CLICK HERE for a VIDEO INTERVIEW with Herman Calle Sr., Colombia’s Golf Guru
With son translator Alejandro and his father German Calle Sr.
Yesterday was a travel day, relatively short flight from Cartagena to Bogota. Getting settled into the Bogota Hilton was a breeze. After a good night’s rest I was up and prepared to meet and interview Herman Calle, Sr., Colombia’s Golf Guru. Karibana’s Joseph Mildenberg (or Mildenberg’s Karibana if you like) had set it up for me at his family’s offices in an impressive corner building right down the block in the heart of Bogota’s business district.
Mr. Calle doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish so our conversation was translated both ways by his son Alejandro who is a lawyer. His other son, the junior, is the Director of the Colombian Open, President of Sportslink and subsequent to my visit, an organizer of a new Web.com event in the Dominican Republic. (Dominic Bozzelli just won the inaugural event). Golf runs as deep and wide in the Calle family as the Villegas family in Colombia.
It was fun to sit down and hear the history of golf in Colombia from German and his son Alejandro.
Mr. Calle’s timing in golf was as they say—the right guy at the right time! Like most people he came to golf through family—his parents were golfers so he became a golfer. His first column, his first printed word in golf, was in 1997 when Tiger Woods emerged onto the scene. Buoyed by the growth of the game worldwide, his first golf broadcast coincided with Camilo Villegas turning professional after a stellar collegiate career at the University of Florida. The sexiest player on tour, who struck a Spiderman pose when reading putts, won back-to-back playoff events in 2006 and rose to No. 7 in World Rankings to become the highest ranked golfer from South America.
I had to get an autograph copy of Mr. Calle’s latest column on Colombia Marcelo Rozo becoming the first Colombian to win the Argentina Open, a tournament that dates back to 1905!
Professionally Calle had a media pass to be right there to witness the explosion of golf in Colombia, as evidenced first-and-foremost by Mildenberg’s Karibana Resort. Colombia is a golfing country and with the transition to become TPC Cartagena at Karibana and host to the Web.com Tour golf has never been better with 63 golf courses to play.
Personally, Calle told me “golf is like a school where you apply most everything you learn” and golf is like life where there are good shots and bad shots and the ball ends up in the hole.” Connecting with father and son in this way I had to share that I could not agree more as a 12-year old recipient of the Ben Hogan Five Modern Lessons book from my older brother L.P. inscribed with the following to his younger brother: “Golf is a lot like life, the more you learn and understand about it, the easier it is to meet its challenge.” We couldn’t agree more on golf and life!
The complete foursome including Joseph Mildenberg at Karibana Headquarters in Bogota!
Hogan was Calle Sr.’s golfing hero and shared details of Hogan’s life and career including the recovery from the bad car accident. This wise man also sees the Olympics as a good thing for golf in Colombia and around the world. As for me, he was pretty excited about the “Journey to Olympic Golf” and thanked me for coming to visit Colombia and wishes more golfers would follow my path through Cartagena—Bogota—Medellin.
As excited I was to meet Mr. Calle, now I was even more excited to get to Medellin and walk in the footsteps of Camilo Villegas on the Llanogrande Course he grew up on. With Alberto Valenzuela, Joseph’s and now German’s help that visit come Monday was sure to be exceptionally good!
But there was still golf to be played and sightseeing to be seen during my 3-day weekend in Bogota, Colombia!
