Outside the Ropes
With Russ Miller, Director of Golf
RUSS MILLER, DIRECTOR OF GOLF, AND MICHAEL SARTORI, EAST AND WEST COURSE SUPERINTENDENT
Putting on a major golf tournament is a complex undertaking, requiring extensive planning, resources, and managing all logistics, all while maintaining a high level of professionalism and attention to detail. Russ Miller and his dedicated team know exactly what it takes to create a successful event, “outside the ropes.”
Hi Russ! What is your position here at The Broadmoor, and can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
Yes, I’m the Director of Golf here at The Broadmoor. I’ve been here for 27 years, and my responsibilities are all Golf Operations, Golf Retail, Membership, Locker Rooms, and Championships... and, I work closely with Freddie [read his feature] on construction projects. It’s a lot of different things!
Have you always had the role of Director of Golf?
Here I have, yes. The club I came from I was Director of Golf for nine years, and I’ve been in the business for about 43 years now.
How did you end up here at The Broadmoor?
It’s all thanks to Steve Bartolin, our former CEO. I got to know him at my previous job, and when Dow Finsterwald was retiring, he asked me if I had an interest in coming out. So, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time!
Did you require any special training or education for this role?
Yes, you have to have your PGA Membership, which has both an educational and playing ability component, so it’s two part. It takes about four years to go through that program and get your credentials. I’ve been a PGA Member since 1988, so 37 years—wow, I’m old! I’ve racked up a lot of big numbers, haven’t I?!
What is the playing level that you have to have?
You have to shoot a certain score over two rounds, but back in the old days, you could play in a tournament and designate that as your “playability test.” So, I was playing in the Florida Open, and I just said I’d like to make this my “playability test.” Nowadays, it’s more structured. There are certain days and certain courses you have to play, and a fixed score that you have to shoot—I’m not even sure what that is now! But, the “pass” rate is not real high. And I get it, they want our profession to play well...not that anything I do now has anything to do with how well I play. Some jobs do, but for me, in general, no.
Do you still go out and play just for enjoyment?
I do! Yes, I don’t take it real seriously anymore, though I used to; I just enjoy getting out.
There probably isn’t a ‘typical day’ for you, but if you had to describe one, what would that look like?
I’ll respond two ways: with a Championship and without a Championship. Normal day-to-day in the season, we’ll have up to about 80-100 employees. So our days start early, and I spend the very first minutes of the day looking at the manager’s reports, financials, and schedules for the day. I look to see if we have group events, social events, etc., and, I make sure that our tournament office, golf retail, and everybody is ready to go for the day. Plus, we have planning meetings every week. We do what’s called a “ten-day forecast,” so we always know what’s happening up to ten days out. When I come to work in the morning, I have very few surprises. For the most part, I know what’s going to take place that day.
For the Championship, it’s a whole different effort. We start mapping out everything about three years prior to the actual event. We manage these Championships a lot differently than most clubs do. Normally, the USGA itself will come in and set up at the Club for two to three years, running it themselves. Instead, we manage it all ourselves, from A to Z. All Operations, all ticket sales, all hospitality sales, Food and Beverage, Retail, Merchandise, etc. Because we have such great resources here, and a large staff, we can handle it. So, we actually pay the USGA a percentage of our revenues, and we have our own management company (that started here about three years ago). We have a tournament office filled with people who just work all day long on the Championship. It’s pretty interesting!
There have been multiple Championships at The Broadmoor already–how has that helped you prepare for this one?
This will be my fourth, so I kind of know the template we need to follow. What’s nice here is that we don’t change a lot every time we do a championship; we know the drill. We now focus a lot on the hospitality aspect, like getting heads in beds and selling tickets to make revenue.
What are some of the other factors that help to create a successful event?
