November 19, 2024 • 49 mins
Rich shares the story of how he got into the golf business. Hear how a caddying opportunity, 6 months in New Hampshire, and 3 individuals paved the way for his career.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to rich Conwell Golf Show. This week we are
due to technical difficulties, and I've actually never been able
to say that due to technical difficulties, I cannot have
a guest on this week. I had one scheduled, and
I have him scheduled for next week, and it is
going to be an awesome, awesome guest. Next week, Jonathan
(00:21):
Says is going to join us. Jonathan's got an incredibly
great golf story and is doing some incredibly and when
I say this, I'm not saying this lately. It's some
incredibly life saving efforts. He is using golf to save
lives and it is absolutely awesome to hear about. But
we're going to talk to him next week. But this week,
(00:43):
since I'm flying solo, I'm actually kind of writing my
own movie. So this is called a movie called six
Months in New Hampshire. So my daughter asked me a
long time ago how I ever got in the golf business.
And it's really interesting because I had never really answered
(01:03):
this question. And I was speaking to the former president
of the FIJ of America last week, Jim Remy, and
you know, he how his story and all the golf
professionals I talked to all the PJ professionals I talked to.
I find out their their early start, and they're always
usually pretty pretty similar. Don Rey had a different one
(01:26):
and Jim Remy had a little bit of a different one.
But I've never told my story, so it's kind of interesting.
She asked me that, and and the last week she
said it again that she mentioned me I never talked
about myself and and I so I'm like, you know what,
I got this technical difficulty thrown at me, and I'm like,
(01:48):
you know, we're gonna make the best of this. So
this is this is the start for me. And so
I'm going to go back a long, long, long way,
and I'll mention some years here which will give away
my my my age and things like that, and I
don't really care because my age is what my age is.
And but I call this this show six months in
(02:08):
New Hampshire because six months in New Hampshire, Rich come,
we'll start in the golf business. But we have to
go a little bit before that. For all of my
college years and my high school years, I worked at
Rolling Hills Country Club, which is now it's in Peterstownship, Pennsylvania,
which is in which I think they believe. They call
(02:28):
themselves an affluent neighborhood suburb of Pittsburgh now. But when
I lived there, when I grew up there, I had
five brothers and sisters, and we had one car, and
I went to school with kids at Milk Cows in
the morning, and so it was much much, much more rural.
(02:49):
But we did have a golf course in the township
as a private country club. It's called Rolling Hills Country Club.
And I worked there. I caddied there as a started
as a fourteen year old. I worked in the back room.
I went to work golf course maintenance, and I came
back and worked in the golf shop. And so before
(03:11):
my senior year in college, I went to school at
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, and I affectionately known as the
Harvard of south central Pennsylvania, and so or Harvard is
the Shippensburg of suburban Boston. It's however you want to
(03:32):
look at it. But so I was going to school
to be a school teacher, and I was getting at
the Bachelor of Science Education. I was going to teach
social studies. I was going to coach basketball, and that's
what I was going to do. And I caddied for
(03:52):
a guy, a person for many years at Rolling Hullst
Country Club, who is I still regard him as a
friend of mine, who said to me one day, you know,
did you ever think about getting in the golf business,
because you like to teach and you and I like business,
and and this summer before my senior year, I was
(04:18):
I was like, you know, that would be great. So
I had decided to do it. And I had also
decided to change my major. And I don't really tell
I never told my parents this, but I was going
to change my major. I was going to I was
going to go into government and go to law school.
(04:41):
And so I would have had to go. I would
have to change my major, and I would have I
was going to go to law school. And my mom
came to me without me telling her that information, and
said to me, you know, your father is in a
situation where he can retire from AT and T. If
you can get out of school on time, he can
reach hire sooner. I was exactly two semesters away from
(05:03):
my Bachelor of Science Education, so I was going to go.
I said, okay, I did it. I went back to
school and I trust me. I have no angst about
what happened. I have no no blame anything about about that.
I just that's what I decided to do. I was like, Okay,
I'll keep my mouth shut, get my Bachelor of Science education,
(05:24):
and I'll try to get a business, try to get
a job, you know, through education. And then I went
back to school when I started thinking to myself, you know,
I could I could be a golf professional. So well,
I could stay in the golf as I don't know
if I could be a golf professional. So I I
(05:44):
decided that's what I wanted to do. So as I
progressed through my first semester of my senior year, I
was kind of had an eye on golf business, golf business,
golf business. And then I had a student teach second
semester in order to obtain a Bachelor of Science education
(06:05):
if a student teach, So I was doing that, and
I decided over Christmas that I was going to get
a job in the golf business. I had a job
in the golf business. The head professional Rolling Hills Country Club,
guy named John Reck, who is still still with us
today because I'm not that old, that he'd offered me
(06:25):
a job. But then I kind of that's when the
trademark of me going against the grain had kind of
started to manifest itself. So I was going to go
get my own job. I wasn't going to go back
to where I was. I wasn't going to live with
my parents after I graduated. I was going to get
my own job. So the question was who was hiring
(06:46):
well back then, which is considered to be the stone
ages in the golf business, you had to go back
and you actually had to call or write to section
office the PGA of America, it's forty one of them,
and asked for their employment to be put on their
employment bulletin mailing list and they would mail you job
(07:11):
openings in the mail, like the United States Postal Service
in the mail. And so I called a couple of
different places, and I called the New England section of
the PGA of America, and they were very receptive to
(07:34):
my phone call. It cost me I think it cost
me twenty five dollars, or maybe that one didn't cost
me twenty five dollars. You'd think I'd remember that, or
they just started sending them to me. But New England
was the only one who was hiring and the executive
director of the New England PGA. You heard him mention
when I talked to John to Jim Remy is George Williams.
(07:56):
George Williams was the was executive director of the New
England PGA for and I say this not joking a
long time, like twenty five thirty years, thirty five years,
unbelievable supporter of the PJA of America, unbelievable supporter of
junior golf, unbelievable supporter of all golf professionals he came
(08:19):
in contact with. Of course, I wasn't one of those yet,
but so they sent me. They sent me. They're bulletins,
and I, obviously not knowing anything about anything, applied to
probably thirty of them and thirty jobs. And it's really interesting,
(08:43):
and I'll say some numbers, and nobody will probably remember
these numbers, but I thought it was fascinating that these
jobs put in how much money they were going to
pay you to do your job, Like I don't know why.
For some reason, I thought that was unique. And I'm
(09:06):
gonna kind of one of the things that was going
on in the state of Pennsylvania at that time was
and I want to tell you it was Governor Casey. Okay, So,
Governor Casey is the father of the current sitting senator
(09:27):
United States Senator from the state of Pennsylvania. Governor Casey
had passed an act in Pennsylvania that every public school
teacher had to be paid twenty seven five hundred dollars
a year. Okay. I remember my father walking into my
family room telling me, you know what, you should get
(09:48):
one of those jobs. So that kind of that's that
was big. So that was the first time I'd ever
heard anybody say this is how much. Because when I
was growing up, you can talk money and talking about money,
you didn't ask people how much money they made. They
didn't publicize how much money they made. So these jobs
(10:08):
back to the New England section had these jobs posted
a massive, massive amount of money. I was going to
get paid the princely sum of three hundred dollars a week. Now,
for those of you who don't want to do the math,
that's a little over fifteen thousand dollars a year, okay.
(10:30):
And I thought, wow, I'm going to be a millionaire.
I literally thought that. So I applied to probably thirty jobs,
and that's when and that's when. And also keep in mind,
at that time I was also sending all sorts of
(10:51):
letters to the Carolinas and everything, and everything kept coming
back to me that the first opportunity I was I
had a chance at was actually in North Carolina. It
was in the mountains in North Carolina outside of Asheville,
and it was it was a place ted stats was
(11:12):
the gold professional. He called me at my parents' house
over Christmas break and said he was at a resort
called Maggie Valley Resort. He said, I can find you
a place to stay if you want to come down
here and work. He said, let me see what I
can do. He called me a month later and left
a message. Well back then we did have answering machines.
