FEATURE
By Paul Rogers
History books, periodicals, and websites are replete with accounts of the many times that Met Area clubs have hosted some of the biggest tournaments in golf. But peruse the reports and there is one piece of information you’ll seldom find: the name of the course superintendent.
During the 1984 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, won by Fuzzy Zoeller in an 18-hole playoff against Greg Norman, Bob Alonzi was in his first year as superintendent of the storied club in Mamaroneck, N.Y. The USGA was embroiled in controversy over the lightning-fast green speeds at the previous year’s Open at Oakmont. As a result, Alonzi and his crew were out on the West Course at 3 o’clock in the morning each day alongside USGA officials, mowing and rolling the putting surfaces and making sure they didn’t exceed 10.5 on the Stimpmeter (a snail’s pace by today’s standards).
Alonzi also oversaw preparations for the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot. This time, a powerful August storm blew in after the second round. Scrambling, Alonzi led an army of 100 people who worked through the night to remove fallen trees and limbs across the course so the third round could begin as scheduled the next morning. When Davis Love III won the tournament, his lone major title, as a rainbow formed in the sky, Alonzi considered it a sign from the heavens of his own achievement, too.
Such dedication to the toil and craft of greenkeeping ran in the family.
Joe Alonzi, Bob’s younger brother, followed him into the business. As the superintendent of Westchester Country Club from 1992 to 2015, Joe was charged with readying its West Course for the annual PGA Tour stop known in those years as the Buick Classic, the Barclays Classic, and simply The Barclays. Traditionally held the week before the U.S. Open, the tournament drew many of the world’s top players, who considered it ideal preparation for golf’s ultimate test.
To meet those expectations, Joe would work 14-hour days for up to three weeks straight, through the completion of play. Rather than make the 35-minute commute each way to and from his home in North Salem, N.Y., he crashed each night in one of the guest rooms in the Westchester clubhouse in Harrison, N.Y.
“It was easier and safer for me to stay there,” he says.
For more than half a century, before Bob retired in 2011 and Joe in 2015, the Alonzi brothers were mainstays of Met Area golf. Italian immigrants who grew up in Port Chester, N.Y., and came to the game as caddies in their youth, they worked at a host of distinguished clubs in the region and, in the process, trained members of the next generation of superintendents, including their sons.
In recognition of their contributions, the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America celebrated the Alonzis in February at its annual conference of in Orlando, Fla. They received one of the organization’s highest honors, the Col. John Morley Award, named after its founder and first president. It was the first time that brothers had shared the award.
“Throughout their careers, Bob and Joe raised the bar for the profession both in how they maintained the courses under their care and how they helped the development of so many others who crossed their paths,” says Rhett Evans, the association’s CEO. “While they are most known for their work in the Northeast, their impact and the network of superintendents they mentored has made a difference around the country. We often speak of GCSAA as a family, and Bob and Joe have lived that on so many levels.”
Speaking by phone from Fort Myers, Fla., where they and their wives now spend their winters in the same golf community, Bob, 83, and Joe, 77, said they consider themselves fortunate to have shared a career with each other and to have helped pass it on.
“It’s very rewarding,” Bob says, adding, “you’re not at a loss when you’re sitting together about what to talk about it.”
Sometimes, Joe points out, all the shop talk would try the patience of their families. “I can remember sitting down at the dinner table and being asked not to talk about grass,” he says with a laugh.
Turfgrass has been the family business ever since Joe, as a teenager, took a neighbor up on an offer to introduce him to the foreman of the grounds crew at Tamarack Country Club in Greenwich, Conn. Soon, he was putting in early morning hours cutting grass and raking bunkers, after which he’d walk over to the caddiemaster and see about a loop. Like his brother after him, he also caddied at Westchester Country Club, which was closer to home.
