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Cascade Golfer Short Game
SHORT GAME 1
Troon Golf now operating Ocean Shores GC with new visions for improvements and increased play
Troon Golf, a global course management, development and marketing company headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., began operating the city-owned Ocean Shores Golf Course, 25 miles west of Aberdeen, Wash., on May 1 having been selected by the city council to succeed leasee Curt Zander.
Zander, who had worked at the course for 30 years alongside wife Tonya, announced last August that he wished to retire at the end of 2023 and sell the remaining years on the lease. A replacement was sought but, after receiving no responses, the city was forced to broaden the search, inviting management companies to apply for the role.
Three companies applied to manage the course which opened in 1961 with just six holes before offering the full complement of 18 in 1966. Entertainer Pat Boone was largely responsible for the upgrades to the course having become a resident and stockholder in Ocean Shores Estates and hosting a celebrity golf tournament at the course between 1966 and 1970. When Boone’s event ended the course became a regular stop on the LPGA Tour hosting the likes of Kathy Whitworth, JoAnne Carner, Althea Gibson and Patty Berg.
Troon manages close to 600 public and private courses around the world.
All revenue from the course is now going back to the city which, according to a Grays Harbor Daily World April 1 report, is paying Troon Golf $7,500 a month in management fees while the city is responsible for labor costs. The number of rounds at the course is expected to rise from about 17,000 a year to 27,000 and profits will be used for capital improvements to the course.
Ocean Shores has been added to the list of courses that are part of Seattle-based Premier Golf’s Frequent Player Program (in March 2019, Troon purchased OB Sports management which purchased Premier later that year).
Director of Operations at Troon Golf Michael Fosnick says that since Troon took over several important changes have taken place. Gary Enholm, formerly of Seattle Parks, was installed as the course’s new superintendent and extensive marketing programs have been initiated. “And we’ve hired other local employees who are making a big difference,” he adds. “Our goal is to attract many more golfers to this hidden gem over the summer months with specials, discounts, and stay and play packages.”
SHORT GAME 2
Three CG Cups remain at Oakbrook, The Classic and Chambers Bay vacations to Maui, Vegas and Myrtle Beach on the line
Good weather has been the story for golfers in the Northwest in 2023, and the first four Cascade Golfer Cup events of the season have been nothing but pristine skies, mixed with a cold drink and great two-person formats and courses.
We’ve seen first time winners as well as veteran teams win at The Home Course, Salish Cliffs, White Horse and Port Ludlow. Now another great set of courses await.
Oakbrook will host the Michelob ULTRA Open Aug. 12. This two-person aggregate Stableford will hand out stay and play packages to Maui as overall grand prizes for both net and gross, courtesy of our friends at Ka’anapali Golf Resort. The top 10 in the net and gross divisions all prize out, as with all CG Cup events.
Following Oakbrook we head to The Classic for our Cascade Golfer Invitational, which is a two-person best ball on Sept. 9. This great layout will host this stop on our tour for a third straight year. Teams are battling it out for new drivers and putters along with golf experiences to Las Vegas. Plus, another 20-plus prizes are up for grabs.
If you can’t make any of the above, do yourself a favor and put Sept. 30 on your golf schedule, when we finish off the season with our Annual Fall Classic at Chambers Bay.
This concludes our 13th year of the CG Cup, and no track has hosted more Cup events than our illustrious local U.S. Open venue. A couple of teams will win stay and play packages to Myrtle Beach, why not you?
You can view all information, registration, results and prize winners at CascadeGolfer.com/Cup. As always, all our CG Cup events are open to anyone. If you’ve never played in an event, sign up and join us. Each event is unique with its own prize pool.
In addition to sending folks to Maui, Bandon Dunes, Central Oregon, Pinehurst, Myrtle Beach and several other destinations this year, CG Cup events also hand out all sorts of other serious loot.
