By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Peter Sorokovsky will never forget his first day on the job as superintendent of Golf Burnaby’s four-course portfolio.
Sorokovsky had been hired after spending several years as assistant superintendent at Northview Golf Club in Surrey, where he had learned some things while helping oversee a massive slit drainage project. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was going to have to put that knowledge to work in a big way in Burnaby.
“I distinctly remember my first day of work with Golf Burnaby and I still have a picture I took that day of the foreman standing in the middle of the 10th fairway at Riverway in late January of 2007 and he has his rubber boots on and he is at least ankle-deep in muddy water and the grass is six inches long,” Sorokovsky says. “And I’m like, oh, no, what did I just step into.”
Turns out he had stepped into a great opportunity. Thanks to support from management at Golf Burnaby and the City of Burnaby, Sorokovsky and his staff were allowed to do the work necessary to turn Riverway into what it was intended to be: the crown jewel of Burnaby’s golf collection and one of the top municipal courses in the country.