skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Home Membership News Playday Schedule Our advertisers How to Contact Us Legal Stuff, etc. Our Past Lago Vista Men's Golf Association - Skip's History

Lago Vista, Golf, and the Men’s Golf Association: A History, 1974-2009

By Maynard (Skip) Schneider

Table of Contents

In the Beginning 3

The Birth of the MGA 5

Building the Links 7

The Bar-K Golf Course 11

MGA’s Founding Members 12

Highland Lakes 13

Two Courses for the Price of One 14

The 1980s 17

New Owners from Japan 22

Sayonara Taiyo, Howdy Evergreen 23

Bar-K: Life after Death 23

Clubs for Sale Again 24

1 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

New Owners for LVGC 25

Highland Lakes Resurrected 26

Handicaps 28

Play It Down or Bump and Roll? 28

Championship Format, Dick Halsted Memorial 29 Mixed Fall Classic 29

MGA’s Public Service Contributions 30

APPENDIX A – MGA Members in the Headlines

2003 31

2004 33

2005 35

2006 38

2007 40

2008 43

APPENDIX B – Lago Vista’s Golf History 47

APPENDIX C – The Price of Golf over the Years 48

APPENDIX D – Membership over the Years 49

APPENDIX E – Personal Best Scores 50

APPENDIX F – MGA Members, 2008, Their

Birthdates and Places 52

Acknowledgements 54

In the Beginning

Drawing courtesy of the Lago Vista Library

Picture Lago Vista in 1974: A handful of homes scattered among the rolling hills of the Hill Country. Early pioneers who built their homes in the tree-covered valleys on the north shore of blue Lake Travis. Hills alive with white-tailed deer and goats.

A floating marina on the lakeshore entertaining prospective lot-buyers. From the marina restaurant, they could watch horses from Bar-K Ranch swim across Lake Travis. Even a large flock of pelicans called the hills and lake home, only to be killed in a horrendous ice storm.

And 1974 was the year when a handful of golfers organized playdays, an embryo of the Lago Vista Men’s Golf Association.

Dr. C. Paul Harris started Lago Vista, Inc. in 1958, seeking a spread where he could raise polo ponies. Harris’ family corporation pastured 400 cattle and 1,200 to 1,500 Spanish goats on the hills that became the Lago Vista golf course. Envisioning a hunting retreat, he said he would import mountain sheep and antelope. He planned to stock the area with quail, pheasant and chuckers (a relative of the quail), according to a newspaper flyer preserved at the Lago Vista Library. No one remembers any polo ponies on the land, although he was a polo enthusiast.

The flyer shows an artist’s rendering of the golf course Harris planned. It had two fairways, one with a green that jutted into Lake Travis. He announced that professional golfers Jimmy Demaret and Jackie Burke would join with noted Houston golf course designer Joe Finger to design and build two courses, one 18 holes and the other nine. There is no record that Demaret, Burke and Finger ever were involved in building the Lago Vista courses.

Prior to 1967, Lago Vista’s pioneers included Sid Wheliss, who built the Bar-K Fishing Camp; Newt and Liz Johnson, who bought the 9,000-acre Wheliss ranch in 1957 and expanded the Bar-K Guest Ranch; and Dr. Harris, the Houston dentist who bought 1,168 acres from Wheliss.

According to Harris’ wife Ruby, cedar choppers – who made a living by cutting and selling cedar fence posts – camped in a cove that became part of the golf course.

“The people in Austin thought Paul was out of his mind to build on Lake Travis where there was nothing but rocks, cedar trees and goats,” Ruby wrote in Lago Vista: Its Story and Its

2 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

People, published in 2000. “At times, I also thought he was out of his mind.”

For a long time, Highway 183 between Cedar Park and Austin had only two lanes. Burnet Road in Austin had the only stop sign between Austin and Lago Vista. The nearest grocery store was at Burnet Road, according to Mary Sansing, who came to Lago Vista with her husband Herman in 1970. Herman was a salesman for National Resort Communities (NRC), which bought the land and developed Lago Vista. Mary was social director for National Resort Communities. (NRC).

Highway 1431 between Cedar Park and Lago Vista had two lanes. A roller-coaster ride with more than 20 hills and 32 curves in the 11-mile stretch. There were even more curves before the Texas Department of Transportation took out a few and widened the road a bit. “There was no passing Herman and Mary Sansing at a 2008 Roaring 20s party

for eight miles,” said Gloria Van Cleave, whose family moved to Lago Vista in 1974. “Pretty irritating,” she said. Van Cleave wrote a column for the Hill Country News and took over The Lake Travis Beacon in 1981, renaming it The North Lake Travis Log. TxDOT expanded the highway to four lanes in 1982.

In 1969, National Homes, Inc., of Lafayette, Ind., acquired 5,500 acres of land and 11,000 lots on the rolling hills. It acquired 776 acres from Emerald Bend, Inc., owned by L. L. McCandless, in 1971, 2,300 acres known as Highland Lakes Estates from McCandless, and the Bar-K clubhouse and grounds from Newt Johnson. National Homes created a subsidiary, National Resort Communities, Inc. and aggressively promoted development, encouraging people all over the U. S. and the world – especially retirees -- to make Lago Vista their home. Prospects came from Hong Kong, Germany and Mexico, wrote Mary Felber, a cooperating broker with NRC in Lago Vista: Its Story and its People. It chartered airplanes and buses to bring prospects. Lot-buyers were offered five years of free golf at the brand-new Lago Vista golf course, the first nine holes built in 1971. For several years, NRC invited residents to the Lago Vista clubhouse for free Saturday or Sunday night dinners that featured shrimp, crab’s legs and pork. A big party boat was used to wine and dine prospects, said Felber. “It was a wild and wooly place.”

The Birth of the MGA

Coincidentally, Zach Padgett, the golf pro named to manage the Lago Vista Golf Club when the City of Lago Vista bought LVGC in July 2008, can lay claim as a godfather to the Men’s Golf Association some 32 years before.

Padgett, who played with Tom Kite for the University of Texas in the late 1960s, came to Lago Vista in 1974 as the 26-year-old director of golf for NRC. Ted McClure was his superintendent, as he was again in 2008.

“I established Thursday as playday for the Lago Vista men,” said Padgett. “We had 18 to 20 players. We had different formats. I did the pairings.”

The men started playing as the Men’s Golf Association, under the auspices of the Lago Vista Golf Clubs, in 1974. (The Women’s Golf Association was formed in 1974 with 13 golfers and 10 social members.) Padgett

Dr. Harris sold his company, Lago Vista, Inc, and his land to John Moss and Frank Wilson in 1965. To help develop his property, Moss visited Lake Havasu City, Ariz., a growing resort and retirement community that became world famous when it bought the London Bridge and moved it, piece by piece, to Arizona. There he met Ray Thomas, a West Texan lawyer who had moved from the oil patches scouting oil, leasing properties and arranging drilling deals for Sohio to his own oil exploration company and finally, at the age of 36, to Lake Havasu City in 1964. His exploration company had been sold to McCulloch Oil Corp. of California, which started Lake Havasu City. Thomas named his marketing company Havasu Sales, Inc.

“I had a reputation for putting deals together,” Thomas told the author in 2009 when Thomas celebrated his 83rd birthday. Thomas

Jim “J.W.” Small, a land developer in southern California, joined Thomas in 1967. Moss invited Thomas and Small to look at Lago Vista. “It was fantastic location,” said Thomas, and “very marketable.” Moss hired Thomas and Small to market Lago Vista.

Small and Thomas were no small thinkers. They set up an office in Austin, where Thomas managed the business. Small was in Lago Vista, managing sales and marketing, according to Small’s son, Greg, in 2009 a Lago Vista builder. Havasu Sales also had offices in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis and Chicago.

Greg was only 13 when the family moved to Lago Vista.

Jim Small tees off from LVGC’s third hole Greg and Jim Small

“We didn’t know what to expect,” said Greg. “Probably covered wagons, cowboys and horses.”

Weekends were very busy, Greg Small remembered. “Early Saturday morning, there would be a bus load from San Antonio. By mid-day, a bus from Dallas would arrive. On Sunday, a busload would come from Houston. Once a month, on Thursday or Friday, a plane from Chicago would land.”