(11:34):
My dad answered. My mom answered the phone, called me
and told me I had to call him in North Carolina.
And he told me, I can't find you a place
to stay. They won't let me do this, but I
thought what they would do. So I was kind of
back to square one. In February of that year, and
I was still sending out the letters to the New
(11:54):
England section. So I got a I got two offers
from the New England section. The first one was at
the Country Club of New Bedford. Okay, so show you
how bright I am. Country Club in New Bedford was
in New Bedford, Massachusetts, still is in New Bedford, Massachusetts,
and it is the hometown of for those of you
(12:17):
who are really into the golf business, it is where
the manufacturing plant for foot Joy and Titleist are is located. Now,
I was going to get paid three hundred dollars a week.
For the life of me, I cannot think who the
golf professional would have been. But he offered me a job.
(12:40):
And one of the things I asked him. I asked him,
I said, okay, I said, can I teach? Because I
knew I wanted to teach and I knew I could
make a little bit of money. And he said to me,
we do not have a range practice area, so it
will be difficult for me to teach. Now, how arrogant
(13:05):
is of me to tell the head professional and New
Country called in New Bedford, well, how much can I teach?
Because like this guy doesn't know me from Adam. He
doesn't even know if I can I can walk in
chew gum, which was suspect in my own life anyway,
but and so, but he offered me this job. I
(13:25):
asked him that question. He told me that information, and
I turned him down without a job. I turned him
down because I wanted to teach, and I was like,
teach golf. I was like, you know, And of course
I never told my dad that, because you've never turned
out a job when you don't have a job. So
(13:49):
within it two days of that happening, I got another
phone call from a guy by the name of Bill Johnson,
who was the head professional at Hanover Country Club in Hanover,
New Hampshire, the home of Dartmouth College. Bill was the
(14:09):
golf coach at Dartmouth. He taught fizz ed at Dartmouth.
He was also the head professional at Hanover Country Club,
and he said, outside of my working hours, I could
teach as much as I wanted. That at a four
hole practice course there, because it originally was twenty seven holes,
(14:31):
they had four holes that were practiced. They didn't have
a standard driving range. But I knew I could get better.
My own game could get better because I had four
holes I could work on and work with, and then
I also could teach. So I'm like, Okay, I'm going
(14:56):
to take that job. So I took that job. Now,
let's think for a minute, how dumb I really am.
I turned down a job at a private club, the
home of titleist and footjoy, for a job. By the way,
(15:19):
country Club in New Bedford is New Bedford, Massachusetts, right
on the water. It's a coastal town for a job
in New Hampshire. And if anybody looks at the map
of New Hampshire, there is nothing in New Hampshire. But
what happened was Bill had driven was driving to Florida
(15:43):
and told me if I could meet him at a
diner in Delaware, he would sit and talk with me
about that job. And I did. I bought Doug Winslow's car.
How about that. Doug was still a good friend of mine,
borrowed his car. I went down there, I met him,
and he walked away from that job that interview. Rather,
(16:03):
he drove to Florida. I drove back to Shippensburg. He
called me and offered me the job. So that was
my first job in the golf business, was at Hannover
Country Club. And I was going to go be a
golf professional. So when we come back, we're going to
(16:24):
talk about what starts the movie of six Months in
New Hampshire because it was only a six month job,
which is its own right, fraught with difficulties. But when
I come back from this commercial break, I'm going to
walk you through how all this worked out. This is
the rich Comboll Golf Show. Welcome back to the Rich
Combo Golf Show. So we, as I stated before, flying
(16:47):
solo this week and kind of rediscovering my roots in
the golf business. And I haven't really told this story before,
so it's kind of fun for me. I hope it
is for you too, but we have. So I wrapped
up segment one with I had decided that I was
going to take my degree from Shippensburg University. I was
(17:08):
going to get in the golf business. I had been
offered two jobs. I took one, which was obviously you
can only take one job, and it was the at
Hanover Country Club in Hanover, New Hampshire. I was going
to be employed by working for employed by Dartmouth. I
was going to be employed by Dartmouth College. I was
going to be working for a guy named Bill Johnson.
So there were details that had to happen. So of
(17:32):
course I call home tell my dad. Hey, I got
a job. So then my dad, much much much, much
to his credit, kicked in with the fatherly angles of
all this, which was one you have to graduate obviously,
(17:59):
I want you to interview for two teaching jobs, said
I have a job, because I don't care what you have.
I want you interview for two teaching jobs. And I
did that. One of them I was particularly close to getting.
Of course I didn't tell anybody was in Carroll County, Maryland.
But I had to get a car. Thanks to my father,
(18:24):
we got it at We got a Chevy Cavalier, a
red Chevy Cavalier two door. I had to find an
apartment because I was now leaving two eleven High Street, Shipsburg,
Pennsylvania with my five fraternity brothers and myself, and I
(18:44):
was going to New Hampshire all by myself. And so
Bill Johnson, the head professional Hennorm the country club, found
me an apartment and I had to come up with
first and last month rent, which was an issue from
my parents. This is how dumb I was. I thought
I was paying for last month like October. No, it
(19:06):
was the last month I was going to be there.
So I didn't skip out because I didn't know that.
So we that was an issue at home because obviously,
you know, my parents were not poor at all. We
were very, very very that my dad unbelievably did a
(19:28):
lot for us and and and saved a lot of
money in his life. But but was none none was
none of that was in the bank account. That was
all in his retirement. So we had enough money in
the bank account to pay the bills and things like that.
But so anyway, we figured that out. So then the
(19:53):
next biggest obstacle was how to get there. Obviously, in
my new red Chevy Cavalier, there's no Internet, there's no
Google Maps, Apple Maps, none of it. So we pulled
We had a for Mica kitchen. I can still remember this,
like yesterday. We had a form Mica kitchen tablet on
(20:15):
Friar Lane in mc murray, Pennsylvania. My dad pulled out
the maps and he started to show me which way
we're gonna go, but not we I was gonna go.
So I graduated. We did all this, picked up my car,
(20:37):
said goodbye to my girlfriend, went home, got the car,
got in the car. I graduated May ninth, I think
or May seventh. I started work May twelfth, I graduated,
I'm sorry, ninth fourteenth, five days later. So I went
(21:05):
to I would see my girlfriend. She lived in Reading, Pennsylvania. Okay,
that that girlfriend is not my wife. I drove to
New Hampshire. Now, for those of you have never done
this before, you get in a car, obviously, and you drive.
(21:27):
Everybody has done that before. But I drove from Pittsburgh
to eastern Pennsylvania, up Interstate eighty one, up to Interstate
eighty four, drove through eighty four all the way into Connecticut,
(21:49):
took ninety one north out of Connecticut through Massachusetts. There's
a piece of Massachusetts. Long Meadow, Massachusetts is right around there.
I went ninety one north, okay, into New Hampshire. And
(22:10):
I can promise you that New Hampshire is really, really,
really big. When you were driving through it for the
very first time and there is nothing out there, you
are driving on interstate with nothing out there. Now here's
the craziest thing in the world. My father had said
(22:31):
to me, I was not permitted to allow the gas
tank to go below half. Okay, so I made sure
that didn't happen. But the other thing is I have
no money. I have no money. I had the first
(22:51):
and last month's rent was paid, and I had six
hundred dollars to my name. I didn't have health insurance.