We work really closely with the city. For example, if the City Council or the Mayor didn’t want to bring this event to Colorado Springs, then it wouldn’t happen–we need their support. But having said that, it’s a $24 million economic impact on our city in seven days; it’s the biggest tax revenue week of the entire year. So of course they like it! It’s about 30,000 hotel rooms that get sold because of this, 6,000 rental cars, and roughly 400 full time jobs. It’s a lot of great activity for the city, but you also have to educate them and work closely with them. For instance, take the police force: when you have 130,000 spectators come for the week, where do you park them, how do you get them here? Road closures, emergencies, etc., all of those things have to be accounted for.
What makes the U.S. Senior Open unique compared to some of the others?
It is a National Championship, and there are players from all over the world who come to take part in it. You have the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Senior Open, and U.S. Senior Women’s Open, so there are four “Opens” a year. These players are the best of the best. For the U.S. Senior Open, you must be age 50 and over. We’re on worldwide TV for 20 hours on NBC and the Golf Channel—you can’t pay for that kind of marketing. But truly, when you have the best players in the world come for a tournament, that alone makes it pretty special. These guys have been good for forty years–they are just great, great players.
So these may be players we saw a lot of 20 or 25 years ago. Now, say a senior player is participating in LIV Golf—can they come and play in this as well?
Great question. The guy who won the U.S. Senior Open last year actually plays on the LIV Tour. They have an event the same week as the Senior Open, so he can’t come compete in our tournament since he’s contracted to play in LIV. He’s the defending champion, and he’s sick about that! But, he wanted to play in the LIV Tour.
With him not participating, is there a new favorite?
It’s so hard to say! There’s a guy from New Zealand who wants to come early for a practice round. He was the #1 Player on the Champions Tour the last two years, though not this year...he’s #5. But still, he’s really good. If you’re good, you’re good! This course is so hard, people aren’t going to get lucky and win. The Champion of this tournament is going to be a really good player.
So some of them are already here practicing to prepare for this one?
Yes! Yeah, it’s fun. We close the course on June 9, except for the Qualifiers. And we’ll have a lot of practice rounds then. I’ll tell you what–they love it here. They stay in Broadmoor West, we build them a locker room over there, they have family dining over there, they have physio trailers—they have everything. And then they walk three minutes over to the first tee. Normally, with these Championships, you’re at a hotel that is 15, 20, or 30 minutes away from the course, and you are taking a shuttle there or having to figure out how to get to the course, etc., whereas this is just so convenient. We give them a great rate, we feed them amazing food, and most of them bring their families. For a lot of Championships, they might just go by themselves, but they bring their families here, which can make a big difference for them.
What sort of impact does it have to have thousands upon thousands of people here, and what are some of the difficulties that that brings?
I’ll go with difficulties first, because there are a couple of things that you can’t predict: weather, bears. Also, there are the unforeseeable issues that we can’t predict. For example, our grandstand seats used to be green —they were bench seats and painted green. In 2008, it got so hot that particular week that the paint was melting—we replaced many pairs of khaki pants that were ruined because of the green paint that melted onto them. Who would have ever thought of that!? So now we just have white, plastic flip up seats, which are much nicer anyway. We also pay close attention to the wildlife in the immediate area. They can smell the food that is being prepared out on the course in the food tents. We’ve worked with the Wildlife Department as well to mitigate anything that might happen in that area.
I attended the 2018 U.S. Senior Open, and it was so different than watching golf on TV. Just the amount of people there, and everyone was just having a great time! And we got to go right up next to someone who was teeing off and experience everyone being quiet—it was amazing.
Yes, it’s a neat thing! Even if you don’t play golf, it’s a great atmosphere. Getting to be outside and watching golf with a beer and a hot dog...you can’t beat that. It’s beautiful!
So tell us about the preparation regarding the heights and widths for the grass out on the course. You have to go down to the inch of how the grass is cut?
Yes, on the greens Freddie’s team actually goes down to a 1/64 of an inch! And there are ways to measure the height and width; he has machines that you affix certain blades to—it’s pretty fascinating. It’s Freddie’s team who’s in charge of that, but it’s included in my preparation checklist because we have to place grandstands and concession stands in areas that don’t interrupt play, as well restrooms, and account for all the Marshals (who control traffic flow), all of which affect the physical course. There’s so much that goes into it!