Jim Small had plenty of job opportunities for Greg. He manned the gas pumps at the marina or piloted the tour boat that took visitors out to the cliff and back. When people making lot purchases were held up and missed the bus to the airport, Greg would drive them to the airport. He specifically mentioned old, two-lane Highway 1431 and the dangerous hairpin turn

3 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

known as Dead Man’s Curve near the site of 2009’s entrance to The Hollows. Nancy Oliver recalled often rushing to the curve to aid injured motorists as an EMS technician in the 1970s.

The visitors came to look over the beautiful tree-covered terrain, go boating or drive the shoreline of inviting Lake Travis, and (after 1971) to play the golf course carved into the hills and valleys.

Moss had bought a marina that had been wrecked in Hurricane Carla on the Texas Gulf Coast. Some of the pieces were reassembled as the marina for Lago Vista. A restaurant was set up on the marina. In 1969, Moss sold his interests to National Homes, which later hired the entire Thomas-Small Havasu sales force and created the subsidiary known as National Resort Communities, Inc. Thomas became NRC’s marketing vice president. Small managed the sales until his departure in 1970.

One group of prospects would tour the area while another group had lunch at the marina. The tour was short – from the Skyroom at the Dawn Drive traffic circle about half a mile south on Lakeshore Drive (later it would be renamed Country Club Drive) to the corner with now Clubhouse Drive. They would disembark to see Lake Travis and little but tree-covered ranchland. In the distance salesmen pointed to the area where lots were for sale. Specific lots were identified on a map.

“Rusty Allen probably bought his lot off a map,” Greg Small speculated. Allen confirmed it.

Wanda Johnson, in 2009 a Lago Vista realtor, managed the Chicago office for Havasu Sales and brought hundreds of lot-buyers on free charter airline flights to Austin to look over the new Hill Country development and at the area where they had bought lots before they left Chicago. They would buy lots from her on the basis of a map – at prices ranging from $1,900 to $10,000, a few went as high as $20,000 – with the provision that they could exchange their lot for another, buy others, or have the sale rescinded, Johnson explained. In the first year, golfers who bought lots paid $25 a month for the non-resident membership until they moved to Lago Vista. Later, it was raised to $35.

For three years, Johnson accompanied weekly flights to Lago Vista.

“It was fun for everyone….music…boat rides…fun and games,” she said. “There was excitement in the air…and lots of dreams. The passengers were the excitement for us.”

Lot-buyers chattered excitedly on the return flight. Occasionally, other passengers on the Braniff DC-9 flights heard the buyers talk about their dream homes of the future and wanted to buy as well. “Often we had 110% sales” as a result of the free overnight trip, said Johnson, who moved to Lago Vista in 1973.

Greg Small said his father, who died in 2002, motivated the salesmen and kept the sales moving. “He was a salesman’s salesman,” said Greg.

Thomas said the sales reps challenged him and Small to a contest: When we make half a million dollars in sales in a single week, you (Thomas and Small) agree to jump from the top of the floating marina restaurant into Lake Travis more than 20 feet blow, clothed In Hickey Freeman suits and alligator shoes. They dutifully plunged into the lake when the reps exceeded the $500,000 goal. Soon the sales force set a $750,000 goal and expected Thomas -- Small no longer was with NRC -- to take the leap again. When the second quota was reached, and Thomas took another jump, the reps raised the bar again: When we sell a million dollars’ worth in one week, you not only dive into the lake with your clothes on, but swim to the other side as well. Business was very good, but a million a week could not be scaled.

Ever the deal maker, Thomas worked with General Electric Credit Corp. (GECC) to “hypothecate the paper.” GECC bought unpaid sales contracts from NRC, freeing funds for NRC to expand the development. Westinghouse later did the same, Thomas said.

Vince Cravotta was one of Lago Vista’s earliest settlers, a home builder who left Rochester, N. Y. in 1969 to help develop the rolling hills north of Lake Travis.

“There were only about 10 families in the entire area,” Cravotta recalled. Other than Lohman Ford Road, the only other paved road in what today is Lago Vista was Dawn Drive. In 1975, there were seven paved miles. In 1969, only 38 homes were occupied.

Alice Moore recalled that when she and her husband, James “Buster” Moore, looked at lots in the late 1960s, “we had to ride in a jeep to get to the lot.” They moved to Lago Vista in 1977.

Cravotta “We insisted that the buyers had to stand on the property” before the purchase was final, said Thomas.

Dale (Mitch) Mitchell remembered how few street lights he and Carole saw when they visited her parents, Augie and Merna Andersen, in 1974. “All you had were the stars.”

Mitchell recalled seeing plats showing easements reserved for golf cart paths that would someday link homes to the golf course.

Greg Small remembered the night his father came home and spread a map on the table. The family spent the night choosing names for the streets, with names such as Thunderbird and Arrowhead, names they remembered from living in California.

Building the Links

A golf course was an essential sales tool, Thomas and Small told Moss. He hired brothers Charles and Leon Howard to design the layout of the first nine holes of the Lago Vista golf course. “I never professed to be an architect,” said Leon Howard, who was interviewed by phone from his home in Lisle, Illinois. “I am a registered landscape architect and an agronomist.”

In 2009, at the age of 80, he was designing a golf course in Nevada. It would be their 154th over 52 years, including two in Lakeway.

The Howards designed the second nine of the Lago Vista course that opened in 1972 as well as the Highland Lakes course that opened in 1978.

“I look at two things when I design a golf course – the terrain and the type of golfers expected to play the course. I thought the Lago Vista course would have a lot of homeowners learning to play the game, interested in a good time, not going on the tour.”

What is now the 16th hole, with its beautiful view of Lake Travis, was selected as the first hole. A mobile home next to the tee served as its first clubhouse. The first three holes would later be numbered as 16, 17, and 18 when the second nine was constructed. Holes 4 through 9 ultimately became Nos. 10 through 15.

Ray Thomas, Merkel Williams, Havasu Sales rep, and Bob Jones check irrigation controls on the th future 16th hole (1969). Photo The view from the 16 hole (2008) courtesy of Greg Small

The Frank Underwood Construction Co. of Bowie built the Lago Vista nines, according to Howard and Thomas.

Thomas said Bob Sisson came with him from Arizona and Sisson’s firm, Lago Vista Construction Co., built an addition to the Skyroom at the end of Dawn Drive, as well as a motel just south of Dawn Drive and the Lago Vista clubhouse. Ted Heine’s firm, Heine, Inc. was a heavy equipment contractor Thomas hired to cut roads through the area and clear trees from the planned fairways. Underwood, said Thomas, coordinated the hauling of soil from near Marble Falls back to Lago Vista.

4 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Thomas hired Bob Jones to work with Underwood on construction and to be Lago Vista’s first club pro and greens keeper. Thomas credited Sales Manager Tom Irvin for introducing him to Jones, who had been operating an Austin restaurant. Jones was, said Thomas, “probably the best at growing grass I’ve ever seen.”

While they let fairways mostly follow the natural terrain, rolling through the hills and valleys laced with cedars, curly mesquite and lespedeza grass, they moved earth as needed to provide the soil base for grass. Rocks were everywhere.

Padgett said the entire course had out-of-bounds markers, whether there were homes or not.

In the early years, Lago Vista did not have many quality golfers. “They all were down in the woods looking for balls,” said Cravotta. There were few homes and golfers went into the hazard to find their balls. Hitting the ball from out of bounds would have been contrary to the rules of golf. There weren’t a lot of golfers, though, so it mattered little how long golfers spent hunting balls. Cravotta said the MGA’s bump-and-roll practice started at the very beginning, when there were plenty of rocks and bare spots on the fairways.

Trees had to be removed, but many stayed to torment golfers. Fairways were narrow, with trees on both sides, putting a premium on hitting the ball straight and staying out of trouble.

Everyone admired the view from No. 16. The tee box stood high above Lake Travis, the green 339 yards down the sloping fairway, tucked behind a hillcrest that hid the green from golfers on the tee. On the right was the thick stand of trees that, just as today, caught many a slice in the prevailing left-to-right breeze. Long hitters sometimes hit the green in one, but the hole was no “gimme.”