I'm quite sure I was probably still covered with my
dad's I think, because back then then I still would
have been in college. I had no health insurance. I
(23:16):
drove to New Hampshire. I found the country Club. I'll
keep in mind it's on rope Ferry Road. I have
no maps, so I find it. Introduce myself. Go to
the the apartment, which is in Vermont. You have to
cross the river. The border between Vermont New Hampshire is
(23:38):
the Connecticut River. So I crossed the river, climb a mountain,
find this place, this apartment. It's a big house at
a room and a community kitchen and a community dining
room I mean living room. And it's out in the
middle of the woods. Okay, so I do all this. Okay,
(24:02):
I'm twenty one years old. I stared at my eyes
went from the windshield to my dashboard no less than
sixty four million times on that trip, because I kept
expecting the check engine light to come on. I don't
know why I thought that, because I had no reason
to believe that brand new car. So I get there,
(24:31):
I do all that stuff, okay, and I'm excited obviously. Okay,
it is pretty awesome. I've done this. I'm all hyped up.
(24:52):
I made the trip. I unpacked my clothes. I had
a day to do that have to be at work
until matter of fact, I stayed at Bill's house that night,
the first night I was there. The next day, he
took me to the apartment. So then I unpacked. I
(25:16):
had that day off. I went to the grocery store.
Now this is how this is how uninformed. I am
actually not uninformed. This is how we did things. Then
I had savings bonds. No, I'm sorry. I had travelers checks.
Nobody knows what travelers checks are anymore. I had travers checks, okay,
(25:37):
And so I got the grocery store. I bought a
six pack of beer. Thought that was pretty cool. They
took the I could get that. I had a little
bit of food. So then I unpacked, chilled in my apartment.
It's pretty cool. I had a bathroom in my room.
(25:57):
It was pretty cool. I had a deck. It was nice.
So I'm I'm there and I'm really I'm really really
really comfortable, Like I got it all figured out. I'm
(26:17):
ready to go, and I have this massive, massive, massive
uneasiness in my stomach. I can't figure out what's wrong.
And I tell to this day. I tell kids. I
tell kids all the time that I recruit, that I
recruit for school, and or I tell my son and
(26:41):
my daughter when your face and myself, when you're faced
with a decision, trust your gut, Trust your gut, trust
your gut. Something was wrong, something was wrong like and
it took me a couple of days. I thought I
(27:05):
was nervous for work. I started on a Friday. I
worked Saturday, I worked Sunday. I was off on no
I worked on Monday, I was off on Tuesday. I
had this feeling in my stomach. Even while I was
learning everything that we're trying to learn. What I could
at work, I had this sick feeling in my stomach.
(27:27):
I couldn't figure it out. I wasn't sick. And it
dawned on me as this six months in New Hampshire starts,
I am so homesick. I can't see straight. I have
no idea what the hell I'm doing there none none
Because this big, this big letdown hits, big letdown hits.
(27:57):
I'm twenty one years old. I am twelve ten to
twelve hours from anybody I know, and I'm homesick. My
girlfriend is nine hours away, probably about eight. I'm so homesick,
(28:23):
I can't see straight. Of course, I can't tell anybody
this because first of there's nobody to tell me. What
am I gonna do? Walk up to my new boss
and say, I've been here for a day and I'm
homesick and I can't see straight. So then going into
that weekend, I'm homesick. I'm trying to do a job,
(28:51):
trying to work all this stuff, and then mother nature
decides to jump on my side. That sarcasm, because from
that mid May, let's just call May tenth to mid
May until June. First, I swear to God, it rained
every day. It rained every day. I remember sitting in
(29:12):
my room in my house and it was woods outside.
All I could hear was rain hitting the trees. I
was so homesick, and I couldn't you know, I couldn't
tell anybody. Now here's the craziest thing in the world. Okay,
(29:33):
and this is going to be I think anybody can
understand this, but but maybe not. Most of you probably
don't understand this. I don't have a cell phone. There
are no cell phones. If I want to call anybody,
it's a landline, and it costs money. I remember back
to what I just said, I have no money. I am.
(29:58):
I'm in a bad way. So and now, of course,
you know, I'm sure everybody's been in this situation like this,
and they're like, I hope they have not, but maybe
they have. You Now you're you're like, okay, now you're
reevaluating everything you did. I'm thinking to myself, okay, it's May.
(30:19):
I was accepted to grad school at Shippensburg University, thinking
to myself, I could go. I could still go. All
my friends were there, my girlfriend was there, she had
one more year there. I could go back in September.
I could call this just I could work for three months,
(30:40):
put in my time, you know. And if I go
to them now and say to them, look, I can
stay until September first, because see, we didn't start school
back then until after Labor Day. I wait all this stuff,
(31:01):
and I said, well, I'm here now, and the damn
weather wouldn't help me. It just kept raining. I was
so sad, and all these years later, this is nineteen
eighty nine. All these years later, I can still I
(31:22):
can still know that I can still hear the rain.
If I'm outside on a golf course now and it
rains and I'm in woods trees, I have like a flashback.
I still remember that sound. So now I've made this decision.
(31:42):
I'm in New Hampshire, while working in New Hampshire, living
in Vermont, and I now have decided I am not
going to go to grad school. I am going to
make I'm gonna make the most of this. I have
to make the most of this, because in my head,
(32:07):
if I had gone home, I was a failure. My
brother Dan had got me a pen you know, one
of those desktop with a penholders that said assistant golf
professional Hanover Country Club. How in the world can I
walk away from that? I had to. I had to stay.
(32:33):
So I don't know that I ever really a great
I'd never had I've never worn bootstraps in my life.
But at some point I during this process, I decided
I was going to pull up my bootstraps and I
was going to go to work. When we come back
from this commercial break, I'm going to tell you, in
a very very very short period of time. The three
(32:56):
people that I met in New Hampshire that made all
the difference, and not only that my tenure at Hanover
Country Club, but in the rest of my career. This
is the rich Komwo Golf Show. Welcome back to the
Rich Komo Golf Show. I'm creating a verbal movie this
(33:16):
week called six Months in New Hampshire. So I walked
us through my decision, all my decisions, and you have
to actually go backwards and you usually have to listen
to this. It's really really, really kind of still, it's
kind of I'm reliving it as I'm doing it. It's
I still can't believe I did it. But now keep
(33:37):
in mind, don't get me wrong. I was not in
any danger or I was not in any grave danger.
I was just a homesick twenty one year old kid.
So you know, I just tried to work and I
try to do stuff and I I try to not
(33:58):
be homesick anymore. I had nothing in common with any
college kid at Dartmouth, you know, Ivy Lake School, Ivy
League School. I had no nothing to do with it.
I had nothing in common. But I met three people
(34:21):
that made all the difference in my time there. The
first one was a young lady, but I named Kathy Slattery.
I should probably have more vital statistics about Kathy. But
Kathy was a great She was a very good player,
(34:44):
very good women's player. I want to tell you she'd
won the women's amateur championship. She was the sports information
director at Dartmouth College, one of the few women that
had that job at that time. Even now, even now,
(35:07):
there's not very many of them. Many I shouldn't say,
like that many females that are sports information directors at
Division I schools. Kathy was not married at the time,
had obviously had no children, not obviously she didn't have
any children. She liked to practice, and she liked to
(35:29):
talk to me. I don't know why. I don't know why.
She was just Kathy was probably thirty five years old.
I was twenty one. She was thirty probably thirty eight
and thirty nine years old then I was twenty one.
But she knew I like golf. She liked golf, so
(35:51):
we kind of bonded over that. So the other thing
I was able to do. And when you worked at
Hanover Country Club, you were obviously owned by Dartmouth College,
so anything we needed like printouts, copy machines, anything like that,
but there were no printouts. There were we had obviously
(36:12):
discs that we could put things on, and then we
had to go print them out at the fieldhouse at Dartmouth.
So I would always see Kathy because I was the gopher.
