Bay Hill Club and Lodge once again will play host to a GCSAA Conference and Trade Show Interactive Facility Tour. Photos by Montana Pritchard
Given the demands of serving now as director of grounds for two high-profile courses located roughly 1,000 miles apart — one of which hosts a yearly, early season stop on the PGA Tour — Chris Flynn, CGCS, would be the first to admit sometimes he struggles to find time to “give back” to the golf course maintenance profession.
Once every three years or so, however, he has found just such an opportunity in his own backyard.
Again this year when the GCSAA Conference and Trade Show makes its triennial visit to Orlando, Flynn and the staff at Bay Hill Club and Lodge will host their always-popular Interactive Facility Tour: “Inside Tournament Prep at Bay Hill presented by The Toro Co.”
“When it comes to anything involving getting off property, I’m not the best about getting out there, and this is an opportunity to give back rather easily with (CTS) being in town,” says Flynn, a 28-year member. “And part of it is just being able to highlight this property and staff and give what, for us, is a unique insiders’ look at what’s involved in hosting a PGA Tour event. If you talk to people, what I think is interesting is, this is our third time doing it. I think it’s here to stay. I’ve talked to people who have been here twice before, and they contacted me and said they’re looking forward to seeing it a third time.”
There will be two trips to Bay Hill this year — a morning and afternoon session on Tuesday, Feb. 3. As of mid-December, the morning session already was sold out.
Though Flynn and his staff look forward to showing off the place, he admits the timing isn’t great. By early February, the team is in the throes of prep for the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a PGA Tour Signature Event that this year will run March 5-8.
“It does take a big chunk of the team out of commission for a day,” Flynn says. “But in the grand scheme of things, one day is not a big deal, even when we’re hosting a PGA Tour event a month away. The benefits far outweigh the negatives.”
Among those benefits, Flynn says, is the opportunity his staff gets to interact with the visitors, especially since the Bay Hill crew really only gets to partake in Conference and Trade Show events when CTS is in Orlando.
“It’s 100% an opportunity for them to put themselves out there,” Flynn says. “It forces them to interact with others. Especially on this type of scale, with the number of superintendents who come through, the benefit to them, I think, is gigantic, in terms of the exposure itself and the exposure they get with others.”
The popular tour will be overseen by Chris Flynn, CGCS, director of grounds (right) and superintendent Alex Hills.
An Interactive Facility Tour to Bay Hill is not loosely planned. Though he makes a point to tweak the content from visit to visit, Flynn is meticulous in scheduling each stop of the tour.
“That’s definitely how I operate, good and bad,” Flynn says with a laugh. “I’m a micromanager at heart. When it comes to things like this, I map out every second. I don’t leave anything to chance.”
Alex Hills is among the Bay Hill staffers who look forward to the CTS-related visits. Hills, a seven-year GCSAA member and longtime Bay Hill assistant superintendent, recently was promoted to superintendent, even if her day-to-day hasn’t changed much.
“I do look forward to it,” Hills said. “It’s a way to connect with people. It’s all one big community, and when you go to another place, you see how to do things differently. It gives you ideas to take back to your operation. It’s definitely a give and take.”
Hills was promoted in part to help cover for Flynn, who last fall was also put in charge of Arnold Palmer’s Latrobe Country Club in Latrobe, Pa.
“She really deserved it,” Flynn says of the promotion. “It really just formalized her taking on a bigger role. We have such a strong team, that’s the only way the situation with Latrobe was even feasible. We could only do that with the strong team I have here and in Latrobe.”
The new title still seems a bit unbelievable to Hills.
“It’s intimidating in some ways,” she says. “But it’s powerful. I feel like I have so much respect for Mr. Palmer, it’s pretty cool when I say I’m the superintendent of Bay Hill. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem real.”
Andrew Hartsock (ahartsock@gcsaa.org) is GCM’s editor-in-chief.