Lee Trevino played a round to open the course in 1972, wrote MGA golfer Phil Mundt (1927-2007) in Lago Vista: Its Story and Its People, published in 2000. Trevino marveled at the abundance of blue water, the rugged hills and the ever-green rolling country. Joining Trevino were Orville Moody, the touring pro who lived in Lago Vista; Bob Jones, the Lago Vista resident pro; and Tim McGinley, the NRC president. Trevino and Moody both carded 71s, Jones had 77 and McGinley 84.

Seven years before, Trevino was making $70 a week at a Dallas driving range. Later, he worked at an El Paso country club for $30 a week.

Lee Trevino, Bob Jones and Orville Moody set to tee off Trevino

For a time, wrote Mundt, after winning the U. S. Open in 1969, Orville Moody was the traveling pro and had a house across the street from the clubhouse (later destroyed by fire). He putted cross-handed, never took a lesson and was known to be uneasy in front of a crowd. But he could play. He won 11 times on the senior tour and captured the U.S. Senior Open title in 1989. He died in 2008 at the age of 74. “I brought Moody to Lago Vista and we paid him to be our traveling pro,” said Thomas.

Seven thousand people came for the dedication, also marking the opening of the second nine.

“The par 72 Lago course, 6,579 yards from the championship (gold tee), is a beautiful layout and is a favorite of local players.

“Other amenities included a swimming pool, two lighted tennis courts and a driving range,” wrote Phil Mundt in Lago Vista: Its Story and Its People.

Visitors surround the ninth green to see Trevino, Moody Moody

When NRC opened the second nine, the first hole was relocated next to the new clubhouse Sisson’s Lago Vista Construction Co. built on Rimrock Drive. The clubhouse had water leakage problems in the first year and Neil Peterson, NRC’s engineer-surveyor in charge of on-site development and construction, supervised the building’s remodeling.

LVGC clubhouse, 1972 LVGC clubhouse, 2009

5 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

There weren’t many people living in the area. Early golfers, a sizable number of them NRC sales representatives, had the beautiful courses to themselves.

Interestingly, the cedar trees that seemed to be everywhere by the end of the 20th century were just beginning to explode, in numbers as well as blossoms.

With few homes and few out-of-bounds restrictions, golfers went into thinly wooded hazards to hit back to the fairway

LVGC’s seventh hole, 2009 (minus some of the trees of 1973)

`“There was a tree right in the middle of No. 7 fairway,” said Al Sadok, who moved to Lago Vista in 1983. Several trees blocked golfers from the men’s tees. Golfers usually used a 3-wood to get over the trees.

There were trees in the center of No. 2, the last of which were not cut and removed until they were hit by lightning after 2000.

Ed Johnson first came to Lago Vista in 1970, driving frequently from Houston to play golf on the first nine holes on the Lago Vista course that opened in 1971. Johnson moved to Lago Vista in 1975 and later joined MGA and held membership through 2008. “I remember there were only two carts in the beginning,” said Johnson. “You had to get there early.” No worry about tee times. “You played whenever you wanted,” recalled Nancy Wills, a charter member of the Women’s Golf Association in 1974 and later Johnson’s wife.

The Lago Vista course “was great,” recalled Johnson. Fondly remembering his younger days when his swing was more powerful, he reminisced about the days Johnson when his ball hit the slope in front of the 15th green in two strokes (a 534-yard hole); when he hit the ninth green from the tee (a 347-yard hole) added by the terraces that fell for the last 100 yards, or when he eagled the ninth with a pitch from the terraces.

Anyone get a hole-in-one on No. 9? Bob Howard did, according to Don Brown.

Jerry Fuller hit an ace on Highland Lakes’ No. 1.

Roy Cooley hit 17 aces, the most of any MGA member.

Larry Shive moved to Lago Vista in 1973 and played the courses ever since. Shive built homes from 1973 to 1979, moved into sales at Horseshoe Bay and returned to Lago Vista to establish Lago Vista Resort Properties.

His 67 in the 1986 MGA Championship set the championship record for an 18-hole round at LVGC. His first of three holes-in-one came on his birthday.

The Bar-K Golf Course

The Bar-K par 27 was a 63-acre gem unlike par 3 courses anywhere. Fifty-foot-deep canyons, carved by small streams, crisscrossed the hilly tree-hugging holes off Bar-K Road. Two waterfalls spilled into the canyons, when there was more adequate rainfall, to tantalize and challenge golfers. It was 1,387 yards long. Holes ranged from 91 to 208 yards in length.

E’Lisa Fross remembered fondly when she played the course. “I loved playing it all the time. I could play it in an hour and a half.”

Ray Thomas said that Neil Peterson, the engineer-surveyor Thomas brought from Arizona, designed the course and supervised construction by Skip Mange.

Ted McClure, the LVGC greens superintendent in 2008, recalled that the Bar-K opened in 1977, after four years in the making. He personally worked on the construction, saying “I raked a whole lot of rock.” The course looked great, he said, although it was soon apparent that the single well could not adequately water the course.

Genny Rodgers Kercheville, in her 2007 book Nameless Its History and Its People, wrote that cattle from her father’s Sunset Ranch on both sides of FM 1431 ”many times walked across the cattle guard or jumped the fence and enjoyed the emerald colored grass” on the Bar-K Golf Course greens and “then would go back across the fence to the thickets.” Her father, George H. “Buddy” Rodgers, “became so frustrated by his inability to stop the cattle’s trespassing that he told callers and greens keepers to just get a gun and shoot them, and he would haul them off.”

t

MGA’s Founding Members

The first elected MGA president was Harry Thrush, who served in 1976-77.

By using an old WGA membership list as a guide, Vince Cravotta identified his fellow founding MGA members as Augie Andersen, Hank Felber, Ray Goss, Harold Kongabel, Sid Latimer, Coke Logue, Shorty Ludwick, Alton McEver, Jim Miller, Greg Murrow, Doug Myers, Ted Nelson, Fred Pavlis, George Porter, Chuck Reed, Buddy Rodgers, John Russell, Herman Sansing, John Sargent, Ed Stone, Harry Thrush, Peter Vente and Ray Wells. Joining MGA the next year were John Anderson, Bill Barry, Marvin Butler, J. L. Carter, Ray Denton (president in 1978), Bill Edwards, Bruce Foote, Don Hooper, Jim Howard, Pete Johnson, James “Buster” Moore and Wendy Savage.

6 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Another 1970 arrival was Cliff Day, who joined MGA in 1983, served as president in 1989, and managed the pro shop clothing and equipment sales. Ray Kiker visited Lago Vista as early as 1953, staying in cabins at the Bar-K Guest Ranch. Living in Houston, he and Beth bought a condo in 1977 and joined the golf clubs for Day Kiker $50. They moved to Lago Vista in 1980.

Cravotta, the 2000 low-net champion, remembered that early golfers enjoyed the game more. On MGA’s Thursday playday, they would frequently play the

regular 18, and then go back for 18 or 27 more holes later in the day.

Herman Sansing, who later served as MGA playday chairman, said that the Lago Vista clubhouse became the social center for the new community. “We all went to the club on Monday nights,” he added.

Highland Lakes

In 1978, the $700,000 18-hole Highland Lakes course, also designed by Charles and Leon Howard, was completed with its upscale clubhouse and swimming pool, wrote Mundt. Dean Construction of Kingsland built the course.

Highland Lakes’ dogleg No. 5, among the best holes in Central Texas

“Highlands, also a par 72, is a challenging 6,529 yards (golf tee) and somewhat hillier than the Lago course,” wrote Mundt. “In those early days, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite often played the two courses,” as students at the University of Texas as well as later

as Austin residents and professional golfers.

Crenshaw and Chris Shive were among the few golfers to drive the 10th green.

7 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

John Anderson Highland Lakes’ second green under construction

Photos courtesy of Virginia Anderson

The course, then known as the World of Resorts Country Club, held its grand opening on April 1, 1978. Virginia Anderson, who moved to Lago Vista with her husband John in 1976, remembered the date because John’s team took home a Grand Opening Tournament trophy. John, a founding member of MGA, died in 2007.

