8 minute read
Pros Behind The Prize
All regional-winning courses have major talent behind them — here we meet up with one superstar from each facility
BY TONY DEAR & BART POTTER • FOR CASCADE GOLFER
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Seattle / Tacoma / Eastside Region
Matt Cohen
Chambers Bay - General Manager
Matt Cohen is freezing. Not literally, of course, but Chambers Bay’s new general manager is definitely feeling a little chilly.
It’s not surprising given where he came from. Just a few weeks ago, Cohen was in southern Texas where he was GM of the Wilderness at Lake Jackson, a KemperSports-run facility an hour south of Houston. The temperature there was frequently in the low 90s around the time he and his wife packed their bags to head north.
A native of Colorado and a member of the PGA of America since 2001, Cohen spent a little under two years at Lake Jackson before being made aware of the vacancy at the Pierce County-owned facility which is also operated by KemperSports.
“I enjoyed my time in Texas and have only been in the Pacific Northwest a short time, but I’m loving it so far,” Cohen says. “It’s a big change, obviously, but I can’t wait to experience everything the region has to offer.”
It's not just the change of scenery and climate that has Cohen excited, though. Wilderness at Lake Jackson was regarded as one of the Lone Star State’s top 20 or so public courses, but it would be fair to say Chambers Bay is on another level entirely.
“It’s a U.S. Open venue that draws players from all over the world,” says Cohen who, despite not yet having a firm agenda for capital improvements, does intend to optimize operations and come to grips with the course’s pace of play.
“Chambers Bay is a difficult course,” he says. “So long rounds are expected. I’ll be focusing on getting our average round time down a little so all our guests can be round in good time.”
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Olympic Peninsula Region
Daryl Matheny
Gold Mountain Golf Club - General Manager
Improvements to the Olympic Course at Gold Mountain began a few years back and will continue for the foreseeable future. A new irrigation pump was put in two years ago, the tees are having some work done and the bunkers have been refreshed with just four holes still to do.
General Manager Daryl Matheny says the course is looking fantastic. He’s very happy to hear the news of Gold Mountain retaining its position at third in the state (it rose to No. 3 in 2022 after dropping to fourth in 2019) but isn’t really surprised. “We have two really good courses,” he says, “and Olympic is something special.”
Owned by the City of Bremerton, Gold Mountain may be a municipal (you can still play 18 holes on the Olympic after 3 p.m. for an incredible $32 and it’s $66 at 9 a.m.) but since Columbia Hospitality began operating it in 2013, the place has had a pretty un-municipal feel. The 36-hole facility records roughly 90,000 rounds a year, shared between the Olympic Course and Cascade Course (18th best in Washington according to readers.) In May, the Olympic Course hosted the USGA for the fourth time (previously for the 2006 U.S. Publinx, 2011 U.S. Junior Amateur and 2022 U.S. Open qualifying) when it staged qualifying for the U.S. Junior Amateur, which New York’s Owen Corby won with a three-under 69. The course has also hosted NCAA Regionals and the Husky Invitational.
Matheny began working at Gold Mountain in 1988 and became the GM in 2012, after Scott Alexander retired following 28 years as manager. One day Matheny will retire and go someplace warm.
“And I’ll play a lot of golf,” he says. For now, though, he’s just loving where he is.
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North-To-The-Border Region
Ron Hass
Avalon Golf Links - Owner/Director of Golf
There may not be dozens of courses battling it out for supremacy between Seattle and the Canadian border, but that’s not to say the competition isn’t stiff. There are some proper gems here, and it’s a region we really couldn’t predict. Snohomish, Loomis Trail, Bellingham’s four excellent public courses, and Marysville’s Battle Creek and Cedarcrest all get their share of votes but, this time, they’re all looking up at Avalon Golf Links, an hour or so north of Seattle.
Avalon was developed by the Hass Family and opened in 1991. “It has been a life's passion for me,” says Ron Hass, the course’s director of golf as well as its owner. A graduate of UW who worked at Juanita (closed in 1975), Inglewood, Tam O’Shanter, Sahalee, and Sudden Valley at various times before moving to Avalon in 1992 by which time the course was in full operation, Hass built Avalon alongside his father and is proud of how it has evolved and sustained its dedicated staff over the years. “I was a member and employee at Sahalee at the time it opened,” Hass remembers, “and it was that experience that led us to develop 27 holes as we realized the value created by being able to mix and match the nines every day.”
The North, South, and West nines were designed by Robert Muir Graves and, together, record 47,500 rounds a year, making it one of the busiest courses north of Seattle. Despite the traffic, however, superintendent Ron Furlong invariably keeps Avalon looking good and playing firm.
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Central Washington Region
Blake Froling
Gamble Sands - General Manager
Golfers traveling to Gamble Sands Resort — northeast from Seattle or northwest from Spokane — will find views and topography unlike either locale.
They might feel like they’re in a different part of the world, said Gamble Sands general manager Blake Froling.
From the viewpoint of the organizations that rank golf courses — like Cascade Golfer’s Top 10 Public Courses readers’ poll — Gamble Sands in Brewster is special, too. In this year’s CG poll, Gamble Sands was rated the top course in Central Washington and No. 2 overall in the state.
Nationally, Gamble Sands came tied at No. 23 on Golfweek’s 2024 list of the top 100 public courses. “It’s important to us because we hold ourselves to high standards,” Froling said.
Architect David McLay-Kidd’s true links design and 100 percent fescue grassland is unique in the state. “The firmness for Washington — no one expects that,” Froling said. “The fescue in Washington in the high desert — nobody’s done that.”
Froling, a native of Mount Vernon, Wash., was happy to return to his home state when he came to Gamble Sands in 2021 after an eight-year stint at Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point, Calif. Earlier, he earned his PGA bona fides at the Golf Academy of America in San Diego.
“I’ve worked at golf courses that I didn’t love to play,” Froling said. But Gamble Sands? “I could play this course every day for the rest of my live and never get tired of it.”
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Eastern Washington Region
Tyler Sweet
Wine Valley Golf Club - Director of Golf
Placement on the “best of” lists isn’t everything to a golf course, but the kind words are nice to hear.
The way Wine Valley’s Tyler Sweet sees it, acknowledgment from the publications who make the lists — such as Cascade Golfer’s Top 10 Public Courses readers’ poll — shows that golfers appreciate how his course looks and plays and the challenge and fun they find when they come to Walla Walla to experience it.
“They all count,” said Sweet, PGA director of golf at Wine Valley since 2021. “It allows us to see how we’re doing.”
For a third straight Cascade Golfer poll, Wine Valley was rated the top course in the Eastern Washington region and No. 3 overall in the state.
Nationally, Wine Valley landed 47th on Golfweek magazine’s 2024 list of the top 100 public courses. What is Wine Valley, opened in 2009 and celebrating its 15th year, getting right? From the perspective of Sweet, with previous duty at Sunland (14 years) and Port Ludlow (three years), it starts with course architect Dan Hixson’s minimalist design.
Hixson’s landscaping model is beneficial, Sweet said, “to the way we can tune it for a major championship.”
Just this past July, Wine Valley hosted the Pacific Northwest Golf Association’s Men’s Amateur Championship and Golfweek’s Pacific Northwest Senior Championship.
Sweet calls the Walla Walla wine region the best in the nation, and pairing it with an esteemed championship golf course, he said, makes Wine Valley a good place to be.
And people are noticing.
