From a hilarious send-off serenade by co-worker Ryan Smith — a parody sung to the tune of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” — to a part tribute/part roast by other fellow CGA staffers, to a heartfelt toast from boss Ed Mate, to a tremendous turnout for the festivities, Gerry Brown, Laura Robinson and Ann Bley were sent into retirement in high style Wednesday night at Pinehurst Country Club.
A broad cross-section of the Colorado golf community turned out to bid adieu to the three key retiring CGA staff members, recognizing jobs well done.
Seldom do three top staffers in one Colorado golf organization retire within months of one another. But not only is that the case late this year for the CGA, but the three have been employed by the CGA/CWGA for a combined total of 46 years.
About 175 people showed up for Wednesday’s festivities, in honor of Brown, the CGA’s director of course rating and handicapping; Robinson, the CGA’s managing director of membership and integration — and former CWGA executive director; and Bley, the association’s director of finance. Bley retired at the end of August after 17 years on the job, while Brown (26 years at the CGA) and Robinson (three years combined at the CWGA and the CGA) are following suit at the end of the year.
In addition to fellow staffers saluting the three in videos — and taking good-natured digs — even former CGA employees joined in on the fun. That included former CGA executive director Warren Simmons, who hired Brown back in 1992.
In turn, each of the retirees took a few minutes to fondly recall their days at the CGA/CWGA, share a laugh or two, and vow to spend their fair share of time on golf courses in retirement. That will include tee times and stays at The Broadmoor Resort — going-away gifts from the CGA.
To read more about the golf administration careers of the three, click on the following:
— Ann Bley
Several photos from Wednesday’s festivities accompany this story.
CGA executive director Ed Mate had to chuckle at the fitting symmetry of it all.
When Gerry Brown was hired at the CGA in 1992, he was asked to do the wiring for the first computer network at the association offices, though he was brought on board mainly to help run tournaments.
Twenty-six years later, as Brown’s career at the CGA was winding down leading up to his impending retirement, he found himself in much the same situation.
“Just to show how as a lot of things change, they also stay the same, there’s a phone in our huddle room (in the CGA offices) that wasn’t wired properly,” Mate recalled recently. “I said, ‘Gerry, do you want to do one more wiring job for us?’ Sure enough, he got the ladder and pulled the cable and got it done. So he started out pulling cable and he ended up pulling cable for us. But that’s Gerry.
“If you’re on a survival quest, you want people on your team that are resourceful, and that’s Gerry. No matter what it was, if you had a problem in the office — the copier won’t work, my computer is acting weird, my phone is not doing what it’s supposed to — call Gerry. He’d be there in two seconds. And not only was he willing to do it, he wanted to do it. It was almost like he would thank you for the opportunity to help you. He’s just an amazing human being.”
Indeed, as the year comes to a close, it’s the end of an era for the CGA staff. Over the last quarter-century, no one besides Brown has been continuously employed by the CGA. That even includes Mate, the CGA’s executive director since 2000 who also worked with Brown in an earlier stint with the association, but spent four years on the Colorado PGA staff in the late 1990s and early in 2000.
Brown is one of three key CGA staffers who have or will retire in the final four months or so of this year. Ann Bley, longtime director of finance for the CGA, departed at the end of August (READ MORE). And former CWGA executive director and current CGA managing director of membership and integration Laura Robinson (READ MORE) will join Brown in retiring at year’s end. A retirement party honoring the three will be held Wednesday at Pinehurst Country Club.
Brown was initially hired by the CGA to help Jim Topliff, who had had a quadruple heart bypass, with tournaments and to work with the Golf Handicap and Information Network tournament pairing program (TPP) that was just being released. As Brown noted with a laugh in 2012, “Jim was strictly — as he liked to call himself — ‘the out-house guy’ and I was the ‘in-house guy.'” Brown also served as the de facto information technology manager. But he’ll retire after being director of course rating and handicapping — or some variation of that title — since 2001. He’s also the managing director of club and facility services. As Mate said, he’s been a very valuable “utility infielder” for the organization.
(Brown, second from right, is pictured above recently at TPC Colorado with CGA course raters Laurie Steenrod and Dick Simpson, and CGA staffer Aaron Guereca.)
So how does it feel leaving a place where he’s worked since 1992?
“It’s extremely difficult,” Brown said in a phone interview last month. “I feel like I’m leaving so much of my hide — all the blood, sweat and tears we’ve put in over the years. To see how smoothly this office has been operating — I can’t attribute it all to me — but there’s been a lot of consistency with having one person, with that longevity, in there. Comparing to other golf associations, you just don’t see that.