Another early Lago Vistan MGA member also recalled the tournament. “I played in the tournament when Highland Lakes opened,” said Ray Kiker.

Austin architect Alan Taniguchi, dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture and head of Taniguchi Shefleman Vacker and Minter, designed the modern clubhouse, to be built by Sisson’s Lago Vista Construction Co.

Highland Lakes clubhouse, 2009 Highland Lakes clubhouse, 2009

Cravotta partnered with Sisson on the clubhouse construction – “We did it on a handshake,” Cravotta said. Sisson didn’t finish the project and went bankrupt, said Thomas, who again called on Neil Peterson to complete the clubhouse in 1975. It was used temporarily as the high school, which was still under construction, according to Gloria Van Cleave.

Cravotta and Sisson split, Cravotta moving to homebuilding on his own and subsequently building many homes in Lago Vista.

Cravotta remembered a costly fiasco about 1970 when a wall was built on Highland Lake Drive, just south of Boggy Ford, serving as the entrance to Highland Lakes Estates, its development just underway. The concrete wall was 20 feet high and 100 feet long and had arches that covered Highland Lake Drive.

The wall was NRC President Bill McCullough’s idea, said Thomas. He said the lighted wall was painted blue to portray the blue water of Lake Travis. People were afraid of driving under the arches, it was speculated, and they followed Boggy Ford and Allegiance Drive to avoid the arches. Thomas acknowledged the wall was “gaudy looking.” Rusty Allen, a former three- term mayor and a broker for NRC, called it “horrible.” When former President Lyndon Johnson visited Lago Vista, Thomas quoted Johnson as saying, “Ray, you need to tear that (expletive deleted) wall down.” To which McCullough responded, “What does he know?”

Thomas ordered the wall taken down about a year later when it needed repairs.

Two cousins, Bill and David Price, were key movers for NRC in Lago Vista. (Bill’s father George and David’s father Jim had founded National Homes in Lafayette, Ind. in 1940.) Bill ran the Lago Vista development operation as its president and David was vice president and then president of National Homes. Bill, according to Cravotta, ordered Lago Vista Construction Co. to construct a large red sales-presentation tent near the future site of the Highland Lakes clubhouse, with a paved floor, heat, electricity and red velvet drapes. Inside the tent was a scale model, about 18 feet square, that showed how Lago Vista would develop. When David visited Lago Vista, he ordered Lago Vista Construction Co. to tear down the tent, rip up the pavement, put it into a pile and burn it.

Two Courses for the Price of One

Rusty Allen recalled that in the beginning golfers played any of the three courses for nothing. When a membership fee was instituted, it started at $25 a year. When monthly fees were added, the cost was $10

Allen was a real estate broker in San Antonio in 1967, recently retired from the Air Force. A friend invited him to bring his boat to Lake Travis. They were boating that Memorial Day weekend when, seeking refuge from the rainstorm, they asked permission to dock at the Lago Vista marina. That was his introduction to Lago Vista and he proceeded to buy a lot, move to Lago Vista and run the marina restaurant for six months.

In the late 1970s and 1980s Allen was president of the clubs’ Board of Governors and chaired the Fall Classic for NRC and its clubs. For the 13 years he chaired the event, it was known as a member-guest tournament because a member who wanted to play

8 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Allen

in the two-day tournament had to bring a non-Lago Vista guest to form a two-person team. The entry fee was $50.

“It was a super tournament,” Allen said. “People came from all over the country. There were more darn parties. We had tours of Austin for spouses. We had lots of prizes – things like silverware, glassware or punch bowls.”

The golfers played one day at Lago Vista, the second at Highland Lakes. After golf one day, there was a barbecue at Bar-K. The second round would be followed by a steak dinner and drinks at the country club. “It was a dress-up” affair, Allen said.

NRC and the clubs sponsored a $500 shootout as part of the tournament. If a player hit on the green on any of the three par 3s at Highland Lakes, he was entitled to one shot in the shootout. Hit all three greens and he got three shots. Then the shootout finalists gathered on the ninth fairway, about 150 yards from the green, and the $500 went to the golfer who was closest to the pin.

The Lago Vista Golf Clubs turned to the MGA to help run the Fall Classic, which was played many years. In its heyday, the tournament drew 180 or more golfers. Teams were auctioned off to the highest bidders. The prizes ($6,000 worth in 1990) and food, one member recalled, were “out of this world.” Originally started as a member-guest tourney, its rules later were changed to eliminate the guest requirement.

The MGA alternated its weekly playdays between the Lago Vista and Highland Lakes courses. Keith deFrancesco, who joined MGA in 1978 and became its president in 1984, recalled that MGA had about 150 members. He said the group would play at Bar-K once a quarter. Often they played 27 holes with a cookout sandwiched between nines. They liked the neat course so much they would play there monthly during the summer.

Noble Smith arrived in 1979 and stayed until his departure for Wichita, Kan. in 2009. When a friend invited him to play golf in Lago Vista on a visit, Highway 1431 was “a little bitty road – I thought I’d never get there.”

He liked what he saw. And his wife Posey, who Noble said played golf seven days a week back in Colorado, liked it, too. In Lago Vista, it was just “get on ‘em and go.”

When members were not playing golf, they were in the clubhouse playing cards and drinking beer.

Smith English

“Every day of the week,” said Smith. ”There was lots of action around the clubs,” he added.

Later, in the 1980s, when he heard golfers complaining, he told them, “You guys don’t know how good you’ve got it here.”

Frank English came to Lago Vista, joined MGA in 1979 and was a member continuously through 2009. He stopped playing golf because of his health about 2003, became an honorary member when he turned 90 and celebrated his 93rd birthday in February 2009.

In 1980, the Lago Vista Property Owners Association was formed. In 1981, wrote Mundt, the POA declined to exercise its option to purchase the golf properties from NRC. “Golfers at that time were too few in number to finance such a purchase, and the POA felt that NRC would continue operations on a semi-private basis,” he wrote.

Harold Burgeson tried to get individual residents to buy the courses. Jack Guthrie said Burgeson suggested getting 20 people with $10,000 each to buy the courses. There were few details and the idea died.

Bob Stuart came from Santa Fe to Lago Vista in 1980. Although he had no prior restaurant experience and because he said he “wanted something to do,” Stuart operated the Marina Restaurant for NRC from 1982 to 1984. With NRC bringing prospective buyers to Lago Vista in big numbers, he said he had good business. “It was hard work.” (The floating restaurant later was removed from the lake.)

Subsequently, he and his wife Joyce operated BoJo’s Restaurant on Lohman Ford Road and Bob later sold memberships and coordinated the pro shops for the golf clubs. The Bar-K course successfully attracted “lots of kids and Joe Six Packs,” he added. And he continued to draw cartoons for the North Lake Travis Log.

Stuart loved to play golf. That was impossible in the winter in snowy Santa Fe. “When we came to Lago Vista, that was the first time I’d ever played golf between Christmas and New Year’s.” He and a friend set their goal to play 200 rounds. He joined MGA in 1981 and was a member for at least 15 years, he said.

Mary Sansing, who worked for NRC off and on for 15 years, recalled Stuart’s BoJo Classic when golfers had to tee off standing atop a toilet or mattress. She had a speaker rigged up to the toilet and she, standing elsewhere, would utter some choice words as the golfer teed off. “Watch it!” the toilet might bark.

On one hole, right-handed golfers had to use a left-handed club. Left-handers used a right-hand club. On another hole, golfers used only a putter.

Sansing had a hand in the parties and golf tournaments NRC sponsored. She recalled a Dubious Debs party where the would-be debutantes carried dance cards for the men to win dances.

9 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

“That was so much fun,” she said of the NRC years.

She remembered the time when NRC had a fountain in the Dawn Drive traffic circle. One day, she saw huge sudsy bubbles cascading from the fountain onto the street. One employee asked, “Anyone missing any Tide?” When she told her children what happened, they said, “We did it!”

Guthrie arrived in 1981 and immediately joined MGA. Guthrie, who was MGA’s low-net champion in 1989, remembers FM 1431 as a two-lane road between Cedar Park and Lago Vista. There was a signal light on US 183 at Spicewood Springs Road and a four-way stop at RR 620. A small HEB store was located at Anderson Mill Road.

