Benedict at one with NBCC

When the stress of maintaining a plush golf course is about to consume him, Ron Benedict escapes to his place of solace.

If he’s on a hill just above the No. 2 hole at Newport Beach Country Club, chances are it hasn’t been a good day. But in a few minutes, the day will become better.

As golf course superintendent of NBCC, every so often Benedict needs to unwind. Sometimes, he’s there a bit more during the days leading up to the Toshiba Classic, which starts today and ends Sunday.

Behind the scenes — the top-level competition, the corporate schmoozing, the dramatic buildup to final-round Sunday — Benedict is at work, defining and redefining the golf course.

That’s him fine-tuning the putting greens and directing teams of mowers to slice down the blades of grass inside the ropes.

Coots are eating away the grass on a fairway? That could have led to another trip to Benedict’s hill, but instead he spreads birdseed away and to a place where it’s OK to eat.

What about the tents and scaffolding that goes up for those corporate hospitality rooms? He needs to make sure they don’t drive stakes into the irrigation.

Sometimes branches hang over the tents and in the view of the 18th putting green.

Quickly, Benedict will have those branches cut off. Problem solved. But that’s just the mess surrounding the course.

Each day, especially during the months leading to Toshiba, Benedict finds himself at the mercy of Mother Nature. Yet he must also be the creator when it comes to making the NBCC course playable for the pros on the Champions Tour.

“It’s a real challenge,” Benedict said Wednesday, describing the responsibilities of his job. “You come out here, one day you have sunny and 78 [degrees] and the next morning you have frost on the ground. And, plants and grass react differently to those kinds of things.”

For the past month leading up to this week, Benedict has arrived at the course at 4 a.m., sometimes earlier to make coffee for his staff.

If he wakes up in the middle of the night at his home in Costa Mesa, it’s usually because he gets so worked up about his craft.

And if he’s up, he won’t go back to sleep. It seems there hardly is time to hit the sack. No, not when golfers like Hale Irwin, Loren Roberts and Jay Haas are about to play on your course.

And, certainly not when your course is going to be on television.

“It’s a difficult thing to do. It really is,” Benedict said. “The grass can’t look at you and say, ‘hey, I have a headache.’ You have to look at other kinds of symptoms without being able to talk to it.”

Benedict, 50, in his 17th year at NBCC, has worked every Toshiba Classic that’s been on his course. But this Toshiba, his 12th, has proven to be the most challenging.

The change in weather and the low amount of rain proved brutal for Benedict and his staff, which includes key assistant Mike Novak.

Two weeks before the Toshiba Classic, the stress for Benedict mounted to an all-time high. It didn’t appear as if some of the grass in certain areas would recover in time for Toshiba.

It was time for that place of solitude.

Up on a hill just above No. 2, Benedict will stare south and in the distance, he can see Catalina Island, which calms him.

In the winter, he’ll look north and see snow-capped mountains. That hill on No. 2 is one of the reasons he’s at NBCC.

But then again, overcoming challenges, just like the ones that confronted him two weeks ago, is another factor for his desire to make NBCC plush.

After some tweaks and a bit of improvisation, Benedict worked the course back into shape.

“[The course had] grasses growing in different rates,” Benedict said. “It’s made for a very challenging year to get ready for this tournament. It’s been pretty nerve-racking this year.

“But I’m pleased with the way things are going, considering everything we’ve been through. Yeah, it’s doing OK. We’re going to look all right.”

However, Benedict is wise enough to know that it all can end so suddenly, like that time in 2000, when Toshiba was rain shortened to two rounds.

Benedict can still remember giving the final word to end the tournament because it would have taken at least a day to pump out the water that covered the greens.

“It was hard,” he said. “You have that thought of, ‘We put a lot into this.’ You want to see it the whole way through.”

But there are moments of grandeur, and sometimes it doesn’t always come from the pros. Benedict enjoys the compliments he gets from out-of-state visitors who come as friends of members.

Other times, Benedict beams when he sees the beauty that a TV camera can capture when it’s taping the action on his course.

Usually, Benedict finds joy in his work and just being a part of NBCC, he said.

“I love this place. I absolutely love this place,” Benedict said. “I love coming to work here.”

In turn, the staff at the NBCC also enjoys Benedict.

“Ron is a very passionate, talented and qualified superintendent,” said Perry Dickey, the NBCC General Manager. “He has the ability to recognize an issue and solve it successfully … What makes him real special is that so much of him is self-taught. He came in as the assistant and then became the superintendent. He will tell you he was in over his head, but not only has he survived, he has excelled.”

Dickey gave all credit to Benedict for his ability to recover the course in time for Toshiba. And now, it seems Benedict and NBCC is ready for some golf.

Maybe a trip to that hill won’t be made this week.