“To me, each day was a new day. I never got bored with coming to work. It was always so much fun to come in and see what was happening with courses and with GHIN. GHIN always had their problems with their software; I always chuckled, thinking that’s job security (for me). I enjoyed waking up each day and coming to work. Each day had its pluses and minuses — and there were a lot more pluses. There was instant gratification when you could do something for a golf professional. The golf professionals here in Colorado treated me very well — as an equal and an authority for handicapping, tournament formats, software support, course rating. Whatever question they asked, if I didn’t have the right answer, I certainly got it for them. I think there was a large amount of respect.”
Indeed, to demonstrate as much, on Oct. 15, exactly 26 years after he started at the CGA, the Colorado PGA presented Brown with a Distinguished Service Award at its fall meeting.
“That was a very nice gesture on their part,” Brown said. “I’ve had a number of them call and say farewell; that’s been heartwarming and gratifying. I’m going to miss that.”
Paul Lobato, PGA head professional at Meridian Golf Club, was among those who sang Brown’s praises.
“Gerry is a golf pro’s best friend,” he said.
“Words can’t describe” what Gerry meant to the CGA, added Mate, who worked alongside Brown for more than 20 years. “He’d become the face of the organization in so many ways. I saw (Cherry Hills Country Club head professional) John Ogden recently and he can’t say enough positive things about Gerry Brown. Whenever a club needed something relative to handicapping or course rating, they would call Gerry. When those calls come up, they tend to be urgent — ‘We have a situation where our computer won’t work or we’re trying to set up a tournament for this weekend.’ Gerry would basically be on call 24/7 and had such an incredible way about him and willingness to help.”
Brown, who will turn 68 next month, has long been highly regarded in his work, to the point that he served on the USGA Course Rating Committee from 2011-18, which he calls “the high-water mark in my career.” In that capacity, he’s assisted the USGA staff with calibration seminars around the U.S. and overseas. At calibration seminars, USGA representatives make sure course raters do their work to consistent standards. Raters evaluate the playing difficulty of a course for scratch golfers and bogey golfers from the various tee boxes, based on yardage, effective playing length and obstacles. The idea behind both course rating and handicapping is to make the game equitable for golfers of all ability levels.
In his course rating capacity, Brown has been sent to Scotland (to help instruct the Europe golf associations), the Dominican Republic and Japan.
In fact, Brown has made enough of an impression that he’ll likely continue to help the USGA on the course rating front — but on a volunteer basis, with some expenses paid.
“I think (the USGA) is going to want to keep me as someone to assist with training — and somebody who can travel,” he said. “There’s a lot of small countries and areas with only one or two golf courses so to have a formal course rating group in these areas does not always make sense. The USGA feels comfortable sending me to teach in areas like the Dominican Republican or the islands of the Caribbean. They don’t have any one group that will rate all of these courses. They’re talking about sending me and a team from Colorado to rate the courses as needed. Typically, they only do it every 10 years. … For a larger group like the Japan Golf Association, I’ll continue to do training (through) calibration seminars.”
Brown said he’ll also volunteer to rate courses in Colorado, though now Aaron Guereca, who’s become the CGA’s manager of club and facility services, will do the coordination and the setups. Brown has had Guereca, a former CWGA staffer, “on his shoulder” for 2 1/2 months in the late summer and fall to learn the ropes of the job.
Still, demonstrating his devotion to the CGA and the game, Brown said, “I’ve told Aaron I’m always just a phone call away. If I’m not doing anything, I don’t mind coming in and volunteering an hour or two of time to help him or show him how to do things.”
For a guy who was hired without any background in golf administration — he and his wife Cathey were in the publishing business with their offices located directly above those of the CGA and the CWGA in the early 1990s — Brown has certainly made a name for himself in the business.
“Just the fact that I got this job, given the way golf associations hire staff …,” said Brown, who considered himself a “self-taught computer geek.” “I was in my (early 40s) when I came here and had very little or any golf experience. I was just an avid golfer. But I brought a need to them. I helped them network the office for the very first time and got them onto a singular piece of software. I’ve still kind of hung on to my IT roots and assist with equipment and bits and pieces with the network here in the office.”
But it was in his primary job the last 17 years that Brown especially has made an impression.
“Course rating and handicapping is a very small niche in the golf industry,” he said. “There’s probably not more than five people in the entire United States that did course rating AND handicapping the way that I did. They go hand in hand in my opinion. One feeds the other. It’s been a natural and easy process for me.”
Combine that with Brown’s general helpfulness, and you have one valuable staffer.
“I’ve never met anybody that is as willing to help as Gerry Brown. That’s just his DNA,” Mate said. “I’m not kidding, if I called him and said I have a personal issue, he would drop everything he’s doing. You’d barely get the question out and he’d be there.