All of us Lago Vistans thought we were in paradise, he said. “We could play golf without a tee time. Just show up at the chosen time.”

Some MGA members were “real characters,” said Guthrie. They used “progressively ingenious ways” to handle rules-of-play situations. Guthrie said Thrush always carried a duplicate of his playing ball in his pocket. “He never lost a ball in the rough. He would always find his ball when one of his playing partners had his original ball in their pocket.”

Pete Vente perfected a way to exit a sand trap that looked like a pro shot, Guthrie explained. “He would step on his ball and bury it in the sand, then swing through the sand shot and let the ball go that he had in his hand, which would land on the green like a pro.”

Guthrie

“On one occasion (at the Bar-K cookout),” wrote Guthrie, “we had three or four non-golfers who did nothing but eat hot dogs and drink beer. The ones who came only to eat decimated the hot dog supply. When you get several golfers who are irate and full of beer and want the hot dogs they were promised, you have a potentially explosive situation on your hands.”

“We always had a Christmas party, usually at the Lago club,” wrote Guthrie. “Rusty Allen was always Santa because he owned the Santa suit.”

Highland Lakes, with its large glass windows overlooking the first tee and Lake Travis on the horizon, was the site for MGA’s annual December dinner as well as quarterly breakfasts. “Our breakfasts started with Bloody Marys,” said Frank English. For cookouts, he said the clubs set up grills next to the clubhouse where steaks were cooked.

NRC used to have nice parties at Highland Lakes, Guthrie said. “They hosted lots of parties for the membership. We got good value for our money.”

The 1980s

The early 1980s saw increasing numbers of newcomers. Bob Bloom came and joined MGA in 1981 and served as its seventh president in 1983. He won the low-net title in 1997. In 1990, he became MGA’s only two-time president. He served as president of the Municipal Utility District #1 (MUD).

Dick Halsted (1929-2004), later to be a Lago Vista mayor, joined MGA in 1983 and was its president in 2002. Twice he led efforts, unsuccessfully, to convince the POA or the City of Lago Vista to buy the courses.

Don Brown came to Lago Vista in 1983, just five days ahead of Sadok . Brown served as a MUD commissioner in 1984 and

Bloom

took a turn as MGA president in 1991.

Walter “Buddy” Corgan started playing golf at Lago Vista in 1983. A retired architect, he also started building a home the same year on Highland Lakes’ No. 7 hole, next to the gully he fondly called Copperhead Canyon. His wife Jan said “he’d build and play golf, build and play golf.” They moved into their new home in 1992 and he joined MGA. He would be distinguished on the course by his homemade hickory-stick putter and a fairway wood that carried the admonition “That shalt keep thy head down.” In 2008, at the age of 92, he would be named an honorary member and the oldest active player. Corgan would tell his partners on the tee that he saw the drive land. A continual joker, when the group drove up the fairway, he claimed he couldn’t remember where the ball was. He retired from active golf in 2009.

Olley Anderson (1919-2007) was MGA’s first honorary member.

In 1984, early residents lived in four villages – Lago Vista, Country Club Estates (with Don Brown as mayor pro tem), Highland Lakes Estates (with Olley Anderson as its mayor), and Bar-K. The villages joined as the City of Lago Vista in 1985.

Halsted

10 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

The practice of using effluent water on the Lago Visa course started in the early 1980s when Bloom and Guthrie both served on the Municipal Water District. “In my way of thinking,” said Guthrie in 2009, “the community would be up to its ears in human waste if Bob and I had not pushed through an agreement with NRC whereby NRC agreed to take our effluent to water the golf course.”

Highland Lakes Country Club took over as the city’s social center. On Friday nights, restaurant patrons lined up outdoors to enjoy the seafood buffet. On Sundays, members enjoyed a $6.95 early-bird buffet. Wednesday had its family-night buffet.

During the 1980s and ‘90s, Highland Lakes Country Club sponsored an annual “Christmas show and sharing party” for the community. The musical song and dance shows were performed by WGA and MGA members under the direction of Connie and Vince Cravotta. All who attended brought a wrapped gift for a child, which would be delivered to local needy children.

Corgan

Anderson

Brown

The clubs sponsored a Christmas ball and a New Year’s Eve dinner. Bingo became a weekly attraction. Bands played.

Mona McPeters, the club’s executive assistant, arranged entertainment, introducing karaoke and even leading the singing herself. Vince and Connie Cravotta coordinated and led karaoke at the club for six years. Judy Cooley also led karaoke. Cliff Day, who worked for NRC for about 10 years, served on the clubs’ Entertainment Committee. Members were very active, doing skits and plays. “They were really into it…Members could do what they wanted,” Day said. Golf parties got their start, and the clubs allowed members to hold parties on the courses.

Other tourneys included the Fireplug Tournament, sponsored by the Fire Department; the Firecracker Tournament every July 4th, the Blue Norther, the Belles and Beaus Tournament and a Pumpkin Tournament in the fall. When WGA sponsored its Beep- Beep Tournament Bob Taylor, the margarita man at the 1990 that Beep-Beep, and Marion Drummond. attracted Nearly a hole-in-one for Jim McDonald in the women far 1990 Fall Classic on Highland Lakes’ seventh and wide, hole. Bank of the Hills President Bob Taylor furnished margaritas for everyone.

Over at the lakeside at the end of American Drive, World of Resorts Inn offered live music on Friday and Saturday nights. You could get a prime rib

11 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

dinner and a glass of wine for $8.95. The inn was started by NRC as part of its effort to promote business conferences and retreats.

The Lago Vista National Bank offered a CD at 11% that year.

When MGA had its annual December dinner meeting at Highland Lakes, steak or prime ribs often was on the menu.

The popular Spring Fling featured husband-and-wife teams. In a reference to the pressure spouses could place on each other, Bob Lehigh, writing in the North Lake Travis Log, said it was unofficially known as the “divorce tournament.” In 1994, the tournament started letting players chose partners other than their spouse. But, Lehigh wrote, “we have not heard of any major problems by those spouses who did elect to play together.”

In its early years, the Spring Fling concluded with a dress-up dinner.

For many years, MGA joined the WGA to sponsor the 36-hole Spring Fling. One round was played at LVGC, the second at Highland Lakes. It ended in 2007 when ownership of the two courses was split. The Spring Fling was scratched in 2008, but came back in 2009.

A 1985 MGA membership roster showed 180 members. Its president was Harold Burgeson, Dave Ostrom vice president, Sadok secretary and John Reinhart treasurer. Other members included Gerald Clause (1918-2006), the MGA president in 1988; Neil Holt, 1981 president, who won the Club Championship in 1982 or ‘83; George Jolly; Ray Kiker; Gene Markley; Terry Meares (1922-2006), MGA champion in 1985 and 2000; Noble Smith, 1988 low-net champ; Jack Stapleton; Paul Thomas, 1992 president and 2002 low-net champ; and Tom Wright (1923-2006).

Jim Meserole and Don Scherz arrived in Lago Vista in 1985. Ed Moore, 1994 low-net champion and president, came to Lago Vista in 1986, having been introduced to Lago Vista by Scherz. He immediately bought a golf cart, when he had yet to swing a club for the first time in his life. Tom Martin followed in 1987, Dick Hemer, Bill Vlach and Buddy Smith in ’88, Gene Good, Eddie Epley, 1990 champion and 1995 president, Roy Cooley and Dick Humphrey in ’89.

Hemer remembered that when he came to Lago Vista, the clubs allowed him to take the cart home and store it in his garage. “We’ll call you if we need it,” he was told.

Cooley snared the MGA Championship in 1992, the first of seven that ran through 2005.

Markley Burgeson

Clause

Meares

12 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Scherz

Thomas Meserole

Martin Hemer

Moore

Buddy Smith

Kay Williams, Bill Williams’ wife, worked for the Lago Vista Golf Clubs from 1974 to 2005, her last years as bookkeeper. She recalled the clubs had 400 members at one time. A special non-resident membership fee brought many golfers from the surrounding area into the clubs.

Before the arrival of computers in the mid-1980s, Kay Williams said she used a hand-held machine to keep track of member charges.

For much of the 1980s and ‘90s, club pros maintained the handicap system and posted all scores.

