Youth on Course in golf and in life! Photo Credit: NCGA & Poppy Hills GC.
There is something special about an amateur golf association like the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) owning two of their own golf courses and then having a program called ‘Youth on Course’ where kids can play 170 different golf courses for five dollars or less. They, the organization, have been around since 1901. That was even before golf was last played in the Olympics in 1904 at Glenn Echo CC in St. Louis. NCGA, one of the premier amateur golf associations in the world, was the first to own and operate its own member course when Poppy Hills Golf Course came into existence in 1986. Both of their golf courses, Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach on the Monterrey Peninsula and Poppy Ridge in the Livermore Valley on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay area are included in the ‘Youth on Course’ program. That’s not only incredible, it is inspirational!
I played Poppy Hills before it closed and after it reopened. Completely different golf course, completely different experience!
In golf, as in life, some things change while other things remain the same. My apology for digressing a bit here to my childhood growing up in Binghamton, New York but hey this is a diary! Where I grew up in Binghamton, New York is far from Poppy Hills and Northern California. My father introduced me to golf at a very young age and we played together up at Ely Park Municipal Golf Course atop Mount Prospect. The golf professional Ernest Smith had designed the sporty 18-hole golf course in 1933 and nearly 30 years later a nine holer of all par-3s for junior golfers like me. I still remember the day I graduated from the small course to the big course.
Beautiful golf course, beautiful experience… you can walk and pull a buggy for your clubs if you like!
The first “world-class” golf course I ever played was the Robert Trent Jones Golf Course at Cornell University. My older brother Larry followed in RTJ Senior’s footsteps there taking the same courses and graduating with a degree in golf course architecture. He played on Cornell’s golf team and brought me up to play the course about the time I was turning into a teenager. I remember nearly holing a 5-iron on the par-3 second hole with the golf coach watching. I wish I could swing and play like that my whole life through.
What does that have to do with Poppy Hills and the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA)?
Interviewing Robert Trent Jones, Jr. at the NCGA headquarters at Poppy Hills Golf Course in February 2014 when Poppy Hills was shutdown for reconstruction. I have played so many of his father’s golf courses that I feel like I knew him too.
Nothing really other than the Cornell course was designed by the Senior Jones. In fact Jones grew up in East Rochester and became the first golf professional at Sodus Bay Heights Golf Club about 50 miles east of his hometown. His first golf course design in 1931 was the Midvale Golf Club right next to his hometown. Coming out of the Depression, he built WPA courses like Green Lakes State Park by Syracuse, New York in 1936. After WWII, Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s career prospered when he collaborated with the other Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur golfer ever, to build the Peachtree Golf Club in Bobby’s beloved hometown of Atlanta. All in all, the World Golf Hall of Fame member designed over 500 golf courses around the world in 36 countries.
NCGA Headquarters and Poppy Hills Golf Course conveniently located on one site in Pebble Beach.
The world has changed quite a bit over the course of the 20th century. Whether West Coast with the NCGA or East Coast in my hometown with the Triple Cities (Binghamton, Endicott and Johnson City) Golf Association (TCGA), golf being affordable and accessible to kids has remained the same thanks to organizations like the NGGA.
Playing the new Poppy Hills Golf Course after this year’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am was a sensational experience. Mind you that I played the old Poppy Hills for the last time in a rainstorm on a cold Crosby-like February day two years ago. I actually liked the old course as it was built according to the times of the 1980s—tough, tough, tough. I absolutely love the new course with its return to natural elevations, natural areas (less water and fertilizer needed) and limitless fairways with no rough until you reach the trees which I am more capable of doing than anyone.
CLICK here for a VIDEO Interview with Cole Handley, Head Golf Professional at Poppy Hills GC.
With Cole Handley in his office at Poppy Hills.
Who gets hired on as an assistant pro a couple of years before being informed of a course shutdown (which means no golfers, no job) and complete reconstruction, then becomes part of the crew driving a bulldozer and shaping fairways and green complexes, only to be promoted to Head Golf Professional upon reopening? His name is Cole Handley and his storytelling of his experiences from Thailand to Pebble Beach are extraordinary. He has seen Poppy Hills exterminated and rebuilt from the dirt up and will tell you not to miss the Poppy Hills experience for three reasons—the peaceful scenery, the incredible staff and the variety of fun shots that you will be challenged to hit on the new course.
