The consensus was that the bone structure of the South course was superb but its skin was a wreck
Superintendent of the Year in 2001. Then another happy accident
occurred. After the huge success of the 2002 US Open at Bethpage State Park, the USGA sought another public venue for its signature event and awarded the 2008 Open to Torrey Pines. The consensus was that the bone structure of the South course was superb but its skin was a wreck. In 2005 the city went into overdrive, hiring GCSAA president Mark Woodward, a Certified Superintendent with years of experience in the municipal system of Mesa, Arizona, to manage Torrey Pines’ golf operations and improve the conditioning of the facility’s two 18 hole courses. When he decided to hire a new superintendent for the South course he had to first look internally “and Candice was the only certified superintendent in the system.” he says. The road to Torrey Pines (Candice
calls it “the glory place”) has had a few twists. Woodward gave Candice, and her assistant Bill Sinclair, three months to prove themselves. They did enough, improving bunker drainage, ramping up overall maintenance schedules, to warrant a three-month extension, taking her through the 2006 Buick Invitational. “You could feel the pressure,” says Bill Sinclair, “but she’s a rock. I’d panic, but not Candice.”
Meanwhile, Mark Woodward had compiled a list of potential replacements in case the ‘rock’ crumbled. But, he says, “she came through. I saw she had a real sense of urgency and follow-through, and she was hungry enough to keep up that level of intensity. She and Bill put on a pretty darned good Buick.” At the GCSAA convention in Atlanta,
Woodward took Candice to dinner, formally offered her the $60,000-a-year position, then announced the news to
her fellow superintendents. “Everybody clapped and came up to me,” she says. “I guess it was a pretty big deal.” Of approximately 10,500
superintendents and 5,500 assistants who belong to the GCSAA, only 79 supers and 72 assistants are women. Of the 2,000 members who have reached the association’s highest level of certification, women, Candice amongst them, make up barely 1%.
And she savours the challenge to change those statistics. “We are expected to produce the best,” she says. “I may have come from a more mom-and-pop approach, but I’m good at change. I do feel as if I’m having to prove myself every day, but I think we’re on the right path. If some young woman or little girl watching on television hears my name and that I’m the superintendent at Torrey Pines, that will filter down. It might plant the seed that they can do
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