13 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Epley

Cooley

Humphrey

The clubs set up a sweeps program under which players’ weekly winnings were recorded and could be redeemed in the pro shop for merchandise. Rather than have players bringing cash for the weekly prize pool, the clubs recorded the playday fees, which were noted on monthly statements mailed to their homes.

Ed Moore recalled that the clubs gave winners play money for a while.

At one time, MGA had a voluntary birdie pool in which all birdie-shooters shared the weekly prize pot.

The weekly playday fee in the late 1980s was $2, when MGA members agreed to kick in another 50 cents that would be used to cover the costs of their cookouts. Later, the extra cookout fee was raised to $1.

Some members preferred one course over the other, and it showed in participation. Some played at Highland Lakes and less regularly at Lago Vista; others felt just as strongly about playing LVGC and less frequently at Highland Lakes.

Cooley always preferred Highland Lakes because of its challenging fairways. “Golfers need to hit straight and keep the ball in play.”

Thomas said he liked Highland Lakes, but called LVGC “very player-friendly.” Johnson felt Highland Lakes was tougher than LVGC, but “I loved to play there…you wanted to see if you could do good there.”’

“Undulating greens and blind fairway shots add to (Highland Lakes’) character, said Randy Kruger, later to be MGA president and then Lago Vista’s mayor.

When the greens at Lago Vista became infested with silver grass weeds in 1988 or ‘89, MGA members took it upon themselves to help the clubs. Ed Moore and Jack Guthrie organized about 25 to 30 men who swarmed the greens with screwdrivers and pocket knives, anything that could effectively dig out the weeds. They pulled weeds several days a week for three weeks. When Lago Vista was clean, the men moved to Highland Lakes. Don Brown said the guys told NRC General Manager Fred Harless a case of beer would be nice. Soon the beverages arrived. “They cleaned it up,” said Harless in 2009. “They did it!”

Kruger

Jack and Jinny Guthrie said it was common for people who lived on the courses to clean trash from the course near their homes.

Harless moved from Lafayette, Ind. to Lago Vista in 1988. He had been executive vice president for marketing with National Homes and became NRC president in Lago Vista, succeeding Bill Price. At that time, said Harless, it cost $600 to join the clubs (although NRC allowed realtors to give lot buyers a free membership initiation.) The dues were $125 a month, plus $50 a month for a cart. In an effort to keep a good chef at Highland Lakes, he instituted a monthly food minimum of around $50, as he remembered in 2009. In 1989, drinks were included and the minimum was raised to $70.

Harless started the Board of Governors to give members a greater sense of participation. The 1990 board included Bob Bloom, Don Brown, Gerald Clause, Cliff Day, Fred Harless, Tom Henderson, Dr. Bob Lorenz, Fuad Maayeh, Jim McDonald, Jo Norton, Mena Ritter and Paul Thomas.

Harless

“We had dancing every Saturday night,” he said. The Governors Ball was an outgrowth.

The MGA was “a marvelous bunch of people,” said Harless, who was an MGA member from 1990 to 2007. ”They had an awfully good time.”

14 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

In 1989, NRC announced it would sell all the golf properties. Harless stayed on until 1990. “The POA had the first chance to bid but could not meet the $3.2 million asking price,” wrote Mundt.

By 1990. Lago Vista had 2,199 residents.

New Owners from Japan

Later in 1989, Taiyo Corp. of Japan bought the courses plus other properties for $3.9 million. The new owners threw a “Welcome” party for members on the lawn at Highland Lakes.

Taiyo embarked on a course improvement project, especially at Highland Lakes, and spent $1 million building new bent grass greens and revamping the fairways. It called on Jordan Eldredge to help on the reconstruction.

“The greens were cut and swept, and the bunkers raked, before we started play,” said Don Scherz. Overall, the greens were “the best,” he added.

The Japanese owners “tried to go upscale,” said Kay Williams.

Because Japan had limited space for golf courses and it was very expensive to join country clubs in Japan, Taiyo Corp. bought 100 home lots and envisioned hundreds of Japanese building homes and flying to Lago Vista regularly to play golf.

A monthly food and beverage minimum, common to many private clubs, was in place at LVGC. “The restaurant was very good,” she said.

Taiyo gave golfers the option of joining either the Highland Lakes or Lago Vista courses, with discounted rates when the golfer wanted to play the other course.

Thomas, who was MGA president in 1992 when it had 225 members, nostalgically remembered the 1980s and ‘90s when “we celebrated the MGA Championship.” “We had a dinner in the evening (after the second round of play). Everybody was in coat and tie. Spouses were invited to attend. We had dancing.”

MGA offered a “special companionship,” he said. Members enjoyed the camaraderie after the playday golf. Many stayed around to hear the playday chairman announce the winners.

It was customary for either the president or vice president to address each playday on the putting green and to introduce new members, said Moore.

Thomas said the playday entry fee was raised from $3 to $4 in 1992.

In the ‘90s, Thomas said, MGA practice was to “pay down as far as you could.” Usually that meant half of the field won a prize. “If a guy gets three dollars, he’s happy.”

The payout varied from 40-50% during the early 2000s. Playday Chairman Ron Baselice raised it to 50% in 2006. But the percentage fell back in the 40-50% range in 2007-09.

MGA had a Handicap Committee of several golfers who monitored handicaps and occasionally posted the scores.

One of the more unusual MGA game formats was the Superintendent’s Revenge, featuring a variety of obstructions on the course. Jerry Fuller and Mark Atwood, who worked on course maintenance, concocted a design that included wood posts lying on the green to guard the hole, more than one pin on the green (but only one cup) and tee-off locations anywhere on the fairway.

Left, Al Sadok is not bothered by the posts on the green.

Above, Tom Turner finds the right cup.

Within a few years, the Japanese economy failed badly. In 1994, because of the difficult economic conditions in Japan, Taiyo was forced to give up the properties and Clark, Thomas and Winters PC of Austin was named trustee. The POA was again approached, and a suggested partnership with Country Clubs of America never got off the ground.

Sayonara Taiyo, Howdy Evergreen!

In 1995, the trustee sold the properties to Evergreen Alliance Golf Alliance (EAGL) of Irving, Texas for about $4.5 million, according to the 2003 recollection of Philip Martin, who was the clubs’ general manager from 2000 to 2002. Evergreen actively promoted daily greens fee play, to the dismay of some members. Evergreen ended the non-resident membership rate and Bill Williams estimated it lost more than 100 members.

Martin offered the estimate that the clubs needed 75,000 rounds of golf to survive. That goal had been reached in the late 1990s, when Lago Vista Resort visitors contributed 9,000 rounds to the Lago courses. In 2003, 60,000 rounds were played on the two courses and 60% of the revenue came from day fees, according to Highland Lakes General Manager David Kaesheimer. Lee Andreas was the general manager at Lago Vista, which received two-thirds of the play.

In 2000, 4,507 persons called Lago Vista home, more than double the number from 1990.

15 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Bar-K: Life after Death

Years of drought in the 1990s prompted Evergreen to abandon the Bar-K par 3 in 1999. But the interesting little course that brought so much fun for golfers came back to life in 2005.

Eldridge, who built a reputation in golf course development after his work at Highland Lakes in the 1990s, joined Dallas developers Ken Murchison and Austin Neuhauf as Community Golf Links, Inc. to buy the scenic course.

A 200-yard driving range was built where the No. 1 hole used to be, with golfers shooting down the hill, looking at the thick trees in the distance and Lake Travis on the horizon. No. 1 was moved just west of the clubhouse. No. 9 was reconfigured to make room. There was a new No. 4, with its green just short of the woods.

But the par 3 never regained its splendor or favor of yesteryear. MGA had no playdays or cookouts at the course. Renamed the Hills of Lago Vista, it was sold to a Las Vegas man, Jay Mann, in December 2005.

No. 7, across the ravine

Clubs for Sale Again

In 2003, Evergreen – which owned and managed 40 golf courses throughout the U. S. – voluntarily transferred ownership of 10 golf properties to the Bank of America (BofA). Lago Vista and Highland Lakes were two that Evergreen gave up. Evergreen cited poor profitability, especially after the closing of the Lago Vista Resort. B of A hired Kitson & Partners, a golf management company from West Palm Beach, Fla., that managed 23 courses nationwide to run the Lago Vista courses.

