Getty Images
She landed in California on Sunday afternoon and lined her way to Monterey, skipping her hotel so she could catch the course at sunset, her first glimpse of Pebble Beach, in golden light.
“She was so beautiful, I almost cried,” said Andy Meadows.
But enough emotions. It was also her first major. She had work to do.
The next day, she hit the range, and squeezed in some reps an hour outrageously early, before making a round on the front nine, mostly catching greens. No markings on the field. But it fixed some. She helped with mowing, too.
As the US Women’s Open kicks off in Pebble Beach this week, the 2023 Women in Turf program unfolds in tandem, sending Meadows and 34 teammates from across the country as volunteer assistants to Pebble’s 27-member maintenance crew: Seven Days of Important Contributions From dawn to dusk, a show of strength from an underrepresented group in the turf trade.
Of the more than 19,000 members of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, less than 2 percent are women. Why runaway bug? The explanations are at once complex and simple, and range from long hours to ancient notions about gender roles. Some of them are about awareness. Many women do not pursue lawn care as a career for the same reason that many men do not: They don’t realize that it is an option.
It took Andy Meadows a while to see the light. Born and raised in Mississippi, she was an athletic and outdoorsy person. She also loves to work with her hands. In 2006, in the aftermath of the attempted Hurricane Katrina, Meadows, then in her early 20s, got a job maintaining a golf course through a family friend. She thought it was an evil business, but she needed the money.
“Soon afterward, I discovered that it was much more than a paycheck,” she says.
Besides covering her rent, the job provided an education. There was always more to learn. Eager to move up the ranks, Meadows attended a community college, taking classes on the side to complete a degree in horticulture. By then she was married, a military wife, with three young children, and moving from base to base. Her career aspirations took a back seat to the family, but they never left her thoughts. In 2021, now divorced, and her ex-husband stationed in Germany, Meadows saw a listing for an assistant job at TPC San Antonio. She moved to Texas, and she doesn’t know anyone. “No friends, no family, no house, no car,” she says. “Just me, three kids, a dog and 250 pounds of luggage.”
The job was a salvation. Didn’t look back.
If there’s a downside to her role, it’s what she describes as “a sense of isolation” — being a woman in a male-dominated trade who also happens to be managing men. She has to keep her limits.
But over the years, she’s made connections with female colleagues through Facebook support groups. This week, she met some of them in person for the first time.
The Women in Turf program begins in 2021, at the US Women’s Open at the Olympic Club. If the world’s best players can ply their trade on some of the world’s best courses, why shouldn’t the best women’s turf do the same?
Supporting the software was a no-brainer, says Bubba Wright, director of Pebble.
“It’s a great opportunity for education and career development, and it’s also very valuable to us,” he says. “These women will do a lot of everything to help us prepare the course. They will be involved in every shebang.”
And so it has been for Meadows and her peers since Monday morning: They commute to the field at 3am, with logging shifts until 8am, with a break when play starts, then return in the afternoon and work in the dark. Dig bunkers, fill gaps, and repair pitch marks. No end to detail, or satiation.
On Thursday afternoon, as the opening round ended, Meadows stood outside the maintenance shed, next to the 10th hole, crashing into the ground behind her with a group of teammates, snuggling in for a nap before resuming action.
After the last sets are over, the lawns will return to the greens, mowing boards moved, and wooden pallets placed as protection so the mowers can turn without damaging the lawn. Then you get busy cutting the sprinkler heads off with scissors.
It was stressful and exhilarating.
“It was magical,” she said. “And besides, I can sleep next week.”