Speaker 1: Of course, we've got our golf pro here with us today.
Speaker 1: So Jerry Benedict is our golf pro. He still is
Speaker 1: our golf bro. Jerry has been the golf pro at
Speaker 1: Adams Golf Course since nineteen eighty six. Six nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: so a couple of years before I graduated high school,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, he became the golf pro out
Speaker 1: there and has been ever since. So it is truly
Speaker 1: hard to imagine Adams Golf Course without our golf pro,
Speaker 1: Jerry Benedict. But we are about to enter into that era,
Speaker 1: and so that is I think pro. Your last official
Speaker 1: day is on the sixteenth, right, but we'll be having
Speaker 1: a party for you on the fourteenth, and we would
Speaker 1: invite everybody to attend that. That's actually on August fourteenth,
Speaker 1: from two to four at the clubhouse, right. The public's invited.
Speaker 1: Anyone who'd like to attend, come on up and tell
Speaker 1: Jerry goodbye. Although I don't know that he's leaving. Linda Linda,
Speaker 1: Linda has plans for you, but I'm not sure whether
Speaker 1: she can drag you out of Bartle's or not.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm going to get out of it.
Speaker 1: Pro. We are.
Speaker 2: Careful what you agree to. They don't forget.
Speaker 1: Linda definitely didn't forget.
Speaker 2: So pro we don't make any promises when you're drinking.
Speaker 2: I think those are words to live by. It that
Speaker 2: is that is sage advice.
Speaker 1: I think that is sage advice. Bro. So that if
Speaker 1: you take nothing else from his career, listen to that.
Speaker 2: This is a man speaking with experience.
Speaker 1: So thirty see if I did the math right, thirty
Speaker 1: eight years, thirty eight as a golf pro Adams Municipal
Speaker 1: Golf Course, this time, this time, that's right.
Speaker 2: You were actually an assistant bro seventy seventy five.
Speaker 1: Seventy to seventy five, So thirty eight years is the pro.
Speaker 1: Five years as the assistant pro forty three years at
Speaker 1: Adams Municipal Golf Course.
Speaker 2: It's pretty incredible commenty. I don't know how many how
Speaker 2: I got here, but here you are from Michigan, Michigan.
Speaker 1: A good Michigan boy down here in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. So
Speaker 1: but we're going to miss you and any anything you
Speaker 1: want to tell everybody.
Speaker 3: I'd like to go through some of the things just
Speaker 3: real quick. When I came, the place was a mess
Speaker 3: of asphalt around the clubhouse with holes in it and stuff,
Speaker 3: and every ice there was buckets in the room catching
Speaker 3: the rain drops and stuff. And I said, what the
Speaker 3: heck is the dealing. Well, the city won't help us.
Speaker 3: A city won't hell. That was the big excuse.
Speaker 1: That was the story.
Speaker 2: It was eighty six.
Speaker 1: By the way, I wasn't working for the city yet.
Speaker 2: I just want to get that on the record.
Speaker 3: Material there were no cart paths, and there was bear
Speaker 3: spots by the tea boxes and by the greens or
Speaker 3: the cart paths where the carts were going and stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the first things we did was
Speaker 3: we semeented around it around the clubhouse and got cement
Speaker 3: and fixed it up where it was nice, and then
Speaker 3: we put cart paths in. I hired a guy from
Speaker 3: Oklahoma City Golfing Country Club is He was the second
Speaker 3: assistant to one of the best superintendents, and he did
Speaker 3: he did one half of a job for us, and
Speaker 3: together we all laid cart paths, and we hired this
Speaker 3: guy named Jody Shahan to help us.
Speaker 1: And another got another longtime story on our course.
Speaker 3: But the city was there, of course, and the Lion
Speaker 3: Foundation was the air force. Since then we extended the
Speaker 3: clubhouse on the south side because it was just a
Speaker 3: little narrow locker room and he couldn't see out or anything.
Speaker 3: And so they made a nice extension on the south
Speaker 3: side of the clubhouse, which was beautiful. And then one
Speaker 3: of the best things we did, my son told me.
Speaker 2: To do it.
Speaker 3: Our scoreboard area was a hill with muddy and people
Speaker 3: couldn't sit out there. They have to stand and watch
Speaker 3: their scores come in. And and so we laid a
Speaker 3: cement path all the way to the scoreboard, filled into
Speaker 3: a dirt, filled it in and it was one of
Speaker 3: the biggest improvements in the clubhouse.
Speaker 2: People.
Speaker 3: I mean, Southern Hills doesn't have as good a scoreboard
Speaker 3: area as we have, and either does Hill Chris. They
Speaker 3: sit out there and we cook for him. They eat
Speaker 3: out there, they watched their scores come in, and they
Speaker 3: present the prizes right there.
Speaker 2: It's really a nice deal.
Speaker 3: But the cart pass was the biggest improvement to the
Speaker 3: golf course.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine a golf course without cart pass now?
Speaker 3: Target we laid it ourselves, with Jody and me and
Speaker 3: Larry still.
Speaker 2: Still there.