The Staubach Co., a Dallas commercial real estate firm, said that B of A was asking $2.375 million for the courses. Jim House and Dick Halsted spearheaded a citizens group urging that POA buy the two courses, again to no avail.

Bruce Gilman, a Telluride-Col. resort owner, and Jimmy Porter, a Dallas homebuilder, partnered as GP Golf in 2004 to buy the Lago Vista clubs. They said Highland Lakes would be transformed into a members-only country club and promised improvements, including clubhouse modifications, practice facility development and irrigation work. Public play continued at LVGC.

Improvements were just wishful thinking. Highland Lakes was closed January 1, 2005, with plans for improvements to take place while the course was idle. Gilman told club members that Highland Lakes was closed “because there was not enough business to run two courses with (existing) prices.” “Vote with your wallets…I’m not the enemy here. I want to make everyone happy,” he added.

House Porter Gilman

GP Golf announced in November that the front nine at Highland Lakes would reopen by February and the back nine by April 2006. It would be renamed North Shore Country Club, with plans to make it “one of the premiere championship golf courses on the North Shore of Lake Travis.”

The clubhouse, GP Golf promised, would have new furniture, heating and air conditioning, light fixtures, artwork and a spa and fitness center. The swimming pool area, essentially shut down since the 1990s, would be revamped.

Plans included a new re-designed state-of-the-art irrigation system, renovation of bunkers, repair or replacement of cart paths, restoration of restrooms, construction of tee signs and sprinkler heads marked with yardages to the green.

A full membership would carry a $6,500 pre-completion initiation and monthly dues of $300.

Meantime, at the Lago Vista course, an annual pass would cost $1,200 person with cart fees of $12. By the end of 2005, GP Golf raised the pass price to $2,700, including the cart.

16 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Responding to entreaties from MGA President Randy Kruger, GP Golf offered a financing option: a $900 car/trail fee, $200 per month from February to December – a total of $3,100.

The pool at Lago was filled and paved over.

Come December, Highland Lakes owner Bruce Gilman – partner Jimmy Porter no longer had an active role in the operation – announced that Highland Lakes would reopen in February 2007 as a semi-private course. The offer was contingent on signing 75 to 100 members, each paying an advance annual cart/trail fee of $1,000 by the first week of January.

Bob Freer, publisher and editor of the North Lake Travis Log, wrote in an editorial: “Don’t blame me, and probably many others in the North Shore community, if we are skeptical of Friday night’s announcement that the Highland Lakes Country Club will reopen Feb. 1 after two years of being shuttered and technically out of business…Much has been promised and offered in the last two years…Doesn’t this kind of look like this third reopening offer has been set up for failure once again?”

At the Lago Vista course, John Deere repossessed its leased mowers. Greens turned brown in late 2005 after a drought-plagued fall and winter of neglect under GP Golf. In December, MGA members gave an informal green light to playing at another course once a month. Mike Thornton called LVGC the “worst maintained in Central Texas.” But MGA’s Executive Board decided to keep playdays at LVGC for the next three months.

The advent of GP Golf to the Lago Vista scene proved instrumental in changing how MGA operated. GP Golf showed little interest in arranging playday pairings, collecting entry fees, posting scores, maintaining the handicap system, or continuing the sweeps program. Quarterly breakfasts and the December dinner, which had been held at Highland Lakes for decades, were moved to K-Oaks Clubhouse; cookouts went to Green Peace or Hancock Parks. The unsaid consequence: MGA considered itself independent of the Lago Vista Golf Clubs, no longer an arm of the clubs that went back to the beginnings. Being a member of the clubs no longer was a prerequisite for membership in MGA.

Thornton

New Owners for LVGC

Eldredge, the Plano golf-course turf specialist who resurrected the Bar-K in 2005, and LaVergne Fairchild, his significant other, operating as Club Golf Partners LLP, bought the Lago Vista course from GP Golf in February 2006. The $2 million purchase did not include the closed Highland Lakes course. “We’re here to stay,” said the bearded, sandy-haired Eldredge.

MGA President Stan Miller said, “The attitude has changed. I have faith and trust in the ownership.” WGA President Carole Mitchell called the new ownership a “godsend.” “We’re just glad you’re here,” Linda Engelmann told Eldredge.

In February 2007, one year after the purchase, Club Golf Partners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Eldredge and Fairchild owed a one-time balloon payment of $1.66 million to GP Golf. Fairchild said Gilman refused to extend the mortgage. They set up four committees to let members offer their expertise to the club during the Chapter 11 process.

“We’ve got to support the club,” said club member Phil Wells.

MGA’s special Course Improvements Committee – Dave Kinzer, Dick Hemer and Dutch Schultz – built “broken- tee boxes” where golfers could dispose of broken tees and remove them from the tee when mowers clipped the grass.

Fairchild and Eldredge

17 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Kinzer

Schultz

Wells Miller

When LVGC talked of assessing MGA and other groups a $4 per player “arrangements fee” for Thursday-through-Sunday play, MGA switched its playday from Thursday to Tuesday.

Highland Lakes Resurrected

With minimum fanfare, after being closed for 29 months, Highland Lakes Country Club opened to public golfers in June 2007. General Manager Bryan Ham said the cantina next to the pro shop would be used to check in golfers until renovations to the pro shop were completed. He said the pro shop, which awaited city building permits, could be open in 30 to 60 days.

HLCC offered an introductory nine-month family membership pass at $350 per month and a single membership at $300. Reponding to requests for a cash option, HLCC offered a nine- month membership at $1,800. Monthly dues were reduced to $275. Gilman, having transferred his assets to North Shore LLLP, was the primary partner.

About 15 MGA members joined HLCC in 2008 and MGA scheduled two playdays a week – Tuesday at LVGC and Thursday at HLCC. When many returned to LVGC in the fall, the HLCC playdays came to a halt.

At LVGC, the Chapter 11 proceedings dragged on. At a hearing in Plano, the City of Lago Vista offered $1.9 million, plus another $197,000 to Textron Financial Corp. for the golf carts, to buy the course. Club Golf Partners agreed, barring other bids that would force a public auction. GP Golf agreed to accept $1.45 million in full satisfaction for its claim. But after a dispute over bidding procedures, Fairchild said the course was no longer for sale.

Then, on the same day that Club Golf Partners emerged from Chapter 11, the City of Lago Vista filed a condemnation petition to acquire the course through eminent domain. The city said its “obligation to comply with state permit obligations for disposal of effluent present adequate reasons to immediately acquire the property for public use, maintenance and control.” The city had provided the free effluent for many years. After negotiations, Club Golf Partners agreed to sell to the city in July 2008. “It was that or eminent domain,” said Fairchild. The cost was $2.164 million. Of the $1.45 million settlement to GP Golf, Gilman received $1.114 million and partners James W. and James R. Porter $336,000.

While some golfers questioned why the city would move so quickly to pursue condemnation and wondered whether the course could just as easily be acquired through direct negotiations, almost everyone favored the purchase. Some felt the condemnation petition accelerated the negotiations.

Harless, a city councilman who moved back to Indiana in 2007, said the city purchase was “one of my suggestions.” Mayor Randy Kruger promoted the acquisition, joined by other MGA members serving on the City Council – Dick Bohn, Darrel Hunt and Bob Bradley.

Zach Padgett was hired as LVGC’s new manager. He immediately widened the cut fairways 10 to 15% to make the course more playable. Ted McClure, who was the course superintendent in the 1970s, came back to LVGC. Other improvements included electric carts that replaced the old gas-powered vehicles. Padgett removed the out-of-bounds markers in 2009, permitting golfers whose balls were in the hazards to take a one-stroke penalty and drop the ball in the playing area. It would not require golfers to go back to the tee for a second shot. It would be safer and speed up play, he said. Within a month, MGA persuaded Padgett to let MGA go back to the old OB rules.

MGA’s playday returned to Thursday.

By the spring of 2009, about 100 rounds a day were being played. The greens were looking better than they had in several years.