So I would jump in my car, my brand new
red car, two door Chevy Cavil there and go over
to the fieldhouse. And I was able to to spend
(36:36):
time with Kathy. Kathy made me less homesick because she
didn't know at the time. But I have an older
sister named Kathy, and Kathy talked to me like my
older sister talks to me, like I told her one
of to asually homesick. Why would you be homesick? You're here,
(36:58):
you gotta make the most of it. And like I
was like dang, which is kathy code words for grow
the hell up. But Kathy also really liked to play golf.
My sister does not, but and so I had some
(37:18):
fun with that. I had fun playing with golf with
somebody who didn't care how I played, too. And I've
never been a really good player. I got a lot
better than than then than at that time. Period of
my life. But she didn't care. She just liked to
play golf. She kicked me and she did. She never
mentioned a word. She say hey, thanks for playing, this
is great fun. Thanks. The second person who made a
(37:48):
major made it, made it, made me get through my
six months in New Hampshire. This guy named Jeff Julian.
Jeff was from New Hampshire. He's actually from Vermont, from Queechee, Vermont,
which is a town not very far away. Jeff played
at Clemson. Jeff walked on at Clemson. Jeff's grandfather, Doggie Julian,
(38:14):
is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Jeff was a really, really,
really good player. Jeff went on to win on the
Hogan Tour twice, won the New England Open once, won
the Main Open once. Jeff was the best player I've
(38:36):
ever seen in my life bar Nunn, and at that
time he wasn't, but he went on to be. And
Jeff actually always said to me, really good to see man,
(38:56):
how you doing. And he had a girlfriend then that think, Hey,
we're gonna do what he used to do. He used
to do laundry. The laundry met in Hanover and they
would get pizza next door they would walk out it did,
drink pizza and beer. They walk out, put their stuff in,
walk in and get pizza, walk over, turn it over,
(39:17):
put it in the dryer. Leave, come back into the restaurant,
wait for it to be done, go fold it, come
back in, have one more beer, and go home. He
always tell me when they were doing that, because that
was that was a standing invitation I could go hang
out with him. I had no friends. I was twenty
one years old. I was in their life now they
(39:38):
were not in mind. And Jeff was nice enough to
let me look at his golf swing, was nice enough
to listen to me when I told him what I
thought of his golf swing, me to check his alignment
(40:01):
numerous times, and then gave me way, way, way, way
too much credit for helping him. And Jeff. Jeff was
Jeff was the guy. I mean, Jeff was really special
to me. I always ask Simona's face, I think my
(40:21):
love of you know, Crocodile Dundee hats and writers of
the Lost Ark, whats is you know that those hats?
And to this day, Jeff war one all the time.
I I think that's where I fell in love with him.
I thought to myself. You know what, maybe if I
were hat like that, I could hit it like he could.
(40:42):
I couldn't. But that dude was all right. And one
day he asked me to come to the junior program
that I ran, a little junior program. I had a
teen kids, and he said to them, you know when
(41:03):
Rich works with this with me on my golf swing,
and my street cred went through the roof. Those kids
thought that that guy can help Jeff Julian, he can
obviously help me. I had no standing with these kids.
I was fourteen years old. Wasn't as good as they were.
I was, but I mean, I wasn't any great shakes player.
(41:25):
I had no resume. It's my first job. He gave
me street credibility. He did that for me, and he
knew he did it. And one day I thanked him
for it, and he said to me, he goes, I,
you don't have to thank me for anything. He said,
(41:46):
I have no idea what you're talking about. He knew
exactly what I was talking about. I've always tried to
remember that line. I've had occasion to help people and
they've said, hey, thanks, I have no idea what you're
talking about. Because That's what Jeff did for me and
(42:08):
the the third person. The third person was Bill Johnson,
and I have to come clean. I'm Bill Johnson. Was
a legend coach, played at University of Michigan, went to
the University of Michigan, graduated from University of Michigan. Very
good player. At one time when I got him, he
(42:30):
was older. I coached the golf team for forever, owned
the merchandise concession at the golf shop at the golf course.
He was just he was. He was everything that you know,
all those kids liked and the members I think liked
(42:53):
him a lot. I know they liked him a lot.
They loved them, and he didn't like me, so I thought,
And I'm not so sure I liked him. I actually
know I didn't like him. I didn't think he was
really that that nice to me. I didn't think he
had really kind of I was probably looking for a
(43:19):
grandpa figure, and he wanted to be that because he
was running a business, and he was running a golf shop,
and he was running a golf course, and he was
coaching a golf team, a Division one NCAA golf team.
(43:40):
And here comes the skinny twenty one year old kid
from Shippensburg who talks way more than you should and
just assumes he knows everything. But of course I'm a
twenty one year old and that's not how I viewed it.
I viewed it like I was. I did know everything,
(44:02):
and he was supposed to be nicer to me. We
had a complicated relationship, not antagonistic. I was always, always,
always respectful, and he was always respectful of me. I
don't want this to come off as like I had
some sort of acts to grind with Bill Johnson, because
I don't. I didn't. I didn't, but at that time
(44:22):
I did. I thought he should have been way different
than he was, way different than he was. He was
married to Izzy, who who also worked in the golf shop.
She coached the women's team for a little bit. Is
he was a very good LPGA player, is he? I
(44:46):
don't know that. Is he liked me or didn't like me,
But she was automatically linked in with with Bill, so
since I didn't, since they since Bill didn't fit my
eye for what I wanted out of my first boss
and golf business, I I had tough times, I really did.
(45:14):
I My homesickness stayed with me. Kathy helped me at Kathy'slattery.
Helped me a lot. Jeff helped me a tremendous amount.
Bill did not help me. So now fast forward many
years later and I look back on it now, and
(45:40):
Bill Johnson was a really good guy. Bill Johnson was
a legend. Bill Johnson didn't know what to do with me,
didn't know how to take me. He wanted me to
(46:04):
be friends with the players. But I couldn't be friends
with players. I had nothing in common with them. They
were way better players than me. They didn't really talk
to me. Why would they. They're in college, they were
playing a golf team. I was just some slap over there.
(46:29):
So at the same time, you know, I wasn't really that.
I didn't try to make anything better either. I went
to work on time. I did what I was supposed
to do. So but then one day everything changed. And
(46:51):
it took me a long time to admit this is
when it changed. And it never really changed my opinion
of Bill. Face to face with Bill, but he said
to me, he says, I want you to run a
junior program. You do it. He made some suggestions, not
very many. He cleaned out the garage, in the in
(47:12):
the clubhouse. It was literally a garage, and he said,
you know, the kids can have the lockers. And I
ran junior program, took all the money from it. I
think I made like nine hundred dollars. Now it wasn't
even that now it was, Yeah, it was nine hundred dollars.
(47:32):
And then I started to apply for jobs in in
North and South Carolina. I knew I wanted to get married.
I knew I did a full time job. I knew
I wasn't going back to Hanover Country Club. I knew
I couldn't do that. I was gonna take a six
month job in Florida and come back up there. But
(47:56):
so and Bill. Bill returned a phone call from a
golf professional North Carolina, gave me a glowing recommendation, and
I got hired full time in North Carolina. I still
had angst for him because I was a twenty one
year old kid who was homesick and didn't know how
to take him. So my six months ended it was
(48:17):
actually five and a half, and I went to North
Carolina and the rest is kind of history. But the
three people I mentioned, Jeff Julian, Cathy Slattery, and Bill
Johnson got me through probably the lowest point of my career.
(48:41):
What made it worse was it was just starting out.
But the other thing they all have in common is
they're no longer with us. Kathy died of a brain
hemorrhage at fifty five, Jeff died of lou Garry's disease,
and Bill died from a medical incident. I think it
was probably hard. I told Kathy thank you. I told
(49:05):
Jeff thank you numerous times. I never told Bill thank you.
If I could today, I would say that to him.
But they all made my movie Six months in New
Hampshire happened, And that, according to Paul Harvey, is the
(49:27):
rest of the story of how I started as a
golf professional a long, long time ago in a little
town called Hanover, New Hampshire. This is the Rich Comwell
Golf Show.