This includes drivers, wedges, putters, rangefinders, watches, pull carts, bags and, of course, a ridiculous amount of great golf. We’re awarding twosomes and foursomes to: Gamble Sands, Chambers Bay, Suncadia, Salish Cliffs, White Horse, Apple Tree, The Home Course, Loomis Trail, Port Ludlow, Cedars at Dungeness, The Classic, Oakbrook, Snohomish and several others.
In addition to prizing out each event, the CG Cup is also a season points race, so there are prizes for the top 10 teams in gross and net on the season. Plus, you are allowed to have an alternate, so when you have a conflict and your buddy still wants to grab a partner and play, no problem. Consider it a three-person team for the season.
Get a partner, a handicap and sign up at CascadeGolfer.com/Cup. We’ll see you inside the ropes.
SHORT GAME 3
High-tech simulator the latest in Eagle’s Pride public golf arsenal of indoor and outdoor options
The installation of a golf simulator at the Eagle’s Pride Golf Course this past February was met with acclaim by the military personnel there. After all, so many of these folks are drawn to the service because of the opportunity to operate the latest in electronics, technology and military gadgetry.
This was a natural fit, the chance to break down every aspect of their golf swing with readouts in high-tech detail, while pretending to play Pebble Beach or Pine Valley.
“It tells you everything, like Trackman” says Eagle’s Pride General Manager Jeffery Clark. “Loft, lie, clubhead speed, face angle at impact, carry distance, etc.”
Clark, who operates the 27-hole Eagle’s Pride course across I-5 from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord, had become aware of golf simulators “popping up all over the place,” and figured his community would welcome this type of indoor activity, especially in the winter. He toured several simulator facilities in the region, received approval from the commanding officers, and finished the installation in February.
The simulator can accommodate up to eight players at a time and can be used for games other than golf — tee ball, soccer, football, or the ever-popular Zombie Dodgeball.
Because of the transient nature of a military base, there are plenty of ‘hail and farewell’ parties for individuals coming and going that use the simulator. But it isn’t exclusive to military personnel as the general public can use it, just like the golf course. That may be the best kept secret in the region as a golfer of any stripe can get around the well-maintained course for around $40.
“There are things everyone can do here,” says Clark. “The word is out. We’re off base. We’re open to the public (year-round), we have 27 holes and you can come anytime you want.”
While the course is busy this summer, the simulator will remain fairly quiet. That’s expected. The purchase was intended as an off-season activity to give golfers something to do and help their games during the long winter months.
SHORT GAME 4
Northwest Golfers Playbook with 120 offers — is now only $19.95
If you love saving money and playing golf in Washington and Oregon, you won’t want to leave home without this. And now you can buy the book for half off.
The 2023 Northwest Golfers Playbook is jam-packed with great offers all over the Northwest. Several of our best tracks such as Gamble Sands, Wine Valley, Suncadia, Apple Tree, White Horse and Port Ludlow have an amazing offer for you. This is in addition to all our local favorites, too many to list.
Golf is busting out and we are also seeing the indoor golf craze in full bloom. We’ve had several new indoor facilities jump into the book, including Five Iron Golf on Capitol Hill, Lounge by Topgolf in Kirkland, Kutting Edge Fitness in Redmond and Loft Golf out of Olympia. This is in addition to our playbook vets Golftec, Back 9 Parlor and Pacific Northwest Golf Centers. The summer weather is here now, but come this fall when the raindrops start again, earmark these offers.
Whether you live in Seattle, Snohomish County or hang in the South Sound, there’s tons of options for you. Plus, if you love to hit the road, we have 18 tracks on the peninsula or across the passes to central and eastern Washington. Road trip after road trip can be made by flipping through the 120 pages of savings.
What type of offers you ask? Anything goes. If you are looking for 2 for 1s, 4 for 3s, percentage discounts, free carts, lessons, range balls, twosome specials or foursome offers it’s all jammed in there.
With more than 120 pages of golf deals, you simply need to use a coupon or two and you’re already in the black. If you can’t save money using the playbook, you need to get out and play more often.
Normally $39.95, you can purchase a book online for $19.95. Use the code HalfOff to save $20. Put the book in your golf bag and count the savings all fall and winter long. Pick one up at NWGolfersPlaybook.com and start saving today!
