Four Seasons' Johnson wins Golden Wrench Award PDF Print E-mail
Written by John Reitman   
Friday, 10 April 2009 15:54
From Turfnet.com
by John Reitman

In showing how he feels about the job that equipment manager Doug Johnson does at the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Irving, Texas, John Cunningham, CGCS, can at once be good-naturedly mean-spirited and truly appreciative.

When he learned that Johnson had been named TurfNet’s Technician of the Year winner, Cunningham asked TurfNet to provide a rejection letter, informing Johnson that he did not win the award. The ruse was an effort to help ensure that Johnson would not be any the wiser as Cunningham began planning a presentation ceremony during which Johnson would receive the Golden Wrench Award, presented annually by Foley United.

Johnson, 50, fell for the ploy, hook, line and sinker up until Foley chief operating officer Jim Letourneau presented him with the award April 9 during a managers meeting at the resort in suburban Dallas.

“I really had no idea,” said a surprised Johnson. “I wrote it off when John e-mailed me and said ‘Hey, you lost.’

“I was disappointed. (The Golden Wrench Award) was something I really wanted.”

Upon learning he had been named a finalist, Johnson told family and friends and had people from Texas to Florida to his native Ohio rooting for him. When he told his parents in Navarre, Ohio, that “it looks like someone else got it,” his father, Gilbert, had a reaction one might expect from a parent scolding a 7-year-old.

“He said, ‘What did you do wrong?’ ” Johnson said.

“I was deflated.”

Cunningham apologized during the presentation ceremony, admitting his tactics were cruel but necessary.

“There was no way I wanted him to find out,” Cunningham said. “He’s inquisitive. He would’ve been on me, and he would’ve figured it out.”

In reality, Cunningham has tremendous respect for Johnson and the job he does. When describing techs, Cunningham throws out terms like “unappreciated, forgotten and overlooked.”

“I said it in the initial nomination, these guys are unsung heroes,” Cunningham said. “That’s the one position in the shop where a superintendent knows kind of what they do, but you can’t step in and do his job.”

In his nomination of Johnson, which included comments from several others throughout the operation and a PGA Tour agronomist, Cunningham went into detail about his tech’s role in the turf maintenance operation at the 36-hole facility, where the TPC Course is home to the PGA Tour’s HP Byron Nelson Championship. He described Johnson as an organized and professional manager skilled at confronting and overcoming challenges, meeting fiscal responsibilities in managing a budget in excess of $100,000, training and motivating a staff of three (two full time, one part time) as well as the rest of the crew and maintaining open lines of communication up and down the chain of command.

Oh, and he’s a pretty good mechanic too, overseeing a $2 million inventory that is used not only to tend the TPC resort course and the members-only Cottonwood Valley course, but all grounds at the 400-acre resort as well. After all, when the best players in the world visit your course every year, and your tournament is affiliated with one of golf’s all-time great players, second best just won’t do.

Johnson was chosen by a panel of judges from a field of 43 nominees that included finalists Matt Grove of Seven Oaks in Beaver, Pa., and Jim Kilgallon of Connecticut Golf Club in Easton. Judges included Foley’s Letourneau; Randy Wilson, Peter McCormick and John Reitman of TurfNet; Bradley Klein and Craig Horan of Golfweek; Eric Kulaas, equipment manager at the Marriott Renaissance Vinoy Resort and a former contributing writer; and 2007 Technician of the Year winner Jim Stuart of Stone Mountain (Ga.) Golf Club.

Along with the Golden Wrench Award, Johnson also received a check for $1,000 from Foley United.

“Equipment technicians are the backbone of the golf operation,” Letourneau said. “We are proud to recognize their accomplishments.”
“I really had no idea. I wrote it off when John e-mailed me and said ‘Hey, you lost.’ . . . I was disappointed. (The Golden Wrench Award) was something I really wanted.”
– Doug Johnson
Johnson began his tenure at the Four Seasons during the run-up to the 2007 Byron Nelson. The day after that event had concluded work began on a $10 million renovation of the TPC Course.

Johnson and Cunningham had worked together previously at Black Diamond Ranch in Lecanto, Fla., where Johnson served as the assistant equipment technician. And Johnson knew from his time at Black Diamond that Cunningham expects and demands the most from his golf course and his staff. That’s also an environment in which Johnson admits he thrives.

“I’ve never worked at a golf course where the bar has been set so high,” Johnson said. “John is the kind of manager where if something is working, he’s not going to be satisfied, he’s going to try to make it better. If it works well, he’s going to tweak it and make it work better.

“He’s not just a manager. He helps you develop as a person, and that’s rare. A lot of guys in this business are just punching a clock. John is passionate about what we do.”

A chalkboard in the shop counts down the days to this year’s Byron Nelson, scheduled for May 21-24. On the day of Johnson’s award presentation, the countdown stood at 41 days. By the end of the day, an emotional but satisfied Cunningham took one last opportunity to reflect on the day’s events and the job turned in regularly by his tech.

“Doug is really special,” he said. “He’s someone I’d go into battle with, and we’re about to do that.”