The fairways had more weeds than turf, the greens had recently been resodded after a worker killed the grass with a heavy application of pesticide, and an outmoded irrigation system had produced more bare spots than bermuda.
"Of all of them, it was in the worst situation," Fryrear said of the ACGT courses. "That one had dropped down a notch or two."
Enter Brian Woolard, 38, who only a few months earlier had been hired to oversee Mission Del Lago.
"I kind of left it to Brian to get it all working," Fryrear said.
Just more than a year later, Woolard's remarkable efforts at Willow Springs earned him recognition as superintendent of the year by the Central Texas Golf Course Superintendents Association.
"It just needed some tender loving care and some direction," said Woolard, an Alvarado native who didn't pursue a career in the golf industry until he discovered the superintendent degree program at Texas State Technical College in Waco. "I wasn't involved with what was going on previously. I just knew I could turn it around."
He did so by applying experience learned in more than a dozen years serving as an assistant on various properties statewide and what others around him term an extraordinary knack for identifying and treating trouble spots on the course.
Woolard, a golfer while at Alvarado High School southeast of Fort Worth, does so despite suffering from a form of cerebral palsy that has cost him some motor function on the left side of his body.
"It doesn't affect my brain," he said. "I do things. I just can't do it as fast as some."
Fryrear dismisses that claim. "I haven't noticed any lack of speed," he said. "Our experience with Brian is he gets it done faster than anybody else. That's just him being modest."
Indeed, that disability hasn't appeared to slow what Woolard terms a "passion" for keeping his golf course in top shape for players. He arrived in San Antonio in January 2009 after five years as an assistant superintendent at exclusive Brae Burn Country Club in Houston.
After the short stint at Mission Del Lago, he was transferred to Willow Springs, located across from the AT&T Center, and found a 250-acre tract that was a stark contrast to Brae Burn's meticulously manicured landscape.
Woolard went to work, supervising the manual operation of balky irrigation heads around the 7,221-yard course. He eliminated the weed problem with aggressive treatments; successfully treated turf damaged by the heavy salt content from effluent water; added gypsum, nitrogen and other nutrients to trouble areas, and oversaw aerification of greens as needed.
"Brian's experience let us go to hyper-speed mode," Fryrear said.
"He's an extremely talented superintendent who took ownership at Willow Springs," said Jim Roschek, president and CEO of ACGT. "As an operator, I couldn't ask for more."
Healthy rains over much of the past year buoyed Woolard's efforts, as did his growing reputation as a sort of "grass whisperer." Today, even as he battles the same irrigation system issues and mercurial weather, Willow Springs' rebound ranks as the most impressive in the city.
"I see disease before anybody else does," Woolard said. "I guess it's one of those things that just came to me. I just watch, and I'm very observant. Some people give me too much credit sometimes.
"I just do what I do and know what I know. It's hard to explain."
BRIAN WOOLARD
Age: 38
Job: Head superintendent, Willow Springs Golf Course
Education: Golf course superintendent program, Texas State Technical College (Waco)
Professional: Worked seven years at various properties for American Golf ... Served at Brae Burn Country Club in Houston from 2005-09 ... Superintendent for Mission Del Lago from January-September 2009 ... Hired as superintendent at Willow Springs in fall 2009.
Award: 2010 Superintendent of the Year, Central Texas Golf Course Superintendents Association
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