Welcome to rich Conwell Golf Show. This week we are
due to technical difficulties, and I've actually never been able
to say that due to technical difficulties, I cannot have
a guest on this week. I had one scheduled, and
I have him scheduled for next week, and it is
going to be an awesome, awesome guest. Next week, Jonathan
(00:21):
Says is going to join us. Jonathan's got an incredibly
great golf story and is doing some incredibly and when
I say this, I'm not saying this lately. It's some
incredibly life saving efforts. He is using golf to save
lives and it is absolutely awesome to hear about. But
we're going to talk to him next week. But this week,
(00:43):
since I'm flying solo, I'm actually kind of writing my
own movie. So this is called a movie called six
Months in New Hampshire. So my daughter asked me a
long time ago how I ever got in the golf business.
And it's really interesting because I had never really answered
(01:03):
this question. And I was speaking to the former president
of the FIJ of America last week, Jim Remy, and
you know, he how his story and all the golf
professionals I talked to all the PJ professionals I talked to.
I find out their their early start, and they're always
usually pretty pretty similar. Don Rey had a different one
(01:26):
and Jim Remy had a little bit of a different one.
But I've never told my story, so it's kind of interesting.
She asked me that, and and the last week she
said it again that she mentioned me I never talked
about myself and and I so I'm like, you know what,
I got this technical difficulty thrown at me, and I'm like,
(01:48):
you know, we're gonna make the best of this. So
this is this is the start for me. And so
I'm going to go back a long, long, long way,
and I'll mention some years here which will give away
my my my age and things like that, and I
don't really care because my age is what my age is.
And but I call this this show six months in
(02:08):
New Hampshire because six months in New Hampshire, Rich come,
we'll start in the golf business. But we have to
go a little bit before that. For all of my
college years and my high school years, I worked at
Rolling Hills Country Club, which is now it's in Peterstownship, Pennsylvania,
which is in which I think they believe. They call
(02:28):
themselves an affluent neighborhood suburb of Pittsburgh now. But when
I lived there, when I grew up there, I had
five brothers and sisters, and we had one car, and
I went to school with kids at Milk Cows in
the morning, and so it was much much, much more rural.
(02:49):
But we did have a golf course in the township
as a private country club. It's called Rolling Hills Country Club.
And I worked there. I caddied there as a started
as a fourteen year old. I worked in the back room.
I went to work golf course maintenance, and I came
back and worked in the golf shop. And so before
(03:11):
my senior year in college, I went to school at
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, and I affectionately known as the
Harvard of south central Pennsylvania, and so or Harvard is
the Shippensburg of suburban Boston. It's however you want to
(03:32):
look at it. But so I was going to school
to be a school teacher, and I was getting at
the Bachelor of Science Education. I was going to teach
social studies. I was going to coach basketball, and that's
what I was going to do. And I caddied for
(03:52):
a guy, a person for many years at Rolling Hullst
Country Club, who is I still regard him as a
friend of mine, who said to me one day, you know,
did you ever think about getting in the golf business,
because you like to teach and you and I like business,
and and this summer before my senior year, I was
(04:18):
I was like, you know, that would be great. So
I had decided to do it. And I had also
decided to change my major. And I don't really tell
I never told my parents this, but I was going
to change my major. I was going to I was
going to go into government and go to law school.
(04:41):
And so I would have had to go. I would
have to change my major, and I would have I
was going to go to law school. And my mom
came to me without me telling her that information, and
said to me, you know, your father is in a
situation where he can retire from AT and T. If
you can get out of school on time, he can
reach hire sooner. I was exactly two semesters away from
(05:03):
my Bachelor of Science Education, so I was going to go.
I said, okay, I did it. I went back to
school and I trust me. I have no angst about
what happened. I have no no blame anything about about that.
I just that's what I decided to do. I was like, Okay,
I'll keep my mouth shut, get my Bachelor of Science education,
(05:24):
and I'll try to get a business, try to get
a job, you know, through education. And then I went
back to school when I started thinking to myself, you know,
I could I could be a golf professional. So well,
I could stay in the golf as I don't know
if I could be a golf professional. So I I
(05:44):
decided that's what I wanted to do. So as I
progressed through my first semester of my senior year, I
was kind of had an eye on golf business, golf business,
golf business. And then I had a student teach second
semester in order to obtain a Bachelor of Science education
(06:05):
if a student teach, So I was doing that, and
I decided over Christmas that I was going to get
a job in the golf business. I had a job
in the golf business. The head professional Rolling Hills Country Club,
guy named John Reck, who is still still with us
today because I'm not that old, that he'd offered me
(06:25):
a job. But then I kind of that's when the
trademark of me going against the grain had kind of
started to manifest itself. So I was going to go
get my own job. I wasn't going to go back
to where I was. I wasn't going to live with
my parents after I graduated. I was going to get
my own job. So the question was who was hiring
(06:46):
well back then, which is considered to be the stone
ages in the golf business, you had to go back
and you actually had to call or write to section
office the PGA of America, it's forty one of them,
and asked for their employment to be put on their
employment bulletin mailing list and they would mail you job
(07:11):
openings in the mail, like the United States Postal Service
in the mail. And so I called a couple of
different places, and I called the New England section of
the PGA of America, and they were very receptive to
(07:34):
my phone call. It cost me I think it cost
me twenty five dollars, or maybe that one didn't cost
me twenty five dollars. You'd think I'd remember that, or
they just started sending them to me. But New England
was the only one who was hiring and the executive
director of the New England PGA. You heard him mention
when I talked to John to Jim Remy is George Williams.
(07:56):
George Williams was the was executive director of the New
England PGA for and I say this not joking a
long time, like twenty five thirty years, thirty five years,
unbelievable supporter of the PJA of America, unbelievable supporter of
junior golf, unbelievable supporter of all golf professionals he came
(08:19):
in contact with. Of course, I wasn't one of those yet,
but so they sent me. They sent me. They're bulletins,
and I, obviously not knowing anything about anything, applied to
probably thirty of them and thirty jobs. And it's really interesting,
(08:43):
and I'll say some numbers, and nobody will probably remember
these numbers, but I thought it was fascinating that these
jobs put in how much money they were going to
pay you to do your job, Like I don't know why.
For some reason, I thought that was unique. And I'm
(09:06):
gonna kind of one of the things that was going
on in the state of Pennsylvania at that time was
and I want to tell you it was Governor Casey. Okay, So,
Governor Casey is the father of the current sitting senator
(09:27):
United States Senator from the state of Pennsylvania. Governor Casey
had passed an act in Pennsylvania that every public school
teacher had to be paid twenty seven five hundred dollars
a year. Okay. I remember my father walking into my
family room telling me, you know what, you should get
(09:48):
one of those jobs. So that kind of that's that
was big. So that was the first time I'd ever
heard anybody say this is how much. Because when I
was growing up, you can talk money and talking about money,
you didn't ask people how much money they made. They
didn't publicize how much money they made. So these jobs
(10:08):
back to the New England section had these jobs posted
a massive, massive amount of money. I was going to
get paid the princely sum of three hundred dollars a week. Now,
for those of you who don't want to do the math,
that's a little over fifteen thousand dollars a year, okay.
(10:30):
And I thought, wow, I'm going to be a millionaire.
I literally thought that. So I applied to probably thirty jobs,
and that's when and that's when. And also keep in mind,
at that time I was also sending all sorts of
(10:51):
letters to the Carolinas and everything, and everything kept coming
back to me that the first opportunity I was I
had a chance at was actually in North Carolina. It
was in the mountains in North Carolina outside of Asheville,
and it was it was a place ted stats was
(11:12):
the gold professional. He called me at my parents' house
over Christmas break and said he was at a resort
called Maggie Valley Resort. He said, I can find you
a place to stay if you want to come down
here and work. He said, let me see what I
can do. He called me a month later and left
a message. Well back then we did have answering machines.
