his staff to have “informal conversations in a relaxed atmosphere and at a ‘grassroots’ level—pun intended—with members on a variety of subjects, including play issues and upcoming projects at the club.
“At the end of the day,” Lum reports, “by their engagement in this event, we had learned more from the membership than vice versa.”
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