“One of my favorite stories about Gerry Brown: Early in my tenure as executive director, I had a tree in my back yard that I wanted to cut down. I had a little get-together at my house for the CGA staff — this was in wintertime around George Washington’s birthday, and I said, ‘We’re going to have a George Washington birthday party.’ People didn’t know why and I said we’re going to cut down a tree. Gerry, who just had shoulder surgery or was just about to, jumped in with both feet, was climbing the tree and doing all the work. I have video of the tree coming down and Gerry being halfway up it. That’s Gerry; he just wants to help people. I’ve never met somebody so willing. He and Dustin (Jensen, the former CGA managing director of operations) have that same quality. That showed every day. When people called, he was like, ‘What can I do to help?’
“On the other hand, he wasn’t a pushover. If a club called and said we don’t like our course rating, can you change it?, he’d say no, absolutely not, that’s not the way that works.”
Coincidentally, Brown’s first course rating came on Sept. 11, 2001 — at Spring Valley Golf Club in Elizabeth.
“I was standing there watching the television with the head professional, and we’re just jaws down to the floor” in seeing what had happened with the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pa. “The (rating) team drove up from Colorado Springs and had left before the disaster and had no idea what was going on.”
Seventeen years after that first course rating, Brown is considered a national expert in the field. Which means it certainly won’t be easy to replace him. But you can’t accuse Brown of not giving Mate fair warning about his retirement. Indeed, he first told Mate of his plans early in 2016. And early the next year he reminded Mate by saying, “two years”.
While the powers that be kicked around the idea that Brown’s duties might be better distributed among two people, the CGA’s unification with the CWGA at the beginning of 2018 helped partly solve the matter. That’s when Guereca was tagged to start working with Brown, learning tournament software, handicap issues, course rating, software support, etc.
As for Brown moving forward, the fourth-generation Colorado native and wife Cathey plan to do some traveling. Among the destinations on their bucket list is South America — Machu Picchu, the Galapagos Islands and perhaps a trip to the Amazon River Basin.
But barring the unforeseen, the Parker resident will continue to call Colorado home for the foreseeable future.
“I have no desire to leave these Rocky Mountains,” he said. “My heart is in Colorado.”
In fact, one way Bley remembers when they first started working alongside one another was that she met Mate’s daughter, Anna, “on the way home from the hospital when she was born” in 1997.
Given how much they’re been through as staffers at the CGA — and the Colorado PGA before that — it’s not surprising that Mate notes, “I used to joke with Ann, saying ‘When you leave, I’m leaving’ just because I have that much confidence in her.”
Well, Bley is indeed leaving the CGA this week — Thursday is her final day — though Mate will be sticking around as executive director. Bley, the longtime director of finance for the CGA, will be retiring, following suit of her husband, Greg, who did likewise earlier this month.
“My husband just turned 65, so he decided to retire. I kind of thought that was a good time for me to retire too,” Bley said recently.
Bley (pictured) has been a fixture at the CGA offices since 2001, making her one of the longest-tenured current staffers. Only director of handicapping and course rating Gerry Brown (since 1992), director of communications Aaron Kellough (since 1998) and Mate (since 2000, in addition to an earlier stint on staff) have worked for the association longer.
And her career in golf administration goes back even further, as she worked at the Colorado PGA — with Mate, who was then the assistant executive director at the Section — starting in 1997.
Bley’s retirement “is very personal for me,” Mate said earlier this month. “I started working with Ann when we were both at the Colorado Section of the PGA. And when I was hired as executive director (of the CGA in 2000), the first time I had the opportunity to hire somebody who does accounting — the stuff Ann does — (I hired her). We actually hired her to do tournament stuff as a way to get her in the door, then it was just a matter of getting her in the right seat.
“She’s worked her way up to director of finance. And she’s really been a stalwart, reliable presence for all these years.
“It’ll be hard because she’s much more than (what her job entails). She’s a friend and somebody I trust. She’s also been such a great sounding board for me because she’s got such good instincts and good people skills and world experience. Again, she’s so much more than just somebody who pays the bills.”
At the CGA, Bley handles anything to do with money, whether it’s revenue for donations or grants or member dues or club dues. She pays all the bills for the CGA and its related entities, handles human resources duties, the association’s government reporting as a non-profit and works with the auditors as needed.
While Bley, 63, is looking forward to traveling more, spending additional time with her granddaughter and doing volunteer work, she knows that exiting the CGA after 17 years will take some getting used to.
“It’ll be strange not having work to go into and emails to check,” she said with a chuckle.