Another cool statistic to share: we’ll have 1,700 volunteers coming in from 45 different states. We don’t go out to Alaska and say “hey, we need somebody”—they come to us. And they pay to be a volunteer. They get a uniform, credentials for the week, and we feed them while they’re volunteering. It’s a good deal for them, but they are still paying to do it. Very few stay here, just because we don’t have enough room. All of the players, minus a few, stay here. And then USGA staff too—there are usually about 30 of them. And then NBC staff, probably 15 of them, and our hospitality patrons. It’s a lot of people!
So the volunteers really do it because they truly love golf...
They do. We literally have people come from around the world to volunteer. They just make it a destination event.
Freddie was telling us that you all keep up with a lot of the interns from your program to see where they end up; he mentioned one guy from Ireland who is coming back for this one!
Yes, isn’t that cool!
Take this as a compliment: you don’t seem too nervous about this upcoming event–we’re so impressed! Is it your experience, or do you just divide and conquer with your team?
There are checklists that we have and follow, which are 30 or so pages long. The first tournament I did, back in 2008, was the first U.S. Senior Open held here. Trust me, it was a very different feeling than present day. There was a lot more of “What are we not thinking of?”, or, “What if this happens?” But now, no matter what happens, we have a solid plan for it. Honestly, we all just hope for good weather that week...haha.
So if the weather is bad, then that will delay play?
It can—if there is lightning. We have evacuation vehicles on the golf course for the players and caddies if that occurs. The USGA actually sends an Agronomist in here for the whole Championship, and he’ll sit in an office and watch the weather. I want to say if there’s lightning within 15 miles, then they’ll clear the course. When you have 30,000 people attending, where do you put them? You have to give them time to get out, but you also don’t want to do it too early, in case the storm never happens...there is a science to it. Rain is definitely our enemy during play.
Can you describe our relationship with USGA a bit more?
Yes, this will be the 9th USGA Championship at The Broadmoor, and it’s just a really great partnership with those folks. I’ve worked with them for 20 something years now. They’re in discussions to come back in 2031 for another U.S. Senior Open, so we’d be on a six-year rotation, where it comes back around every six years. We’re the only club in the world who’s doing that with the U.S. Senior Open, which is a huge compliment. And it’s honestly because of everybody here at the resort.
Marketing wise for the hotel, like I said, you couldn’t pay for the kind of exposure that a Championship brings. We don’t make money on this thing. When it’s all said and done, we break even. But it’s the right thing to do for a lot of reasons. I love it, it’s my favorite thing to do. Yes, it’s exhausting, and there’s the stress of hospitality sales and tickets, but I love it—it’s awesome.
Yes, Freddie and the grounds team described it as their upcoming Superbowl!
Exactly! And, it’s like Christmas, because when it’s over, things don’t stop. The next day, it’s like here we go—we’re back to normal!
When we interviewed Freddie, he shared how the holes are moved out on the course... can you tell us a little bit more about that process and how it works throughout the tournament?
So, we already have a chart of where we think the hole location will go each day, for both the practice rounds and actual tournament. For example, four green right here: where you put the hole location can vary the hole play a lot. We take into account where the hole is placed on the slope of the green, how fast the ball rolls, etc. So, if you have four Championship rounds, Thursday through Sunday, and you have four different hole locations, there are different strategies and different looks that directly affect the level of complexity during play. We never put them in a spot that’s more than 2.5 degrees of grade change.
Is that a USGA requirement?
No, that’s how fast our greens are, so we just know that. So one of the best things I get to do, the week of the Championship, is to go out with Freddie to the course, with the USGA team, and set the hole locations very early in the morning hours each day. That’s really fun.
That’s really confidential, right?
Yes, the USGA sends the charts to us and makes it clear we are sworn to confidentiality—we can’t share this information with anybody. Interestingly, you will see the tournament players out here playing practice rounds, and they kind of know where the hole might go. They don’t know where the hole will be on a given day, but they are always guessing where it’ll go. And if the pin is somewhere in the center right now, you might see them out there practicing to the corners, as they’re thinking that most likely the hole’s not going to be somewhere in the center.