SHORT GAME 5
Dana Kimble and The Pro Shop ‘engineers’ relationships
Dana Kimble understood early on just how the game of golf plays a subtle but significant role in career opportunities within the construction industry. And for years she was basically in denial of even picking up a club.
Kimble works for Skanska, one of the largest construction engineering companies in the country. She observed how some men, with less seniority and fewer qualifications, might be promoted over her. Naturally, she wondered why.
“Construction has always been a male-dominated industry,” she says. “Golf was a very good tool for business, for networking and developing relationships. I saw the men do that.”
Those men, some not particularly skilled at the game, nevertheless wriggle their way into foursomes with the bosses which naturally results in closer relationships, smoothing the way for career advancement.
Kimble, an excellent athlete who played soccer at Woodinville High and the University of Washington, had never played golf. She didn’t want to just show up and make a fool of herself. But she also didn’t want to play the fool.
“I was my own problem,” she says. “And I realized a lot of men struggled with the game, too. But still played.”
So, she took lessons and improved to the point where she could hang with the men. She plays in all the company tournaments. But she noticed that she was among the few of her gender to participate. Other women refrained, she says, because of intimidation, or concerns over the quality of their game or because it was just socially awkward to mix in. Kimble would tell them to get over it.
A year ago, Kimble and a select group of construction industry women formed The Pro Shop, whose mission statement is to empower women in architecture, engineering, and construction into greater positions of influence, through the game of golf.
The other four founding members are all involved in the construction/building trades: Christina Millan (OAC), Lisa Ulrich (UMC), Andrea Vanderlende (Interface) and Melissa Kelii (TGB Architects).
The organization, which has grown to 160 members mostly from Seattle-area companies, provides basic information on equipment fitting, the game’s rules and nuances, avenues for instruction, and it has even partnered with a golf apparel company for the latest in golf fashion.
“Golf provides so many benefits, both personally and professionally,” says Kimble. “It’s great for your mental well-being. You can manage your stress-level better. You can perform under pressure better, and you are building important relationships with people.”
SHORT GAME 6
Canuck and former UW star Nick Taylor drains a 72-foot eagle putt to win the Canadian Open
His face was unaffected by the chaos surrounding him, his demeanor impassive. Nick Taylor seemed oblivious to all the hoots and hollers from his overwrought countrymen trying to will him to victory at the RBC Canadian Open in early June.
A Canadian golfer had not won his own country’s tournament in 69 years. Taylor, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Abbotsford, B.C., had a country on his shoulders. A former University of Washington star, Taylor was a virtual Maple Leaf walking down the Oakdale Country Club fairways. The rabid Toronto crowd wouldn’t let up, but Taylor didn’t seem bothered by any of it.
“Under pressure, everyone speeds up,” Matt Thurmond, head golf coach at Arizona State, said back in the days when he coached Taylor at the University of Washington. “Your mind speeds up, you walk faster, you swing tighter, faster. Somehow, Nick slows down when there’s more pressure. His swing, his mood, his tone of voice are all slower. He always has been that way from when he first started playing the game. I’m sure his heart is racing, but he’s able to manage it. He’s done that in his career over and over again.”
More than once, Taylor, now 35, has responded positively to pressure, whether it’s to win a PGA Tour event or when trying desperately to hang onto his Tour card. In 2014 he shot a career-best 63 in the final round of the Web.com Tour Championship to finish 21st and earn his first Tour card.
Then, four events into his PGA Tour career, he won his first tournament — the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi. It may have been too much, too soon as Taylor virtually disappeared over the next five seasons, missing a total of 60 cuts and finishing 50th or lower 34 times.
In 2018, entering the Tour’s final event, he stood 129th in the FedEx Cup standings and in danger of losing his card. He needed to finish in the top 10 and responded when it mattered most. After matching that career-best 63, he finished eighth and secured his card for two more seasons.