But most importantly, she knows she’ll miss the personal and professional interaction with the people she’s come to know so well.
“The people here are like my family,” she said. “I’ve watched a lot of them grow up from when they were interns and now they’re full-time staff and we’ve known each other for 17 years in some cases. Ed and I worked together at the PGA Section office before I came here, so I’ve known him for 21 years. When you’re used to seeing somebody every day for that many years, you’re very invested in their lives.”
Asked what her favorite memories have been over her time with the CGA, Bley gravitates toward activities that lend a golf-related helping hand to youngsters.
“Anything to do with the Evans Scholarship (for caddies), the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy and the junior golf programs are all things that I could emotionally get behind and feel like we were making a difference,” she said.
Bley is one of that relatively rare breed that was born and raised in Colorado and has spent her entire adult life in the Centennial State. She graduated from Colorado State University and has also worked as an adminstrator at a medical research firm, at a hotel management company and in the oil and gas industry briefly.
But the CGA has “definitely” been the longest-standing job of her career.
Bley said she and her husband will continue to live in northern Douglas County in retirement.
As for who will take over Bley’s duties once she’s gone, much of that will fall to Debbie Kolb, currently the CGA’s manager of administrative services, who served in a related role with the CWGA before the integration of the two associations at the beginning of 2018.
“This is a great example of how the integration has worked out so well because Debbie Kolb was in a similar role with the CWGA,” Mate said. “It’s actually worked out really well because she and Ann are really working closely now. Debbie jokes all the time, ‘Ann, don’t leave yet,’ but it’s going to be pretty smooth in terms of the blocking and tackling of bill paying and invoicing and the stuff if you don’t stay on top of you get so far behind. So we haven’t missed a beat in that way.
“But Ann is so much more than that — really understanding the CGA’s finances and really being the lead in building the budget every year. I don’t expect Debbie to be doing that. But in terms of the bookkeeping piece, we’re in good shape.”
As for Bley’s presence at CGA offices, that may be irreplaceable.
When the men and women from the CGA/CWGA course rating team made the rounds and did their duty at TPC Colorado in Berthoud last month, it was a bit of an oddity given the times we’re in.
After all, while it is standard practice for the state golf associations to rate and re-rate the courses in the state, it had been many a moon — almost a decade — since the CGA or CWGA course raters had last done their thing on a new 18-hole layout in the Centennial State.
In fact, to the best recollection of longtime CGA staffer Gerry Brown, the director of course rating and handicapping for the association, the last new 18-hole course done would have been CGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course, which opened in May 2009.
“With a new course, the hardest thing is there’s no yardage markers or GPS,” Brown said recently. “I won’t say it was unique or uncomfortable. Between us (the eight men from the CGA who rated TPC Colorado, along with the eight women from the CWGA), we have well over 100 years of experience rating courses. But this was best possible team of raters, reserved for captains who have five or more years of doing 10 or more rates a year.
“But it was seven sets of tees that we rated. That’s very atypical. We never anticipated people having more than six sets of tees. A lot of our formula (templates on spread sheets) broke.”
TPC Colorado, located just northwest of U.S. Highway 287 where the road turns east a little northwest of Berthoud, is tentatively scheduled to open around June 1, according to PGA general manager and director of golf Larry Collins, who’s moved into his new position after serving as director of golf at Boulder Country Club, then 18 years at the Omni Interlocken Golf Club in Broomfield.
In fact, the combination semi-private/high-end daily fee course has already been having select groups play portions of the course in recent months. Eighty-six members played a 10-hole shotgun on Sept. 18, and other groups have gone out on the course on nice weekends during the fall. The holes on the northern end of the property — 2 through 13 — are further along at this point.
But the agronomy team from the TPC Network, which is part of the PGA Tour, won’t fully open the course until it’s satisfied with the grow-in condition of the layout. Another factor will be when the initial stage of the clubhouse is ready to open.
(The top two photos come from the CGA rating team, with the bottom one courtesy of Devin Sena.)
The course “is phenomenal,” said Collins, who is now working at the sixth TPC stop of his career (including Plum Creek in Castle Rock, Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla., and Southwind in Memphis) and is involved in a new course build-out for the fifth time. “It’s really a stunning piece of land. It sits on 800 acres, overlooking three reservoirs (Lonetree, Welch and McNeil) with about 1,500 acres of water — with Longs Peak and a panoramic view (of the mountains) in the background. The community is just going to be loaded with amenities. It’s very, very exciting.”
Indeed, the Arthur Schaupeter-designed Scottish links-style course is good enough that an agreement has been reached in which a Web.com Tour event will be contested at TPC Colorado for at least five years, beginning in 2019, with course officials hoping for late-summer dates. It will be the first time a tour-caliber event will be contested over multiple years in Colorado since the PGA Tour’s International departed following its 21st and final time visiting Castle Pines Golf Club, in 2006.