From what we understand, there’s just a big divot or plug that is extracted from the green to make a new hole, and then you take that plug of earth and use it to fill in an existing hole?
Yes, we do it on our courses every morning, and if it’s done right, you shouldn’t know it’s been done. You might be able to see the outer circle of the plug, but after a couple of days, the grass grows in and it’s basically seamless. If it has sunken in too far, or rises above the grade, then it’s been done incorrectly. But my guys are so good! We have a couple of different guys on our team who do it, so during the Championship week, one will go with me on holes one through nine, and the other goes with Freddie and the USGA on ten through eighteen, so there will be two different cutters. It takes a while to do it correctly, and, they paint the inside lining of the cup, because it looks better. It’s pretty neat.
So, as we ask all of our interviewees, what is your favorite, and least favorite, part of your job?
Championship wise, I love the relationships I’ve formed with the players and USGA. Hundreds and hundreds of friends and acquaintances, and I get to see them every year since I go to a lot of events—that’s fun. What I dislike, like I said before, are the unknowns, the weather or the “what-ifs.” But, like I said, you have a plan and you deal with it and get through it. And yes, it’s tiring, but our jobs are tiring anyways.
What, besides the green paint incident (and the infamous bear running across the course) is another odd thing happening that someone might not think about?
I forget the year, it was 2011 or 2008, but Freddie, Mike, and I were sitting out here, looking forward towards the course. The tournament had just ended for the day, but it was still Championship week. We literally watched these volunteers, who were clueless about golf, run a golf cart right across the number four green—that can really do some damage! So we went into a full sprint out towards them...thankfully, it didn’t do any damage!...and these were Paramedics or something— they just didn’t know. But we couldn’t have seen that coming.
Some other notable info here: there’s a medical team onsite always to handle situations that come up (of course you hope that nothing happens). We may see bee stings, dehydration, heat and other issues arise. But the feeling of that week, when you have 30,000 people here in a day—it’s just awesome. It’s hard to explain, there’s an energy, an aura. Folks aren’t stressed about a bear or something else happening. Also, one other thing I want to mention: kids 17 and under get in complimentary, and the reason we do that is because we want kids to learn about the game of golf. Even if they’ve never played in their life, just to be here is great exposure for them.
Well, if someone was interested in pursuing a career in the golf industry, what advice would you give them?
Be prepared that you’re going to work a lot of long hours in this career. It’s not a forty-hour a week job most of the time. There’s down time in winter here, which is just great, but I think many college students nowadays think it’s a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job, where they’re going to make a $100,000 a year salary. That’s just not how it works. And, don’t do it, either, just because you love to play. I used to love to play. I played in 30 tournaments a year, but I can’t do that now—I have too much going on. Honestly, I don’t want to do that now; I love to work. But don’t do it just because you like to play. So many interns come our way and say, “I want to be a golf instructor.” Which is great, but we actually do all these other things and have so many different responsibilities. But like I said, I’ve been in this career 43 years and I love it—I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t know what else I would do! Our team and staff are truly amazing. Shooter’s been here for 26 years, Shauna Sartori 20 years, and Michael Sartori 20 years. Freddie 28 years. I guess we kind of like each other if we’ve worked together that long—you can’t fake it for 27 years...haha!
Well, it’s an amazing operation and we have a newfound respect for everything that everyone does to make sure the golf courses are operational and beautiful.
I just have to say that Freddie is the best in the industry. There are a lot of great ones out there, but his attention to detail is incredible...and our weather is harsh. Like it snowed, what, three or four weeks ago?... and pretty soon it’s going to be 90 degrees out. It’s hard! The tournament really involves a lot of maneuvering out on the actual course as well. There’s some pretty neat stuff going out there, including multiple grandstands being put up, the Merchandise Pavilion, etc.
To connect with Russ to learn more about his role here at The Broadmoor, please reach out to him at to him at 719-577-5784 or [email protected]