Handley calls it “thinking outside the green,” use the land, never boring, tactical shot-making—better bring your imagination to Poppy Hills when you visit. Remember who designed this golf course for the second time—Robert Trent Jones Jr.—who recently joined his father Robert Trent Jones Sr. (whose first U.S. Open course design was Bellerive CC in 1959 for the 1965 U.S. Open) and his brother Rees Jones, the ‘Open Doctor,’ (who has renovated 12 golf courses to host the U.S. Open) as a U.S. Open contributor with his design of Chambers Bay. Maybe Poppy Hills was his warm-up or warm-down depending on how you look at it. Grab the opportunity when you can to play this exciting course.
CLICK here for Video Interview Introducing NCGA’s Richard J. Cerame and Kevin Merfeld.
With Kevin Merfeld (L) and Richard J. Cerame (R) on the deck at Poppy Hills.
With the NCGA headquarters on site at Poppy Hills there is some interesting synergy going on between the ‘grow the game’ and ‘play the game’ folks. The interviews of Richard J. Cerame, NCGA Marketing Manager and Kevin Merfeld, NCGA Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing clearing demonstrate the creativity of what is going on in golf in the northern part of the Golden Bear state.
CLICK here for Video Interview with Richard J. Cerame, NCGA Marketing Manager.
‘RJ’ hails from literally growing up on RTJ Senior’s first masterpiece of Midvale CC in Rochester, New York. and is bringing history to life on the golf course designated to be built on land reserved exactly for that purpose by Samuel F. Morse (not the telegraph guy) who founded the Pebble Beach Company in 1916.. The only Monterrey golf course completely in the Del Monte Forest. Cerame is fairly new to the new Poppy Hills and the NCGA but will not only market you a golfing experience but deliver it with “a private country club experience at an affordable price.”
The Northern California Golf Association has been around since 1901.
Like Head Golf Pro Handley, Kevin Merfeld was a before-and-after guy at Poppy Hills during the reconstruction. Unlike the handy dozer-driving pro, Kevin saw the action at Poppy Hills with notebook and pen in hand, while handling his NCGA responsibilities. Here’s a young man who grew up in the area and is a product of the junior program and high school. He tried to walk on the golf team at USC (versus swinging into?) and after graduation the journalist major was a newspaper man before come home to the NCGA and Poppy Hills. Youth, like Kevin, in organization, like Youth on Course is a good thing!
Some things remain the same as they are changing. Poppy Hills is an example of that. Before and after golf course is totally different. Before and after organization behind the golf course and behind amateur golf in Northern California the same and getting better all the time. Not only have nearly 400,000 of those five dollars or less rounds have been played but over one hundred kids have been hired as caddies, half of that number as interns and over $600,000 given out on scholarships to college-bound youngsters.
Golf, raising charity dollars for kids helping them develop life skills and getting them out on the golf course is all natural for the NCGA and Poppy Hills.
In addition, the new Poppy Hills Golf Course joined Pebble Beach in 2014 to once again host professional golf at its highest levels with the Nature Valley First Tee Open on the PGA TOUR’s Champions Tour. I have always wanted to go to this tournament as it showcases First Tee kids playing with the professionals. Scott Langley won the pro-junior event in 2006 and became the first First Tee graduate to play on the PGA TOUR in 2012. Though the First Tee is way more than golf, it is about life skills and developing children to have a successful life wherever life takes them. With a goal of reaching twenty million kids in their first twenty years I am sure in the years ahead we might see a First Tee president in addition to a First Tee golfer winning on the PGA TOUR.
I have been a regular at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am since 2009 and have always stayed at the Portola Hotel & Spa in downtown Monterrey, my California home away from home. During February’s Pebble Beach week Poppy Hills ‘pops up’ at the Portola and brings their state-of-the art launch monitor for a fun little festival in the lobby with live music. I hope to ‘pop in’ one of these years in the fall or the Nature Valley First Tee Open.
Whether one grows up in Binghamton, New York or across the country in Monterrey, California or even today around the world in Asia or Latin America. golf is golf and the people and organizations behind the game are the same, with the same benefit to young people growing up.
Some things, apparently and hopefully, never change in golf and in life.
The par-3 second hole on the new Poppy Hills Golf Course.
The par-3 17th green.
The new Poppy Hills, the only things that haven’t changed are the poppies and being in the Del Monte Forest!