The Web.com Tour — then known as the Nike Tour — previously had a stop in Colorado in 1996 and ’97, when Riverdale’s Dunes Course in Brighton hosted the Nike Colorado Classic. Stewart Cink, who has since won six times on the PGA Tour including the 2009 British Open, claimed the title in 1996.
While TPC Colorado can stretch out to 7,991 yards for events like the one planned for the Web.com Tour, it can also be played from as short as 4,157 from the front tees. And, as Brown noted, there will be a total of seven sets of tees possible.
The course can be both formidable and inviting, depending on a number of factors.
“We’ve had more female spouses closing their husbands on memberships because it’s very favorable for the bogey golfer,” Collins said. “We have seven sets of tees and you can play the course from 4,100 yards up to almost 8,000. And there’s only three potential holes where you can lose a golf ball. And (the course features) pretty expansive fairways, meaning fairly easy to hit into.”
Also, there are very few trees — indeed, those that there are are only on one hole — and out of bounds stakes seldom are a concern. Seven holes are situated along the reservoirs but Collins said the water rarely comes into play. And the fescue rough that frames holes is meant to be thin and wispy, allowing errant balls to be found and hit.
On the other hand, there are some formidable bunkers with stacked-sod faces which most players would like to avoid like the plague. And course mounding often results in views of only part of the flagsticks when hitting approach shots.
“From a bogey golfer standpoint, it’s a very scary-looking course with monstrous bunkers ready to gobble up errant shots,” Brown said. “TPC Colorado’s biggest obstacle to protect par is bunkers. They have Scottish-style stacked sod with steep, sheer walls. They’re 2- to 15-feet deep and you don’t go in and out very easily. They’re intended to be a penalty stroke and they’re strategically placed.
“But there are very few trees and most of the OB is away from play. The fairways are generous. And the native is thin and wispy so you can play out. The greens are hard to guess on a new course.”
Individual hole-wise, a few things draw attention at TPC Colorado.
One is the par-5 13th, which can stretch out to 762 yards from the “Tour” tee. That makes it one of the longest holes anywhere, a true three-shot par-5, even for long hitters. Adding to the difficulty of the long, sweeping dogleg left is the presence of a 110-yard-long “Hell Bunker,” which is inspired by the bunker of the same name on the 14th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. The one at TPC Colorado features three separate “hollows” with stacked-sod walls.
Another hole that draws from a famous relative is the par-3 eighth, which might bring to mind some elements of the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship. No. 8 at TPC Colorado doesn’t feature a true island green, but it’s a peninsula of land that extends into Lonetree Reservoir, with water left, right and long.
Still another hole that would like to draw upon comparisons to well-known fan favorites is the sixth, one of three risk-and-reward short par-4s. No. 6 goes by the name Riviera and hopes to emulate the 10th hole at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, one of the best risk-reward par-4s around. The sixth at TPC Colorado features plenty of bunkering and a small green of about 5,000 square feet that will nevertheless entice bigger hitters to try to drive the green.
A hole that will also be of interest is the par-3 16th, named Center Stage, where players tee off right next to the clubhouse, potentially in front of a number of spectators.
“Art Schaupeter did a really fabulous design,” Collins said. “Sometimes you play great courses and you kind of remember each hole because they’re each individually identified. This is one of those courses where there’s 18 (disntinctive) holes. You don’t really play one then look at another and say ‘Oh, it has a lot of similarity.’ He really did some fascinating contouring and use of the land.”
Collins said TPC Colorado has already drawn commitments from more than 100 members. But by agreement with the City of Berthoud, the course will be open to the public on an ongoing basis, albeit at a high-end price. Collins said greens fees haven’t yet been set, but he added, “probably right now, if we were to open up next June, it’s probably going to be a mid-$100 round.
“Quite honestly, if this didn’t have the TPC brand on it, I don’t think we would have ever considered selling memberships until next March. This is really about the golf course that’s being built, and the Tour’s excitement to be not only in Colorado but the Rocky Mountain Region.”
About 5,500 square feet of the planned 40,000-square-foot clubhouse will open next year, if all goes as expected, including the golf shop and cafe, with the rest opening in 2019. Also planned are a sports center, community pool, boating and fishing memberships, waterfowl hunting, a beach club, a marina and a pier.
Golf members will receive TPC Passport deals at TPC Passport Reciprocal Properties and other courses, including The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass and several other facilities that host PGA Tour events.