“If my back is against the wall I tend to perform well, but I don’t want to be in that situation again,” Taylor said following the tournament. “That’s more pressure than trying to win a golf tournament. I was trying to keep my job. I was trying to keep my status. The consequences are not as great as losing a tournament.”
Then, in February 2020, ranked 229th in the world at the time, Taylor was tested again after starting the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with a one-stroke lead over Phil Mickelson who had won the tournament five times. The left-hander, now a LIV player, had 39 other PGA Tour victories including five majors whereas Taylor had gone 146 events since his first win, with no second-place finishes, no thirds and just 11 top-10s. Taylor, who barely mustered a hoot from the pro-Phil crowd, was again unflappable. He eagled the par 5 6th with a 47-foot pitch from the bunker, chipped in at the 15th and closed with a two-under 70, finishing the 72 holes four shots clear of Kevin Streelman and five ahead of Mickelson who shot 74.
That all prepared Taylor for his Canadian Open pressure-cooker on Sunday, June 11, as he was in contention amid much patriotic bedlam. In the fourth to last group to tee off, Taylor was playing catch-up with the leaders — England’s Tommy Fleetwood, ranked 21st in the world, and C.T. Pan of Taiwan, his former UW teammate.
In the end, it would be Taylor v. Fleetwood with an oppressively pro-Taylor crowd hanging on every shot. Taylor also drew strong support from his Canadian peers — Masters hero Mike Weir, Corey Conners and his old friend from Abbotsford, Adam Hadwin.
Fleetwood and Taylor tied at the end of regulation at 17-under 271, before sparring evenly for three playoff holes. At the fourth extra hole — the 499-yard 18th — Taylor reached the green in two and was 72 feet from the cup. Fleetwood was 22 feet away in three.
Looking steady and stoic, like he was back at UW listening to a finance lecture, Taylor bent over his lengthy putt and rolled it in for a winning eagle. It was the longest putt of his PGA career, and the gallery exploded while Hadwin, attempting to spray his good buddy with champagne, was leveled following a nifty open-field tackle by a security guard.
Taylor had become a three-time PGA Tour winner, and Canada had a new golf icon — the first winner of the country’s prized event since Pat Fletcher in 1954. And Hadwin lived to spray another day.
SHORT GAME 7
The Tribute Club set to open in 2024 at Thornburgh Resort in Central Oregon
Agolf course, routed by Bill Coore and designed by Rod Whitman, Dave Axland and Keith Cutten (known collectively as WAC), is slowly taking shape on 200 acres of a 2,400-acre resort property 10 miles southwest of Redmond, Ore.
Construction of the 18-hole layout at the Thornburgh Resort began at the end of 2021 and the course is currently being grassed with a view to opening next summer. Called The Tribute Club, the course uses Coore’s second routing at Thornburgh as he and co-designer Ben Crenshaw’s first, completed in 2005, fell victim to the 2007-09 financial collapse.
By the time plans for the course were revived in 2019, changes had inevitably been made to the masterplan, so Coore was recalled to devise a second routing. Because he and Crenshaw were incredibly busy, however, they were unable to complete what they’d started, so suggested the resort’s developer, Kameron DeLashmutt, hire Axland and his partners to complete the job.
While the routing was already in place, the details such as fairway widths, contours, bunker placement, green complexes, etc., were all up to WAC.
DeLashmutt was disappointed Coore and Crenshaw couldn’t return but is happy with their replacements. “Rod and Dave seem to have the same mindset as Bill and Ben,” he says. “And Keith has learned the same lessons, most of them alongside Rod. They are all true artists.”
Thornburgh Resort ranks among Oregon’s most contentiously litigated land developments in history, with around 70 appeals concerning water usage and fish/wildlife habitats being lodged by environmental non-profit Central Oregon LandWatch.
Grandson of the land’s former owners, Eva and Everett Thornburgh, DeLashmutt has countered every single complaint and is moving ahead with the project which will offer 950 residential lots, a man-made lake, a village comprising a beach club, kids’ camp, outfitters, fitness center, a boutique hotel, biking/hiking trails, as well as the golf course with a second course (Coore’s 2005 routing) being added somewhere down the line.
