Webb is on par with the best

by Paul V. Arnold

Professional golfers don’t simply rely on their physical skills to help them succeed at a tournament.

At each tour stop, they make sure to walk the course, play a practice round or two and talk to locals who regularly play the course. That way, they become familiar with the layout’s hazards and sweet spots.

R.L. Webb uses that same game plan to help him succeed on the professional maintenance circuit.

Webb, a lead technician at Dunlop Slazenger’s golf ball plant in Westminster, S.C., is pretty much the John Daly of the central maintenance group (the six-time PGA Tour winner Daly is Dunlop’s chief spokesman).

“R.L. is one of our most experienced, knowledgeable guys,” says maintenance planner Jason Barnes. “He is a go-to guy, a real leader.”

While supremely skilled as a hands-on mechanic from years in maintenance, both at Dunlop and at cotton mills in the South, Webb stands out because of his innate ability to know the inner workings of each machine. That comes as a result of walking the course (traversing the plant to observe machinery health), playing the course (past experience — he’s been working on these machines for 13 years) and talking with the locals (keeping in close contact with the operators who run the equipment each day).

Webb knows the equipment’s hazards and sweet spots.

“R.L. has such a grasp on how the machines work and how they are supposed to be set up,” says Barnes. “It’s uncanny. He has the touch.”

Like a pro golfer who gives credit to the caddie for insights that led to a major victory, Webb says the plant’s machine operators have been instrumental to his success.

“We have real good operators here,” he says. “They know the machines that they work with day after day. When the machine has a problem, they usually have a good understanding of what the problem is. That gives me a leg up to solve it. Instead of just saying, ‘We have a problem over here,’ they will come up and say, ‘We have a problem. It’s Machine No. 3, and Cylinder No. 10 is sticking.’”

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