And the bigger picture in this case is the World Handicap System — or whatever other formal name it may take — that is expected to take shape by the beginning of 2018, eventually making all the handicap systems uniform across the globe.
Right now, there are significant differences among the systems overseen by the world’s six handicapping authorities, which means that a 10-handicap player in the U.S. might be notably different ability-wise from one in, say, Australia. But the handicap system changes announced Monday by the USGA are another step toward uniformity. (To read more about the six revisions to the USGA handicap system that will take effect on Jan. 1 — along with the 2016 edition of the Rules of Golf — CLICK HERE.)
Gerry Brown, the CGA’s director of course rating and handicapping since 2001, thinks the changes likely to affect the most people are: no longer allowing a golfer playing alone to post a score for handicap purposes; no longer allowing a player who makes strokes while anchoring a club to post the resulting score for handicap — unless applying the appropriate penalty; and narrowing the definition of what qualifies as a tournament score.
Other changes deal with adjusting hole scores, posting scores when a player is disqualified, and committee responsibilities.
The CGA administers handicaps for the state of Colorado, and currently, more than 43,000 Coloradans have their handicap indexes issued by the CGA, according to Brown.
“(These changes are) kind of just fine-tuning the current USGA system to be more in line with what the World Handicap System will be when it’s unveiled,” Brown said.
That will likely be in about two years, with the plan being that the USGA, and the handicapping authorities representing Great Britain and Ireland, and continental Europe, adopt those standards at the beginning of 2018. Then it’s hoped that the world’s other handicapping authorities will come on board within two years after that.
As Brown noted this week, the change about golfers playing alone no longer being able to post scores for handicap purposes as of Jan. 1, will likely affect the most people.
“A lot of golfers play by themselves for whatever reason — whether it’s practice or they can’t find someone or they don’t have time to put together a foursome,” Brown said. For the most part, the “rest of the world doesn’t allow anyone to play by themselves (and post scores). And most don’t accept casual round scores at all (in the compilation of handicaps). But they will adopt casual rounds (probably beginning in 2018) to try to grow the game and get more scores into the record. We want more players to get into the game, but peer review is a big factor in the handicap system — having at least one other golfer being able to vouch that a person is playing according to the Rules of Golf.”
Which led the USGA to change its policy about allowing golfers playing alone to post scores for handicap purposes.
“I would say (that change) is long overdue,” Brown said. “It’s something a lot of handicap committees (at clubs) can wrap their arms around, especially if they have a player who has played a lot of rounds with no peer review.”
Many clubs in Colorado have such handicap committees, which are licensed and instructed by the CGA. Brown, and potentially other staffers at the CGA, have considerable interaction with handicap committees that have questions about how to deal with problematic situations.
“We encourage them to use us,” said Brown, who besides having been a CGA staffer since 1992 also serves on the USGA Course Rating Committee. “We’re here to help them out and make sure everything is done in accordance with USGA rules.”
In the bigger picture, the latest USGA handicap system changes pave the road toward the World Handicap System. Last year in St. Andrews, Scotland, the six handicapping entities from around the world met to hash out what works best and what is problematic about their respective handicapping policies. And over the coming two years, the idea is to codify the best of those policies and get everyone on board. The world standards may include daily handicap revisions, and formulas that may take into account weather and abnormal playing conditions. For instance, an 85 shot in brutal weather on a given course might count differently than an 85 recorded in ideal weather conditions.
“The USGA handicap system is constantly evolving to ensure that the system works for the game today and tomorrow,” Steven Edmondson, the USGA’s managing director of handicapping & course rating said when the USGA announced its changes to the handicap system. “As we examine the game domestically and globally, these revisions support the integrity and reliability that millions of players around the world expect of this system. We continue to explore substantive changes as we work toward a World Handicap System in the years ahead.”
The ultimate goal is to have an average-based handicap system that works the same in the U.S. as in South Africa, Europe, South America, Australia and everywhere else in the world — whether that be through inclusion of equitable stroke control, dealing with casual vs. more controlled tournament play scores, etc., etc. That way, golfers can be on even footing wherever they travel. But it may take until 2020 for handicapping to become standardized worldwide as some policies are ingrained in certain areas of the world and not others.
Meanwhile, the USGA and R&A are making a concerted effort to simplify the Rules of Golf in a similar unifying effort.
“Some game-changing stuff is being worked on,” noted CGA executive director Ed Mate, who now serves on the USGA Rules of Golf Committee.
In the early 1990s, Brown and his wife were in the publishing business, and their office was located directly above the headquarters of the CGA and the CWGA. And due to that proximity, Brown and CGA staffer J.P. Messick struck up a business-related relationship that largely revolved around their mutual interest in computers.
