Superintendent Paul Richmond found his niche in Maine, overseeing two golf courses and the chapter's Annual Crew Day. Photo by Russ Dillingham
When Paul Richmond entered the maintenance shop, others knew it right away. The harmonica gave it away.
“We’d hear it when we came into the shop,” says Charlie Fultz, a former Richmond colleague. “Biggest Bob Dylan fan on the planet.” Dylan is an American singer/songwriter and cultural legend whose harmonica indicated a sound that identified his music in the 1960s.
“Yes, I always had Bob Dylan playing in the shop,” says Richmond, “and I would try to play harmonica.”
Richmond, meanwhile, found his own way to strike the right chord in Maine’s golf industry — featuring as host to the Maine GCSA's Annual Crew Day.
The five-year GCSAA member is a superintendent who presides over two courses in the state: The Meadows Golf Club in Litchfield and Fogg Brook Resort in Palmyra. This journey into the world of golf didn’t start in this fashion. A native of Osceola, Ark., Richmond was raised on a farm along the Mississippi River. His great-grandmother was a babysitter for another music legend, Johnny Cash, who was born and raised in an Arkansas town 25 minutes from where Richmond grew up.
Richmond departed Arkansas after high school. He followed his father to Washington, D.C. Paul Sr. is legally blind and was hired as a computer programmer with the Internal Revenue Service. His son? He landed in the golf industry. That’s not all. He developed his own reputation at a bar, where he was a bartender before golf entered the picture. “It was a bloody mary bar. I got really good at that,” Richmond says.
His role at the bar served as a night job. During the day, Richmond went to work for the maintenance crew at Country Club of Culpeper in Culpeper, Va. Quickly, he gained a knack for that line of work. “I brought him on as a mechanic,” says Fultz, a GCSAA Class A superintendent and 19-year association member now at Heritage Oaks Golf Course in Harrisonburg, Va. “He took an interest in golf course maintenance really early, wanting to know the hows and whys of it. He was really great with the equipment as a mechanic but became intrigued with what we did on the course. He also started playing a lot of golf and got pretty good pretty quick.”
Days and nights were lengthy. “I’d wake up, go to the golf course and mow greens. Then I’d go home at 3, shower and put on a tuxedo to go bartend,” Richmond says.
He moved to Maine and took a job in golf, starting at Kennebec Country Club in 2000 as an assistant and mechanic. In 2006, Richmond was hired as superintendent at nine-hole Wawenock Golf Club in Walpole and a year later added the general manager position. Eighteen years ago, he became the club’s general manager while remaining as superintendent. His engagement in the industry increased, too. Richmond took pesticide classes and gained a 3b commercial master application license. He secured a GHIN (Golf Handicap and Information Network) through the United States Golf Association. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Richmond served as Maine GCSA president.
Richmond cooks up alligator for team members at a past Crew Day. Photo courtesy of Paul Richmond
In 2018, Richmond found his sweet spot at The Meadows GC and Fogg Brook Resort. The facilities were in transition mode, having been acquired a year earlier by Randy Anderson and a group of friends. “They needed a superintendent. I consulted with them as well, finding qualified people to work,” Richmond says.
The ownership group invested in growing the business. More than two dozen Husqvarna EPOS robotic mowers were added to the equipment stable, a sign to Richmond and his crew that ownership is ambitious (the crew added Dan Allen as superintendent in March to oversee Fogg Brook while Richmond goes back and forth to both facilities, including hands-on tech and IT needs at Fogg Brook).
“We’re not a high-end club. They’ve (owners) taken a rural-style club that was a true, blue-collar place and turned it into a community asset,” says Richmond, noting that Fogg Brook Resort hosted Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation’s Maine Testicle Festival, a benefit for the foundation. “We do a lot of community functions. And we try to push technology, be out in front of things.”
Ownership also supports what Richmond does with that yearly Maine GCSA Crew Day. “I told them it is important to me. They were 100% for it,” he says. Crew Day has existed for more than two decades. This year, it’s Oct. 21. One of Richmond’s goals in an event such as this is to ensure that those who drag the hoses, cut greens and may be retired and aren’t always invited to club functions are welcomed with open arms. “I think the original idea was to allow a superintendent’s whole crew to show up, with some guys who aren’t allowed to some facilities. It’s a thank-you for a great season,” Richmond says, “and it includes seasonal workers who have to go work at other places, like lobster boats, to help make a living. These are the people who make the world go round.”
The event draws roughly 200 attendees. The cost of $30 covers everything, and vendors aid in covering some of the costs while the ownership of The Meadows GC and Fogg Brook Resort donate their properties, so attendees don’t pay for golf or carts. “It’s not a day for counting pennies,” Richmond says.
Of course, lobsters are a given food option. And Richmond serves as chef for the feast. Someone suggested an interesting menu choice. “We haven’t had ostrich. It was requested. We’ll see,” says Richmond, noting alligator has been on the menu.
In any case, Richmond savors all he has to offer as a superintendent and host. “My job is important to me. So is this,” he says. “This day is mainly for playing golf, eating, drinking and laughs. I just like to have a party.”
Says former Richmond assistant Connor McLaughlin, now at Rhode Island Country Club and two-year GCSAA member, “He helped me get a scholarship to do turf school, the six-week winter program at UMass. He’s a great mentor. Took me under his wing. Showed me everything. How to manage a team. Just a great teacher. He is practical, hands on, not just ‘go do things.’ I call the Crew Day ‘Paulpalooza.’ Eat, golf, be merry. He goes out of his way to do stuff for other people. He inspired me.”
The father of four sons (P.J., Tristen, Caleb and Cameron) and husband to wife Beth, Richmond says all his children have done some type of golf course work. He, though, never returned to whipping up one of his famous bloody mary’s. “No, no more bartending,” Richmond says. “A lot of these drinks when I was in my 20s weren’t around. Now, I don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Howard Richman is GCM's associate editor