(11:34):
My dad answered. My mom answered the phone, called me
and told me I had to call him in North Carolina.
And he told me, I can't find you a place
to stay. They won't let me do this, but I
thought what they would do. So I was kind of
back to square one. In February of that year, and
I was still sending out the letters to the New
(11:54):
England section. So I got a I got two offers
from the New England section. The first one was at
the Country Club of New Bedford. Okay, so show you
how bright I am. Country Club in New Bedford was
in New Bedford, Massachusetts, still is in New Bedford, Massachusetts,
and it is the hometown of for those of you
(12:17):
who are really into the golf business, it is where
the manufacturing plant for foot Joy and Titleist are is located. Now,
I was going to get paid three hundred dollars a week.
For the life of me, I cannot think who the
golf professional would have been. But he offered me a job.
(12:40):
And one of the things I asked him. I asked him,
I said, okay, I said, can I teach? Because I
knew I wanted to teach and I knew I could
make a little bit of money. And he said to me,
we do not have a range practice area, so it
will be difficult for me to teach. Now, how arrogant
(13:05):
is of me to tell the head professional and New
Country called in New Bedford, well, how much can I teach?
Because like this guy doesn't know me from Adam. He
doesn't even know if I can I can walk in
chew gum, which was suspect in my own life anyway,
but and so, but he offered me this job. I
(13:25):
asked him that question. He told me that information, and
I turned him down without a job. I turned him
down because I wanted to teach, and I was like,
teach golf. I was like, you know, And of course
I never told my dad that, because you've never turned
out a job when you don't have a job. So
(13:49):
within it two days of that happening, I got another
phone call from a guy by the name of Bill Johnson,
who was the head professional at Hanover Country Club in Hanover,
New Hampshire, the home of Dartmouth College. Bill was the
(14:09):
golf coach at Dartmouth. He taught fizz ed at Dartmouth.
He was also the head professional at Hanover Country Club,
and he said, outside of my working hours, I could
teach as much as I wanted. That at a four
hole practice course there, because it originally was twenty seven holes,
(14:31):
they had four holes that were practiced. They didn't have
a standard driving range. But I knew I could get better.
My own game could get better because I had four
holes I could work on and work with, and then
I also could teach. So I'm like, Okay, I'm going
(14:56):
to take that job. So I took that job. Now,
let's think for a minute, how dumb I really am.
I turned down a job at a private club, the
home of titleist and footjoy, for a job. By the way,
(15:19):
country Club in New Bedford is New Bedford, Massachusetts, right
on the water. It's a coastal town for a job
in New Hampshire. And if anybody looks at the map
of New Hampshire, there is nothing in New Hampshire. But
what happened was Bill had driven was driving to Florida
(15:43):
and told me if I could meet him at a
diner in Delaware, he would sit and talk with me
about that job. And I did. I bought Doug Winslow's car.
How about that. Doug was still a good friend of mine,
borrowed his car. I went down there, I met him,
and he walked away from that job that interview. Rather,
(16:03):
he drove to Florida. I drove back to Shippensburg. He
called me and offered me the job. So that was
my first job in the golf business, was at Hannover
Country Club. And I was going to go be a
golf professional. So when we come back, we're going to
(16:24):
talk about what starts the movie of six Months in
New Hampshire because it was only a six month job,
which is its own right, fraught with difficulties. But when
I come back from this commercial break, I'm going to
walk you through how all this worked out. This is
the rich Comboll Golf Show. Welcome back to the Rich
Combo Golf Show. So we, as I stated before, flying
(16:47):
solo this week and kind of rediscovering my roots in
the golf business. And I haven't really told this story before,
so it's kind of fun for me. I hope it
is for you too, but we have. So I wrapped
up segment one with I had decided that I was
going to take my degree from Shippensburg University. I was
(17:08):
going to get in the golf business. I had been
offered two jobs. I took one, which was obviously you
can only take one job, and it was the at
Hanover Country Club in Hanover, New Hampshire. I was going
to be employed by working for employed by Dartmouth. I
was going to be employed by Dartmouth College. I was
going to be working for a guy named Bill Johnson.
So there were details that had to happen. So of
(17:32):
course I call home tell my dad. Hey, I got
a job. So then my dad, much much much, much
to his credit, kicked in with the fatherly angles of
all this, which was one you have to graduate obviously,
(17:59):
I want you to interview for two teaching jobs, said
I have a job, because I don't care what you have.
I want you interview for two teaching jobs. And I
did that. One of them I was particularly close to getting.
Of course I didn't tell anybody was in Carroll County, Maryland.
But I had to get a car. Thanks to my father,
(18:24):
we got it at We got a Chevy Cavalier, a
red Chevy Cavalier two door. I had to find an
apartment because I was now leaving two eleven High Street, Shipsburg,
Pennsylvania with my five fraternity brothers and myself, and I
(18:44):
was going to New Hampshire all by myself. And so
Bill Johnson, the head professional Hennorm the country club, found
me an apartment and I had to come up with
first and last month rent, which was an issue from
my parents. This is how dumb I was. I thought
I was paying for last month like October. No, it
(19:06):
was the last month I was going to be there.
So I didn't skip out because I didn't know that.
So we that was an issue at home because obviously,
you know, my parents were not poor at all. We
were very, very very that my dad unbelievably did a
(19:28):
lot for us and and and saved a lot of
money in his life. But but was none none was
none of that was in the bank account. That was
all in his retirement. So we had enough money in
the bank account to pay the bills and things like that.
But so anyway, we figured that out. So then the
(19:53):
next biggest obstacle was how to get there. Obviously, in
my new red Chevy Cavalier, there's no Internet, there's no
Google Maps, Apple Maps, none of it. So we pulled
We had a for Mica kitchen. I can still remember this,
like yesterday. We had a form Mica kitchen tablet on
(20:15):
Friar Lane in mc murray, Pennsylvania. My dad pulled out
the maps and he started to show me which way
we're gonna go, but not we I was gonna go.
So I graduated. We did all this, picked up my car,
(20:37):
said goodbye to my girlfriend, went home, got the car,
got in the car. I graduated May ninth, I think
or May seventh. I started work May twelfth, I graduated,
I'm sorry, ninth fourteenth, five days later. So I went
(21:05):
to I would see my girlfriend. She lived in Reading, Pennsylvania. Okay,
that that girlfriend is not my wife. I drove to
New Hampshire. Now, for those of you have never done
this before, you get in a car, obviously, and you drive.
(21:27):
Everybody has done that before. But I drove from Pittsburgh
to eastern Pennsylvania, up Interstate eighty one, up to Interstate
eighty four, drove through eighty four all the way into Connecticut,
(21:49):
took ninety one north out of Connecticut through Massachusetts. There's
a piece of Massachusetts. Long Meadow, Massachusetts is right around there.
I went ninety one north, okay, into New Hampshire. And
(22:10):
I can promise you that New Hampshire is really, really,
really big. When you were driving through it for the
very first time and there is nothing out there, you
are driving on interstate with nothing out there. Now here's
the craziest thing in the world. My father had said
(22:31):
to me, I was not permitted to allow the gas
tank to go below half. Okay, so I made sure
that didn't happen. But the other thing is I have
no money. I have no money. I had the first
(22:51):
and last month's rent was paid, and I had six
hundred dollars to my name. I didn't have health insurance.