Eventually, after considering pursuing a career in construction like his father, Fiorino Alonzi – a stonemason who built the altar of O’Byrne Chapel at Manhattanville College (now University) in Purchase, N.Y. – Bob enrolled in off-season courses in turfgrass science and management at Rutgers University, home to one of the leading programs in the field.
After a two-year stint the U.S. Army, from 1964 to 1966, he returned to Tamarack and assumed the job of foreman himself. He landed his first superintendent’s position at Rye Golf Club in 1967, later moving to Burning Tree Country Club and then Fairview Country Club, both in Greenwich. He held the job at Winged Foot from 1984 through 1999, at which time he moved to Fenway Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., the final stop of his career.
Joe earned a degree in electrical engineering from RCA Institutes in Manhattan. After graduating, he took a job with the Norden corporation, a subsidiary of United Aircraft, in Norwalk, Conn., working on the radar system for the F-111 fighter jet. His parents had encouraged him to pursue a career other than greenkeeping.
“It was my mom more than my dad,” Joe recalls. “She wanted me to be dressed in a white shirt and tie; that meant something to her. But it turned out it didn't mean anything to me, and after a while I just wanted to be outside.”
So, he packed up his cubicle, where he had been taking measurements of amperage and voltage on a tiny computer screen, and went to work for his older brother at Burning Tree. Joe, too, entered the Rutgers turfgrass program, graduating in 1973, and a year later landed the job of superintendent at the Huntington Crescent Club on Long Island. In 1984, he moved on to Fenway, working there for eight years before going to Westchester Country Club.
Looking back on their careers, the Alonzis say they are happily retired, free of the 4 a.m. wakeups and seven-days-a-week schedules they maintained during the golf season all those years. At the same time, they said, there are aspects of the job they miss, including the camaraderie and mentorship and the chance to be ensconced in nature.
“Most of the time, because we start so early,” says Bob, still using present tense, “the golf course is total serenity out there: it’s you and the birds and whatever other wildlife there might be.” That is, he added, until the first ball of the day is struck – “it changes the entire thing.”
The biggest challenge of the job, they say, was establishing and maintaining course conditions that not only satisfied a club’s tournament or greens committee but also suited the abilities of the entire membership, high handicappers as well as low.
“Often, I said that growing grass was the easiest part of my job,” Bob chuckles.
Along the way, the Alonzis earned the respect of their many peers and proteges in the Met Area and beyond.
“What’s impressive to me is to see the longevity they had,” David Dudones, director of golf and grounds at Westchester Country Club, who worked under both Alonzis, told Golf Course Management, the official publication of the GCSAA. “It’s easy to get spit out by some of these clubs, but the fact that both of them did what they did for so long at such high-level clubs, you almost scratch your head.”
Christopher Alonzi, Joe’s only son (like Bob, he also has three daughters), spent summers and school breaks working for his dad at Fenway and Westchester. In addition to teaching him how to fix irrigation systems, syringe and spray greens, and spot early signs of wilt, his dad led by example.
“Watching my father and how he dealt with the different managers and the level of respect that everybody had for each other and just the way everything worked, it was really impressive to watch and be part of,” says Christopher, now superintendent of the Summit Club in Armonk, N.Y.
Bob’s son, Rob Alonzi, is the superintendent at Fenway, having succeeded his father there after cutting his teeth at several other leading clubs. The biggest lesson he learned from his dad and uncle is the importance of paying attention to detail and investing deeply in the job.
“They were present and involved with their operations, and I think that goes a long way with people, especially when you’re asking them to do a lot and without these people it’s hard for you to be successful,” he says. “I think the members see it, too. They see everybody working hard, but they also see the leadership is right there with them, right there. It’s not like they’re coming in late and leaving early and expecting everybody to get it done. They’re as involved as everybody else.”
These days, after their years of hard work, Bob and Joe are happy to be playing a golf course rather than maintaining it. During winters in Florida, they get out together three times a week.
As former superintendents, do they take note to the course conditioning?
“I do,” Joe says, “but I keep it to myself.”
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