A little over six months ago, this column ran two articles detailing the troubles that the Orchard Golf and Country Club had experienced, including the deterioration of the condition of both golf courses, the firing of the entire management team and the conflicts and legal action taken by Orchard President Conrad Benitez against a number of members for comments made on social media.
A copy of a letter by Philip Go, a member of the Orchard, asking the board to take action against what he calls Mr. Benitez’s “incompetent decision-making.” In the interest of transparency, we are running Mr. Go’s letter in its entirety for the information of all.
To the Board,
The Orchard Golf and Country Club was once a very prestigious golf course in the country. We were recognized even at an international level, being chosen twice as a venue for the famed Johnny Walker Tournament. But after more than 20 years under Mr. Conrad Benitez, our golf course has deteriorated. This was confirmed in the report of professional golf course superintendent Mr. Jim Prusa, who was tasked to assess the course by Mr. Benitez. He reported the following:
- Deterioration of the green’s root zones, stalling the recovery of the greens.
- The use of monosodium methanearsonate (MSMA), a toxic herbicide banned in the US and other countries
- Systemic failure and the neglect of maintenance and proper maintenance procedures
- Neglect and mismanagement in various key areas, including equipment, machinery, and repair facility maintenance, as well as irrigation pump maintenance
- Removal of safety devices without replacement, compromising course maintenance, as well as safety
- Destroyed sprinkler system, with some sprinklers being cannibalized for parts while others are simply inoperable
- Broken irrigation pumps, with only two out of six pumps working and one of them close to catastrophic failure
Instead of accepting responsibility himself, Mr. Benitez blamed several of his subordinates, including the general manager (GM), operations managers, and even maintenance staff, and eventually dismissed all of them. Following this, he abruptly hired a new GM. We were not told what precautions were used in hiring the new GM, especially following the accusations of Mr. Benitez towards the dismissed staff. There were no newsletters circulated introducing the new GM, his qualifications, or his agenda, and there was no open communication between the GM and members. Now, after just eight months, another GM has been appointed to take his place, one who for the past few years has been working as a finance manager for Orchard. His former position does not give him any experience running a golf course, and due to this, a new assistant GM had to be hired to support him. This trial-and-error method to running our golf course is being done at the expense of the Orchard member base. What happened to the salary paid to the manager who only stayed for a few months, while accomplishing almost nothing? What amount was wasted this way? Who will now run the Finance department? What happens if we have to replace our current GM yet again in just a few months?
The members should not bear the cost of our President’s incompetent decision-making. After over 20 years of experience, he is still making the same mistakes. In other Philippine golf courses, there is a circular every month which updates their members on the latest developments in the course, and how much they cost. They implement measures to lower membership dues while still operating better than us. In over 20 years of managing Orchard, we have not seen the President, the GM, or any of the managers operate with this level of professionalism or transparency. Worse, they never respond to any of our letters. Now, Mr. Benitez is calling for an increase in our membership dues of P500 in 2019 and an additional P500 in 2020, all without showing us the proposed budget that led to this increase. We do not even know if he looked into cutting unnecessary costs to fix the budget deficit before considering raising the dues.
Taking all of these factors into account, we do not understand why the Board insists on retaining Mr. Benitez as the President of Orchard. The members have lost confidence in him given his inability to fix the course’s problems and accept command responsibility. In short, we cannot see a future for Orchard under the leadership of Mr. Benitez, and we believe it is time to appoint someone capable to leading this club forward in the right direction.
Sgd—Philip Go