Speaker 3: Driving rage t was extended the two thousand renovation. In
Speaker 3: two thousand where we u put four new greens in
Speaker 3: that we're having trouble, and did the lakes and stuff.
Speaker 2: The city was there for that, and the Lion Foundation
Speaker 2: was there for there for that.
Speaker 3: White Sand Bunkers, which actually the White Sand Bunkers I
Speaker 3: raised most of the money from that at the Solo Club.
Speaker 2: I want to let you know, since we brought it
Speaker 2: up the other day, that was pro second office.
Speaker 3: The city was there for everything, and the White Sand
Speaker 3: Bunkers are wonderful. And now the city's there for the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five renovation, which is going to be wonderful
Speaker 3: and it's really going to be nice, and so is
Speaker 3: the Lion Foundation going to be there. And all of
Speaker 3: the members had done so well with her. So it's
Speaker 3: been a wonderful, wonderful career for me, and I can't
Speaker 3: believe the city put up with me this long.
Speaker 2: But I'm very thankful.
Speaker 3: Raise my kids in my house, and the golf course
Speaker 3: was a backyard, and the junior program, the senior program,
Speaker 3: and the ladies program. The junior program, now, there's so
Speaker 3: many good players came out of the junior program that
Speaker 3: we did. Sean Barker holds the course record. We taught
Speaker 3: him from the beginning. Many many people are playing golf
Speaker 3: from that junior program and stuff. The senior program is
Speaker 3: the biggest senior program because of Adam's golf course. The
Speaker 3: people retire from Phillips and they stay here, and the
Speaker 3: city recognizes the importance of the golf course, and the
Speaker 3: Ladies Association is absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it has been quite a journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the upcoming renovations out there are primarily focused
Speaker 1: on the greens and it will be the probably it
Speaker 1: will be the largest investment the city has made in
Speaker 1: the golf course and pro that wouldn't have happened without you. Well,
Speaker 1: your advocacy for the golf course through the years is
Speaker 1: the reason that we're doing that. So I'm grateful to
Speaker 1: you for your leadership out there. I'm grateful to you
Speaker 1: for all of the time that you've spent and invested
Speaker 1: in the golf course. And I personally will miss you.
Speaker 3: You think I'll miss you too, But I'm going to
Speaker 3: stick around for a.
Speaker 1: What if you don't leave, I don't get to miss
Speaker 1: your pro.
Speaker 2: Thank you, that's all right. In a long time, that's
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: If you don't leave, I don't have to miss your pros,
Speaker 1: but I truly do appreciate you and we want to
Speaker 1: send you out in style.
Speaker 2: So one more time.
Speaker 1: We've got a party for the Pro on August fourteenth,
Speaker 1: two to four at the clubhouse. Everyone's invited come join us.
Speaker 1: And then in the transition, so Pro's last day will
Speaker 1: be August sixteenth, And for anybody who doesn't know the
Speaker 1: way the golf course has been run probably the entire time,
Speaker 1: but I know since we hired PRO in eighty six
Speaker 1: it has the PRO actually operates the pro shop out there,
Speaker 1: the driving range, the golf carts, I think that was
Speaker 1: primarily it. Yeah, the concessions, all the food and beverage,
Speaker 1: and so that was a very common model back then.
Speaker 1: It's become less common now and so we are actually
Speaker 1: looking to transition in the near future with we will
Speaker 1: be transitioning over to where the city actually owns all
Speaker 1: of that and operates it. So we wanted to celebrate
Speaker 1: that as well. So we've got a party for the
Speaker 1: Pro on the fourteenth, and then on the seventeenth we're
Speaker 1: going to celebrate taking over the golf course and it
Speaker 1: will be free golf for anybody who's interested. So on
Speaker 1: August seventeenth, come on out. We'll have carts available, we'll
Speaker 1: have water available, and it's free golf for anybody in
Speaker 1: the Bartlesville community. We invite you, We want you to
Speaker 1: come out. We want you to be part of this course.
Speaker 1: As the pro mentioned when the process city, what he
Speaker 1: really means is the citizens of Bartlesville. They're the ones
Speaker 1: that have passed these bond issues and sales taxes to
Speaker 1: allow for the support the golf course. So this is
Speaker 1: our way of saying thank you to our community. Whether
Speaker 1: you're a golfer or whether you're interested in golfer, never played,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Come on out August seventeenth. We will
Speaker 1: have somebody there to help get you started, get you
Speaker 1: set up, and it's a first come, first serve, and
Speaker 1: the pro shop will not be opened that day because
Speaker 1: again it's transitioned, so we've got to do a big
Speaker 1: inventory and do a big countdown so that we can
Speaker 1: handle that change over. But the golf course itself will
Speaker 1: be open, and we certainly hope that the public will
Speaker 1: come out and enjoy it. Come enjoy your investment, and
Speaker 1: come tell pro Bile in the fourteenth we're looking forward.
Speaker 2: To both of those things.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, bro, I said, you are an institution
Speaker 1: unto yourself, sweet and we appreciate you.