Little did Brown know at the time that him rubbing elbows with the CGA staff, along with being a “self-taught computer geek”, would lead to a long-term job with the association.
On Oct. 15, Brown will celebrate 20 years of working for the CGA. That makes him the longest-tenured member of the current CGA staff. CWGA executive director Robin Jervey celebrated 20 years with that organization early this year.
At this week’s CGA/CWGA Volunteer Appreciation Day at CommonGround Golf Course, the associations recognized Brown for his many contributions over the years.
“Gerry has been a tremendous asset to the Colorado Golf Association for a long, long time,” said executive director Ed Mate, who played a big role in Brown coming on board with the association. “He’s grown to be one of the most valuable members of the staff.”
Mate, who’s worked for the CGA before and after a stint with the Colorado PGA, and then-executive director Warren Simmons were key players in Brown’s change in career paths 20 years ago.
“It was Ed who went out on a limb and took a chance on me without (me) having any golf background to speak of,” said Brown, who initially was hired because of his computer/technology-related skills, and to help fill the void after staffer Jim Topliff’s quadruple heart bypass. “… I just had a passion for golf, a love for the game. Warren recognized that apparently, and I didn’t let him off the hook after the (job) interview. I kept pestering him. They interviewed me in July and didn’t hire me until October.
“But apparently I learned quickly enough that they said, ‘We’re going to keep you around’ for another year and another year and so on.”
The result is that Brown often has been the go-to guy for the CGA and CWGA on computer and technology-related issues through the last 20 years. And for the last 11, he’s developed into one of the more respected authorities on course rating and handicapping, both regionally and nationally.
That fact was born out last year when Brown received a prestigious appointment to the USGA Course Rating Committee.
But getting from then — 20 years ago — to now hasn’t been seamless. Indeed, he’s been tested and challenged all along with way.
In addition to being a technology-related guru, Brown served as a tournament administrator for his first nine years, often assisting Topliff. “Jim was strictly — as he liked to call himself — ‘the out-house guy’ and I was the ‘in-house guy,'” Brown said with a chuckle.
Obviously, without the prevalence of the internet and cell phones in the early days, running a tournament was a considerably different task back then. Brown will be the first to attest to that after one of his first experiences troubleshooting a GHIN (Golf Handicap and Information Network) software glitch at a CGA championship.
“I remember finally walking out the door with Jim (Topliff) at midnight” after fixing a problem that affected setting up the next day’s tee times, Brown said. “The golf shop staff had locked up and they said the door will close behind you when you leave. Here’s the code for the security system.
“And in those days we didn’t have cell phones and people were calling Jim’s home while his family was sleeping asking what their tee time was for the next day because that was the only way you found out. Jim said that he didn’t get to bed before 2 o’clock, and he was up and back at the course at the crack of dawn.”
Then there was the day in 2001 that Brown was scheduled to do his first course rating, at Spring Valley Golf Club in Elizabeth.
“My first rate was Sept. 11, 2001,” he said. “My head just wasn’t in it that day. There was something else going on. That’s one of those, ‘Where were you on that date?’ moments. I’ll never forget that because I watched the planes slam into the World Trade Center live, then had to send my daughter to school. I had to get to my golf course to rate, and the guys that I met that were supposed to teach me had left (home) before the 9-11 disaster.
“They drove up from Colorado Springs, I went down from Parker and they had a mission on their mind. I got there before they did and I went inside the clubhouse and was talking to the professional. We stood there and watched the television news coverage and that was about the time the plane crashed into the Pentagon. We’re like, ‘Oh my God, we’re under attack.’ We had no idea what was going on.
“These (raters) finally came into the golf shop and found me and they said, ‘Here you are. What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on? They looked at the TV and said, ‘What happened?’ I said some planes just crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They said, ‘Oh. … Let’s go rate the course.'”
It was that fall that Brown’s job at the CGA took on a new look. While he still would do considerable software support work — both for the CGA/CWGA offices and member clubs — he’d move from tournament administrator to director of course rating and handicapping, his current position.
“When Ed (Mate) said in 2001 that we want you to take over handicapping and course rating, my jaw dropped because all of a sudden I could see my learning curve shoot through the roof again,” Brown said. “Fortunately I had a pretty good handle on handicapping at that point. I had no idea how to do course rating. So in 11 years to go from nothing up to the USGA Course Rating Committee, I felt very honored.
“I relied on Warren Simmons even after he left (the CGA) in 2000. Warren was always a good sounding board. He was one of the pioneers for the current course rating system.”