“We’re pursuing community-wide energy initiatives which could make Thornburgh the model of sustainability,” DeLashmutt told Cascade Business News in April.
SHORT GAME 8
Snohomish High’s Palmer Mutcheson posts an albatross on a par 5 at WIAA Championship
s everyone knows, an albatross is a large, cold-climate seabird with a hooked beak and long, narrow wings. Less well-known is that it is also an Asian or African butterfly of the genus Appias.
As far as Snohomish High School junior Palmer Mutcheson is concerned, however, an albatross (‘double eagle’ in the U.S.) is a score of three-under-par on a hole and an extremely rare bird, especially in high school tournaments.
How rare are the odds? “One-in-12,000 for a hole-inone; one-in-six million for an albatross,” says the 17-yearold who recorded one in the first round of the WIAA 3A State Championship at Indian Summer Golf and Country Club in May.
After a 309-yard drive at the 530-yard 3rd hole, Mutcheson had 221 yards to the hole and hit a 5-iron which never left the pin. Mutcheson didn’t see it go in, but the shouts of the Snohomish Panther faithful up at the green told him it had.
The shot carried a shocked Mutcheson through the rest of the round, but unfortunately wasn’t caught on camera. “It might have been on Sportscenter,” says Joey Mutcheson, Palmer’s father and the Panthers coach, who was nearby.
The albatross helped Palmer to a 32 on the front nine. A 43 on the back saw him round in 75, and a second-day 78 gave him a 36-hole total of 153 and 15th-place finish. The Panthers, meanwhile, finished eighth.
This honor student has a busy summer of local, state and national junior tournaments lined up, and has reason to expect a solid senior-year in 2024 (the Panthers’ top five players at state were all juniors). The prospect of col lege and more golf looms in Mutcheson’s future.
‘Albatross’ has another usage in English-language idi om — an ‘albatross around one’s neck’, first suggested in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” is a heavy mental burden that hinders future success. Will a one-in-six-million event stand in the way of Palmer Mutcheson’s success in life?
That, like the golf-related albatross, seems an extreme longshot. Palmer is clearly destined for greatness.
SHORT GAME 9
McGrath makes it happen on the course, at school and as a young philanthropist
Seventeen-year-old Kylie McGrath can clearly play this game. In June of 2022, the Liberty High School student made her first hole-in-one, and then shot just four-over-par at the WIAA 3A State Championship, fin ishing 13th out of 142 players. A few weeks ago, having just completed her junior year, she finished 13th again.
Though certainly helpful, it wasn’t her strong show ing in two state tournaments, or even her hole-in-one, that helped Kylie win the latest Duke’s Junior Golfer Scholarship after being nominated by Liberty’s assistant girls coach, Amanda Thrash. A 3.9 GPA while being part of several advanced-placement classes was likewise im pressive without proving decisive.
For John Moscrip, CEO of Duke’s Seafood and the scholarship’s creator, what tipped the balance was Kylie’s volunteer work at the First Tee of Greater Seattle where she serves as a Junior Advisory Board Member and coach. She’s helped raise more than $10,000 to support both the First Tee and the American Junior Golf Associ ation (AJGA) ACE Grant which helps young people earn college scholarships through golf.
Kylie is hoping to play collegiately, and is currently considering Western Washington University, University of Redlands and a few other D-II/D-III schools. “Golf is important certainly,” she says, “but I’m also focused on finding a school with a strong engineering program.”
This summer, Kylie, who may use the scholarship money for some new rain gear or perhaps a TaylorMade Stealth driver, will play in the First Tee National Champi onship at Stanford University, and also help organize a junior Ryder Cup-style event called the Washington Cup in which 24 junior golfers from across the state will com pete at Sahalee Country Club in October.
Each player will commit to raising funds for the First Tee and ACE Grant, with the aim of donating $50,000 collectively. You can find Kylie’s fundraising page here: leadershiplinks.org/washington-cup/kyliemcgrath.
Seems you can add initiative, resourcefulness, and enterprise to Kylie’s plus column.