I'm quite sure I was probably still covered with my
dad's I think, because back then then I still would
have been in college. I had no health insurance. I
(23:16):
drove to New Hampshire. I found the country Club. I'll
keep in mind it's on rope Ferry Road. I have
no maps, so I find it. Introduce myself. Go to
the the apartment, which is in Vermont. You have to
cross the river. The border between Vermont New Hampshire is
(23:38):
the Connecticut River. So I crossed the river, climb a mountain,
find this place, this apartment. It's a big house at
a room and a community kitchen and a community dining
room I mean living room. And it's out in the
middle of the woods. Okay, so I do all this. Okay,
(24:02):
I'm twenty one years old. I stared at my eyes
went from the windshield to my dashboard no less than
sixty four million times on that trip, because I kept
expecting the check engine light to come on. I don't
know why I thought that, because I had no reason
to believe that brand new car. So I get there,
(24:31):
I do all that stuff, okay, and I'm excited obviously. Okay,
it is pretty awesome. I've done this. I'm all hyped up.
(24:52):
I made the trip. I unpacked my clothes. I had
a day to do that have to be at work
until matter of fact, I stayed at Bill's house that night,
the first night I was there. The next day, he
took me to the apartment. So then I unpacked. I
(25:16):
had that day off. I went to the grocery store.
Now this is how this is how uninformed. I am
actually not uninformed. This is how we did things. Then
I had savings bonds. No, I'm sorry. I had travelers checks.
Nobody knows what travelers checks are anymore. I had travers checks, okay,
(25:37):
And so I got the grocery store. I bought a
six pack of beer. Thought that was pretty cool. They
took the I could get that. I had a little
bit of food. So then I unpacked, chilled in my apartment.
It's pretty cool. I had a bathroom in my room.
(25:57):
It was pretty cool. I had a deck. It was nice.
So I'm I'm there and I'm really I'm really really
really comfortable, Like I got it all figured out. I'm
(26:17):
ready to go, and I have this massive, massive, massive
uneasiness in my stomach. I can't figure out what's wrong.
And I tell to this day. I tell kids. I
tell kids all the time that I recruit, that I
recruit for school, and or I tell my son and
(26:41):
my daughter when your face and myself, when you're faced
with a decision, trust your gut, Trust your gut, trust
your gut. Something was wrong, something was wrong like and
it took me a couple of days. I thought I
(27:05):
was nervous for work. I started on a Friday. I
worked Saturday, I worked Sunday. I was off on no
I worked on Monday, I was off on Tuesday. I
had this feeling in my stomach. Even while I was
learning everything that we're trying to learn. What I could
at work, I had this sick feeling in my stomach.
(27:27):
I couldn't figure it out. I wasn't sick. And it
dawned on me as this six months in New Hampshire starts,
I am so homesick. I can't see straight. I have
no idea what the hell I'm doing there none none
Because this big, this big letdown hits, big letdown hits.
(27:57):
I'm twenty one years old. I am twelve ten to
twelve hours from anybody I know, and I'm homesick. My
girlfriend is nine hours away, probably about eight. I'm so homesick,
(28:23):
I can't see straight. Of course, I can't tell anybody
this because first of there's nobody to tell me. What
am I gonna do? Walk up to my new boss
and say, I've been here for a day and I'm
homesick and I can't see straight. So then going into
that weekend, I'm homesick. I'm trying to do a job,
(28:51):
trying to work all this stuff, and then mother nature
decides to jump on my side. That sarcasm, because from
that mid May, let's just call May tenth to mid
May until June. First, I swear to God, it rained
every day. It rained every day. I remember sitting in
(29:12):
my room in my house and it was woods outside.
All I could hear was rain hitting the trees. I
was so homesick, and I couldn't you know, I couldn't
tell anybody. Now here's the craziest thing in the world. Okay,
(29:33):
and this is going to be I think anybody can
understand this, but but maybe not. Most of you probably
don't understand this. I don't have a cell phone. There
are no cell phones. If I want to call anybody,
it's a landline, and it costs money. I remember back
to what I just said, I have no money. I am.
(29:58):
I'm in a bad way. So and now, of course,
you know, I'm sure everybody's been in this situation like this,
and they're like, I hope they have not, but maybe
they have. You Now you're you're like, okay, now you're
reevaluating everything you did. I'm thinking to myself, okay, it's May.
(30:19):
I was accepted to grad school at Shippensburg University, thinking
to myself, I could go. I could still go. All
my friends were there, my girlfriend was there, she had
one more year there. I could go back in September.
I could call this just I could work for three months,
(30:40):
put in my time, you know. And if I go
to them now and say to them, look, I can
stay until September first, because see, we didn't start school
back then until after Labor Day. I wait all this stuff,
(31:01):
and I said, well, I'm here now, and the damn
weather wouldn't help me. It just kept raining. I was
so sad, and all these years later, this is nineteen
eighty nine. All these years later, I can still I
(31:22):
can still know that I can still hear the rain.
If I'm outside on a golf course now and it
rains and I'm in woods trees, I have like a flashback.
I still remember that sound. So now I've made this decision.
(31:42):
I'm in New Hampshire, while working in New Hampshire, living
in Vermont, and I now have decided I am not
going to go to grad school. I am going to
make I'm gonna make the most of this. I have
to make the most of this, because in my head,
(32:07):
if I had gone home, I was a failure. My
brother Dan had got me a pen you know, one
of those desktop with a penholders that said assistant golf
professional Hanover Country Club. How in the world can I
walk away from that? I had to. I had to stay.
(32:33):
So I don't know that I ever really a great
I'd never had I've never worn bootstraps in my life.
But at some point I during this process, I decided
I was going to pull up my bootstraps and I
was going to go to work. When we come back
from this commercial break, I'm going to tell you, in
a very very very short period of time. The three
(32:56):
people that I met in New Hampshire that made all
the difference, and not only that my tenure at Hanover
Country Club, but in the rest of my career. This
is the rich Komwo Golf Show. Welcome back to the
Rich Komo Golf Show. I'm creating a verbal movie this
(33:16):
week called six Months in New Hampshire. So I walked
us through my decision, all my decisions, and you have
to actually go backwards and you usually have to listen
to this. It's really really, really kind of still, it's
kind of I'm reliving it as I'm doing it. It's
I still can't believe I did it. But now keep
(33:37):
in mind, don't get me wrong. I was not in
any danger or I was not in any grave danger.
I was just a homesick twenty one year old kid.
So you know, I just tried to work and I
try to do stuff and I I try to not
(33:58):
be homesick anymore. I had nothing in common with any
college kid at Dartmouth, you know, Ivy Lake School, Ivy
League School. I had no nothing to do with it.
I had nothing in common. But I met three people
(34:21):
that made all the difference in my time there. The
first one was a young lady, but I named Kathy Slattery.
I should probably have more vital statistics about Kathy. But
Kathy was a great She was a very good player,
(34:44):
very good women's player. I want to tell you she'd
won the women's amateur championship. She was the sports information
director at Dartmouth College, one of the few women that
had that job at that time. Even now, even now,
(35:07):
there's not very many of them. Many I shouldn't say,
like that many females that are sports information directors at
Division I schools. Kathy was not married at the time,
had obviously had no children, not obviously she didn't have
any children. She liked to practice, and she liked to
(35:29):
talk to me. I don't know why. I don't know why.
She was just Kathy was probably thirty five years old.
I was twenty one. She was thirty probably thirty eight
and thirty nine years old then I was twenty one.
But she knew I like golf. She liked golf, so
(35:51):
we kind of bonded over that. So the other thing
I was able to do. And when you worked at
Hanover Country Club, you were obviously owned by Dartmouth College,
so anything we needed like printouts, copy machines, anything like that,
but there were no printouts. There were we had obviously
(36:12):
discs that we could put things on, and then we
had to go print them out at the fieldhouse at Dartmouth.
So I would always see Kathy because I was the gopher.
So I would jump in my car, my brand new
red car, two door Chevy Cavil there and go over
to the fieldhouse. And I was able to to spend
(36:36):
time with Kathy. Kathy made me less homesick because she
didn't know at the time. But I have an older
sister named Kathy, and Kathy talked to me like my
older sister talks to me, like I told her one
of to asually homesick. Why would you be homesick? You're here,
(36:58):
you gotta make the most of it. And like I
was like dang, which is kathy code words for grow
the hell up. But Kathy also really liked to play golf.
