Every course has a story

It was by luck that Peter Kendrick’s story came across my desk. His letter was not addressed to me. It was luck that his story of creating Brush Creek Golf Course with the help of his friend Duane Kloepping — 61 years of GCSAA membership between the two of them — appears in our magazine this month.

Peter wrote a letter and mailed it to GCSAA. The letter was basically a thank-you to his friend who helped him realize his dream. Kloepping’s health was failing, and Kendrick felt compelled to get his thoughts on paper. (Duane, age 76, is doing better now, even after breaking his hip walking across the room recently. “I’m too tough to die,” he says.)

When I called Peter and told him we were interested in adapting his letter into a feature story for GCM, he was thrilled. When I told him we pay our superintendent authors $300 for their stories, he was flat-out shocked. He at first refused payment — he told me it’d be an honor for him to have his story appear in his association’s magazine and that was payment enough.

Putting on my association hat, I told Peter that GCM would indeed be paying him his $300 whether he liked it or not. But if he felt compelled to do so, he could always donate the $300 to a worthy cause like The Environmental Institute for Golf. That was when a lightning bolt of an idea struck Peter — he wouldn’t donate the money to the EIFG (this time, at least), but he would buy $300 worth of steaks and host a big bash at his course, another thank-you, this one to his regular golfers who have also helped make his dream a reality.

GCM is your magazine. We know that you have great stories, like Peter’s. But the GCM staff can’t be everywhere. My business travel rarely takes me to places like Orangeville, Ill., to see a course like Brush Creek. That doesn’t mean we don’t value the story they have to tell there.

If you have a story to tell, please e-mail me, or do like Peter did and write us an old-fashioned letter. We like to hear stories of our members’ successes. It doesn’t have to be a big-budget course, and you don’t have to be a professional writer. But if we don’t know about it, we’ll never be able to share your stories with your colleagues.

I look forward to hearing more stories like Peter’s, and if my business travels ever take me through Peter’s part of the world, I do plan on stopping in and teeing it up at Brush Creek. Courses like Peter’s are just as valuable to us here at GCM and GCSAA as the courses that host major tournaments every year. In our book, every course counts.