Nowadays, Brown works with 40 to 45 CGA course raters, and they handle roughly 35 to 45 rates a year. Every course in the state gets rated — for course rating and Slope purposes — at least every eight years. Raters evaluate the difficulty of a course for scratch golfers and bogey golfers from the various tee boxes. The idea behind both course rating and handicapping is to make the game equitable for golfers of all ability levels.
Brown himself rates 10-12 courses per year, and he estimates he’s done well over 100 in the 11 years in his current position.
“I’m probably a closet teacher,” he said. “If I’m prepared and I know my material, I love to get in front of a group and share what I know about handicapping and course rating.”
Overall, Brown estimates he spends about 75 percent of his work time on GHIN and handicap-related matters, and 25 percent on course rating. Ask him how he likes his job, and a smile comes to his face.
“This has been one of those dream jobs that everyone wishes they had,” the 62-year-old Parker resident said, noting that he’d like to continue in the position for another six or eight years. “A lot of people have offered to take it from me when I’m ready to retire. I keep telling Ed that could be my retirement benefits — sell the job. But it’s been of those great jobs that’s been a marriage of the computer work which I love, the game of golf which I love, and just an absolutely great pool of people to work with throughout the years.
“I’ve learned a lot along the way — more about golf than I ever thought was possible. I just cannot say enough good things about what a great job it is.”
And Mate can’t say enough good things about the job the Colorado native has done over the last 20 years.
“I don’t think there’s anybody in the country that knows course rating and handicapping better,” Mate said in saluting Brown. “We’re so lucky to have (him).”
First of all, it came in the midst of a national emergency — 10 years ago on 9/11 as planes were being flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. “I was glued to the TV in the golf shop” at Spring Valley Golf Club in Elizabeth, he said.
As for that first course rating process, “I had no idea what I was doing,” Brown said. “In those days there was no training by the (CGA). I was told, ‘You’ll pick it up as you go.'”
What a difference a decade makes. Last week, that onetime “newbie” — and now the CGA’s director of course rating and handicapping — received the prestigious honor of being named to the USGA Course Rating Committee, whose members are among the foremost experts in the field.
“The way courses are measured and rated — which is the backbone of the handicap system — is determined by that committee,” noted CGA executive director Ed Mate, Brown’s boss. “It’s a very small committee — and very prestigious. Literally there are rocket scientists on that committee. For Gerry to be on that is a feather in his cap, and it’s nice for us (as an association) to see that Colorado is so highly regarded.”
Brown (pictured) is one of four staffers of the CGA and CWGA who serve on USGA committees. CWGA executive director Robin Jervey has been on four such committees in 2011 (Rules of Golf, Handicap Procedure, Joe Dey, and Regional Affairs). Mate also serves on Regional Affairs, and CGA director of rules and competitions Pete Lis is on the U.S. Mid-Amateur Committee.
Brown has worked for the CGA since 1992, first as a tournament administrator, then moving into his current position about a decade ago. By his own estimates, he personally rates 12-15 courses per year, meaning he’s logged close to 150 course ratings in his career. Brown recently led a discussion on course rating at the International Association of Golf Administrators meeting in Pinehurst, N.C.
“This represents the top rung for a course rater at a state or regional golf association,” Brown said of his USGA appointment, which is normally the result of recommendations by peers. “It’s an extremely prestigious position to hold, so I was ecstatic. I couldn’t believe they were asking me to do this.”
In Colorado, Brown and the CGA’s volunteer course raters establish updated course ratings at 36-48 courses each year. Courses are typically rated near their opening date, their third anniversary and seventh anniversary. After that, it’s normally an eight-year rotation.
Course raters evaluate the difficulty of a course for scratch golfers and bogey golfers from the various tee boxes. Yardage is the No. 1 factor in the rating, but other things taken into account are effective playing length (factoring in uphill/downhill, forced layups/doglegs, elevation, altitude, etc.) and obstacles (bunkers, trees, water hazards, green characteristics, etc.). The result is the course rating and Slope numbers that players see on scorecards. The bottom-line purpose for course rating — and the handicap system in general — is to make the game equitable for golfers of all ability levels.
“I’ve been drawn to it from the very beginning,” Brown said of the whole course rating process.
As a member of the USGA Course Rating Committee, Brown’s main responsibility will be one of instruction and testing during national calibration seminars, which serve as testing and accreditation mechanisms for course raters. Brown expects to attend at least two of these seminars each year, including one in San Diego in early March.
Course Rating is a relatively new full-fledged USGA committee, gaining that status in 1998. In 1982, the CGA broke new ground by rating all of its courses using the current USGA Course Rating System, and the CGA subsequently tested the Slope system in 1983 and ’84. Former CGA executive director Warren Simmons has been a key player in the evolution/refinement of the system over the years.