Craig Smith
Craig Smith
• Craig is currently the superintendent of the Chicago Golf Club, the oldest 18-hole golf course in the U.S. He is just the 8th superintendent of the club, that was founded in 1892.
Program: Golf Course Management
Year of graduation: 2014
Hometown: Richland Center
What did you enjoy about your time at Southwest Tech? I enjoyed the camaraderie of my classmates. It was nice to have a small group that you could bounce questions off of and get to know really well. I also just really appreciate Scott Kennedy and his guidance. He unlocked my potential and just told us that our possibilities were limitless.
Why did you choose that program? I thought I wanted to go into the medical field. I enrolled at UW-Richland and was thinking about nursing or being an EMT but I kept skipping school to go golfing. Luckily I had a guidance counselor that knew what I was interested in and told me about Southwest Tech’s golf course management program so I decided to try it.
Did you skip school after that? No, I really loved it!
Where did you go after graduation? During my internship I worked at Trump National Bedminster, Bedminster, New Jersey. After graduation, I worked at Chicago Golf Club as an intern and then Card Sound Golf Club in Key Largo, Florida, for the winter. It was great to have that time from April to September to really see the whole golf season. The internship was such a great experience to be able to apply what I had learned and then as we started learning new things in year two, I understood what I had been doing. I was hooked on this career after my internship!
After graduation I worked in New York for the Century Country Club and while I was doing that I went back to school at Rutgers and earned a 2-year certificate in Turfgrass Management. It was a great experience and was solely dedicated to grass and soils and all the science behind it. From there I worked at Erin Hills from 2016-17 and was able to work the U.S. Open, which was an amazing experience and really fun. We worked hard but it was so much fun! I came back here to the Chicago Golf Club and then wanted to get some experience on the west coast so my mentor here helped me get a job at the L.A. Country Club so I could get some experience growing grass.
I always wanted to make sure I had a variety of experience because I didn’t want any lack of experience to hinder my abilities for a future position. It really helped me become more well-rounded. The golf network is crazy. This career is totally 95 percent of who you know.
Your current employment? Starting the first renovation the Chicago Golf Club has seen – it’s a multi-million dollar project. (Craig is doing a lot of the work with planning and contractors. He’ll lead a team of 30 and then will bring in 8 interns.)
What do you enjoy about your current position? The support of the membership is huge for me. The team-centric work environment that is present makes it fun to come to work and makes accomplishing long and short term goals very rewarding, because we are doing it together.
What did you learn at Southwest Tech that has helped in your current role and to help get you to where you are now? Southwest Tech gave me a great foundation to grow.
What advice would you have for others who are thinking about choosing Southwest Tech? Network, network network. Always be the hardest and most dependable worker on the staff. Do NOT burn bridges and represent your school well.