My sister does not, but and so I had some
(37:18):
fun with that. I had fun playing with golf with
somebody who didn't care how I played, too. And I've
never been a really good player. I got a lot
better than than then than at that time. Period of
my life. But she didn't care. She just liked to
play golf. She kicked me and she did. She never
mentioned a word. She say hey, thanks for playing, this
is great fun. Thanks. The second person who made a
(37:48):
major made it, made it, made me get through my
six months in New Hampshire. This guy named Jeff Julian.
Jeff was from New Hampshire. He's actually from Vermont, from Queechee, Vermont,
which is a town not very far away. Jeff played
at Clemson. Jeff walked on at Clemson. Jeff's grandfather, Doggie Julian,
(38:14):
is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Jeff was a really, really,
really good player. Jeff went on to win on the
Hogan Tour twice, won the New England Open once, won
the Main Open once. Jeff was the best player I've
(38:36):
ever seen in my life bar Nunn, and at that
time he wasn't, but he went on to be. And
Jeff actually always said to me, really good to see man,
(38:56):
how you doing. And he had a girlfriend then that think, Hey,
we're gonna do what he used to do. He used
to do laundry. The laundry met in Hanover and they
would get pizza next door they would walk out it did,
drink pizza and beer. They walk out, put their stuff in,
walk in and get pizza, walk over, turn it over,
(39:17):
put it in the dryer. Leave, come back into the restaurant,
wait for it to be done, go fold it, come
back in, have one more beer, and go home. He
always tell me when they were doing that, because that
was that was a standing invitation I could go hang
out with him. I had no friends. I was twenty
one years old. I was in their life now they
(39:38):
were not in mind. And Jeff was nice enough to
let me look at his golf swing, was nice enough
to listen to me when I told him what I
thought of his golf swing, me to check his alignment
(40:01):
numerous times, and then gave me way, way, way, way
too much credit for helping him. And Jeff. Jeff was
Jeff was the guy. I mean, Jeff was really special
to me. I always ask Simona's face, I think my
(40:21):
love of you know, Crocodile Dundee hats and writers of
the Lost Ark, whats is you know that those hats?
And to this day, Jeff war one all the time.
I I think that's where I fell in love with him.
I thought to myself. You know what, maybe if I
were hat like that, I could hit it like he could.
(40:42):
I couldn't. But that dude was all right. And one
day he asked me to come to the junior program
that I ran, a little junior program. I had a
teen kids, and he said to them, you know when
(41:03):
Rich works with this with me on my golf swing,
and my street cred went through the roof. Those kids
thought that that guy can help Jeff Julian, he can
obviously help me. I had no standing with these kids.
I was fourteen years old. Wasn't as good as they were.
I was, but I mean, I wasn't any great shakes player.
(41:25):
I had no resume. It's my first job. He gave
me street credibility. He did that for me, and he
knew he did it. And one day I thanked him
for it, and he said to me, he goes, I,
you don't have to thank me for anything. He said,
(41:46):
I have no idea what you're talking about. He knew
exactly what I was talking about. I've always tried to
remember that line. I've had occasion to help people and
they've said, hey, thanks, I have no idea what you're
talking about. Because That's what Jeff did for me and
(42:08):
the the third person. The third person was Bill Johnson,
and I have to come clean. I'm Bill Johnson. Was
a legend coach, played at University of Michigan, went to
the University of Michigan, graduated from University of Michigan. Very
good player. At one time when I got him, he
(42:30):
was older. I coached the golf team for forever, owned
the merchandise concession at the golf shop at the golf course.
He was just he was. He was everything that you know,
all those kids liked and the members I think liked
(42:53):
him a lot. I know they liked him a lot.
They loved them, and he didn't like me, so I thought,
And I'm not so sure I liked him. I actually
know I didn't like him. I didn't think he was
really that that nice to me. I didn't think he
had really kind of I was probably looking for a
(43:19):
grandpa figure, and he wanted to be that because he
was running a business, and he was running a golf shop,
and he was running a golf course, and he was
coaching a golf team, a Division one NCAA golf team.
(43:40):
And here comes the skinny twenty one year old kid
from Shippensburg who talks way more than you should and
just assumes he knows everything. But of course I'm a
twenty one year old and that's not how I viewed it.
I viewed it like I was. I did know everything,
(44:02):
and he was supposed to be nicer to me. We
had a complicated relationship, not antagonistic. I was always, always,
always respectful, and he was always respectful of me. I
don't want this to come off as like I had
some sort of acts to grind with Bill Johnson, because
I don't. I didn't. I didn't, but at that time
(44:22):
I did. I thought he should have been way different
than he was, way different than he was. He was
married to Izzy, who who also worked in the golf shop.
She coached the women's team for a little bit. Is
he was a very good LPGA player, is he? I
(44:46):
don't know that. Is he liked me or didn't like me,
But she was automatically linked in with with Bill, so
since I didn't, since they since Bill didn't fit my
eye for what I wanted out of my first boss
and golf business, I I had tough times, I really did.
(45:14):
I My homesickness stayed with me. Kathy helped me at Kathy'slattery.
Helped me a lot. Jeff helped me a tremendous amount.
Bill did not help me. So now fast forward many
years later and I look back on it now, and
(45:40):
Bill Johnson was a really good guy. Bill Johnson was
a legend. Bill Johnson didn't know what to do with me,
didn't know how to take me. He wanted me to
(46:04):
be friends with the players. But I couldn't be friends
with players. I had nothing in common with them. They
were way better players than me. They didn't really talk
to me. Why would they. They're in college, they were
playing a golf team. I was just some slap over there.
(46:29):
So at the same time, you know, I wasn't really that.
I didn't try to make anything better either. I went
to work on time. I did what I was supposed
to do. So but then one day everything changed. And
(46:51):
it took me a long time to admit this is
when it changed. And it never really changed my opinion
of Bill. Face to face with Bill, but he said
to me, he says, I want you to run a
junior program. You do it. He made some suggestions, not
very many. He cleaned out the garage, in the in
(47:12):
the clubhouse. It was literally a garage, and he said,
you know, the kids can have the lockers. And I
ran junior program, took all the money from it. I
think I made like nine hundred dollars. Now it wasn't
even that now it was, Yeah, it was nine hundred dollars.
(47:32):
And then I started to apply for jobs in in
North and South Carolina. I knew I wanted to get married.
I knew I did a full time job. I knew
I wasn't going back to Hanover Country Club. I knew
I couldn't do that. I was gonna take a six
month job in Florida and come back up there. But
(47:56):
so and Bill. Bill returned a phone call from a
golf professional North Carolina, gave me a glowing recommendation, and
I got hired full time in North Carolina. I still
had angst for him because I was a twenty one
year old kid who was homesick and didn't know how
to take him. So my six months ended it was
(48:17):
actually five and a half, and I went to North
Carolina and the rest is kind of history. But the
three people I mentioned, Jeff Julian, Cathy Slattery, and Bill
Johnson got me through probably the lowest point of my career.
(48:41):
What made it worse was it was just starting out.
But the other thing they all have in common is
they're no longer with us. Kathy died of a brain
hemorrhage at fifty five, Jeff died of lou Garry's disease,
and Bill died from a medical incident. I think it
was probably hard. I told Kathy thank you. I told
(49:05):
Jeff thank you numerous times. I never told Bill thank you.
If I could today, I would say that to him.
But they all made my movie Six months in New
Hampshire happened, And that, according to Paul Harvey, is the
(49:27):
rest of the story of how I started as a
golf professional a long, long time ago in a little
town called Hanover, New Hampshire. This is the Rich Comwell
Golf Show.
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