by Bill Culbertson, Wel-Tec/Golf Safety

Picture the following scene of a group of Orange County Superintendents attending a golf industry meeting, and the conversation came around to talking about the young up and comers who have made it to the ranks of being a golf professional superintendent. And, the man who became a personal point of reference was pretty much universal in the selection of “Junior” Valdivia, recently named the Superintendent of the Birch Hills Golf Club in Brea, California.

That distinguished group of former mentors and current superintendents who are proud to claim “Junior” as a friend and colleague may well have included:
Jim Fetterly, Vince Vasquez, Paul Cushing, Dario Olivares, and, in no minor way, General Manager Mike Donovan

What other golf operations professional was actually born into the industry we all love other than “Junior”, who was raised in the house we all know that Mother Fernanda still inhabits on the grounds of the Western Hills Golf Club? And, is it any wonder at all that after following his father Refugio around the tract as a young boy to learn something about what it takes to maintain a great facility that the result was pretty apparent where the guy known as “Junior” was headed?

The father of “Junior” was known as the Master Irrigator and Foreman at the Western Hills CC in Carbon Canyon, from 1982 until his passing in 2006. Many of the innovations of effective irrigation developed by Dad Refugio are still very much a part of a number of watering systems throughout the area, a tribute to the dedication that certainly runs in the family to this day. Uncle Julian Valdvia was definitely a student and benefactor of the Refugio irrigation methods and, in a very logical move, took over the responsibilities at Industry Hills in the departure of brother Refugio and is currently Foreman and Irrigator.

“Junior” worked at the Western Hills facility all the way through high school and Mt Sac College where he earned a degree in Horticulture in 2004, and was soon on his professional path as he was construction foreman at Vellano CC until 2006, followed by his first Assistant Superintendent position at Mile Square Golf Club in Fountain Valley. However, much of the Mile Square plans were preempted by the loss of Refugio, so it was incumbent upon “Junior” to make a move to the Los Serranos Golf Club in order to be closer in proximity to his mother who required his help.

In 2008 “Junior” returned to Vellano CC as Assistant Superintendent under the watchful eye of Dario Olivarez (eluded to earlier as one of the noted mentors in the development of the soon to be full fledged Superintendent), and then on to the Birch Hills promotion and major renovation that should be completed by next summer.

While his father instilled in “Junior” as a very young lad some words of wisdom, the Superintendent Refugio lives by those words as a motto, “Whatever you do………always do your very best”, and so the reputation of “Junior” registers with his peers and colleagues in a most complementary way.

“Junior” has an older brother called Julian who is a Border Patrol Officer working out of Indio and a younger sister by the name of Adriana who is beautician and hair stylist, and both of them would no doubt agree that their golf management brother may well be the most eligible bachelor in Orange County, if indeed, he has the time to even pursue a romance what with a side business of refurbishing used golf carts for sale and devoting much of his leisure time to coaching softball…calling some genuine good natured concern among some of us that the man does not have the time to spare to playing the game of golf.