McClure

Bradley said the course was “looking as good as I’ve seen in a long time.” McClure acknowledged some progress, but felt he could improve them further. About two-thirds of the course was irrigated, and Padgett began adding new lines, starting with the 16th hole. Hunt said the expansion would enable the city to spread more effluent on the course.

The councilmen who engineered the purchase of the course were pleased with the course progress and its quest for cost neutrality. Hunt said the course was “within budget.” Bohn felt the course was doing well in its pursuit of the break-even point. Most people were happy with the purchase, said Bradley. “The community is content,” said Bohn. “They like what they see.” In April 2008, North Shore LLLP, owner of Highland Lakes, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The court approved its reorganization plan in November. Court records disclosed that Gilman was a general partner with 1% interest, while Bravo Three LLC of Montrose, Col., held 99% interest.

In 2009, HLCC offered a nine-month, April-to-December membership for $1,800 and reduced Tuesday-through-Sunday daily green fees of $30.

In 2009, Lago Vista’s population rose to 6,412, according to the city’s development director, Frank Gibbons. It had 11,305 lots, of which 9,284 remained undeveloped. Of the city’s residentially-zoned lots, 75% were vacant.

18 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

The city’s master plan, updated in 2008 before the city’s purchase of the Lago Vista golf course, recognized the city’s three golf courses as real assets to the community. “Not only are they are a source of recreation for our citizens and visitors, they contribute to and help in sustaining the City's ad valorem tax base and sales tax revenues,” said the plan.

Successful golf resort communities typically have hotels, condominiums, town homes, and other accommodations which help to support their golf courses and other municipal activities, the master plan continued. “Not only do these accommodations attract out of town visitors, they also provide housing for part time residents and low maintenance housing for some full time residents. The city needs to consider ways to enhance its ability to accommodate architecturally compatible lodging, condominiums, town homes and other accommodations in support of the development of golf resort opportunities. Developing and having both temporary and permanent housing in support of these existing golf courses will help in their ability to maintain more stable and successful operations. To accomplish this, some land currently zoned as single family residential might need to be rezoned in order to provide the appropriate development stimulus.”

Handicaps

MGA members wrestled with the always-contentious question of whether MGA handicaps were accurate. Evergreen, which was entering scores in the GHIN handicap system, convened a Handicap Committee in 2003 that announced new rules: Scores “equal to the lowest handicap differential among the last 20 scores” would be posted for golfers who failed to turn in a scorecard, posted the wrong or manipulated score, or did not turn in a scorecard for away scores. The committee also said it would monitor GHIN for failures to turn in a scorecard. In 2009, no one could remember that any blind scores were ever entered into GHIN.

Play it Down or Bump and Roll?

Whenever newcomers asked why MGA had a bump-and-roll policy, the inevitable answer was: “It’s always been that way.” Indeed, when the course in the 1970s had more in-play areas that were rocky or barren, that was the rule.

Although the courses were improved over the years, rocks and bare spots persisted. Moving the ball to avoid hitting a rock with a golf club was commonly accepted everywhere. But many MGA members insisted on moving the ball from a bare spot to grass. Some argued there were still too many rocky or bare areas to require members to play the ball down.

Playing the ball down was the topic for frequent discussion. But for 30 years, bumping and rolling was the rule.

Al Benevides was the candidate for president in 1996. He said MGA should play it down, Tom Martin remembered. Members did not take kindly to the suggestion. They elected Jim McDonald as president. Benevides moved out of town.

There may have been others who promoted play-it-down as well. “The last guy who suggested that is in Georgetown,” they were reminded.

In 2004, MGA adopted a modified play-it-down policy under which all members would play the ball down at once-a-month T-score tournaments. The bump-and-roll rule would apply to all other playday competitions. The change was intended to more accurately reflect the player’s potential under tournament conditions.

In a preference poll at MGA’s December 2004 meeting, a majority supported the current policy, under which they played it down in all T-score tournaments, but could improve the ball’s lie within one club length, no nearer the hole, in other playday competition.

Come February, J. M. Richardson and his Handicap and Rules Committee led a successful move to scuttle T-scores. The rule for preferred lies was rewritten to read, “The lie of the ball through the green, except on putting greens and hazards, may be improved within an arc no more than one foot, no nearer the hole. Players may not use the rule of moving the ball…

Richardson

to change the integrity of the shot or to improve their swing.”

Once-a-month T-scores returned in 2008. In 2009, T-scores were trimmed to once a quarter.

In 2009, at MGA’s June dinner meeting, President Ron Baselice successfully persuaded members to adopt a policy calling for playing the ball down on all playdays between April 1 and October 31. After an emotional noisy debate, members voted 42-13 to adopt the policy. “We should play this game the way it should be played…let’s not be wimps,” Baselice urged. “If the ladies can do it, we can do it,” said Sam Albus.

A few years before, a new policy was enacted, permitting players with handicaps of 19 or more to play from the white tees regardless of age. Golfers with handicaps under 19 continued to use the blues. Rules & Handicap Chairman Dave Kinzer explained that the change allowed high handicappers to better compete for closest-to-the-pin prizes on the par 3s.

In 2007, MGA adopted a two-division policy. One was a voluntary play-it-down flight, the other bump-and-roll. That was abandoned in 2009.

Championship Format

The desire of some members to ensure that the MGA champion truly was the group’s best golfer prompted changes in the championship format. The low gross would determine the champion from a voluntary, play-it-down flight. Bump-and-roll flights would be scored by handicap.

19 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Dick Halsted Memorial Tournament

Playday Chairman Ron Baselice spearheaded the start of the Dick Halsted Memorial Tournament in 2006. It featured two-man teams in a better-ball competition.

Mixed Fall Classic

In 2005, MGA started the Mixed Fall Classic, a scramble that included members of the WGA. The inaugural after-golf lunch was held at Randy and Lois Kruger’s pool house, with barbecue, beer and margaritas furnished by the MGA and other sides and desserts from the women. It proved so popular, it was continued in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, always with the Krugers as hosts.

MGA’s Public Service Contributions

Sixty-one MGA members took a big swing at prostate cancer in November 2006, raising $1,305 to fund more research to find a cure for the disease that strikes one of every six men during his lifetime. For the first time, MGA joined Arnie’s Army Battles Prostate Cancer, the campaign led by golfer Arnold Palmer and coordinated in Lago Vista by Dale (Mitch) Mitchell.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation netted $1,829 in 2007 and $1,848 in 2009.

Sam Albus made significant contributions to the MGA during his three years as treasurer,

outgoing President Dale (Mitch) Mitchell wrote in Bogey Blues, the MGA newsletter. “He was the key member in ensuring that the MGA playdays at the Highland Lakes course took place during the separation this last year. And his golf ball collection/sale earlier in the year (10,000 golf balls) contributed greatly to the coffers. (A second effort brought in 15,000 balls). His latest endeavor in 2008 was a raffle at the December meeting of prizes from 25 different businesses and golf courses that resulted in raising a significant portion of the golf scholarships to be awarded (in 2009) to senior golfers at Lago Vista High School ($960).” MGA awarded two $1,000 scholarships in 2009. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the scholarships were the first in MGA’s 33-year history.

Mitchell

Albus

Albus’ collection of “experienced’ golf balls reminded older members of Olley Anderson’s drives to turn the balls into cash for MGA. On one trip, Don Brown recalled, “we delivered five bushel baskets” to an Austin driving range. Nobel Smith continued the tradition.

Angie Insalaco, 1993 president, collected old balls, which were sold for a dime apiece. The money paid for the quarterly cookouts.

MGA’s first president, Harry Thrush, started the golf ball collections, 1,000 at a time. He would gather balls from other members, sell them at retirement homes and turn the proceeds over to the MGA.

Appendix A

MGA Members in the Headlines

2003

20 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

1-2-03 – Braving blustery winds and early morning temperatures in the mid-30s, Dutch Schultz fired an 85 on the Highland Lakes Golf Course to lead a field of 31.

1-9-03 – Richard “Hoot” Gibson, who carries a 13 handicap, shot a sparkling 79 to pace his team.

1-16-03 – Tom Huffstuttler, a Lago Vista veteran, and Jack Aarestad, a snowbird newcomer from Wisconsin, combined talents to win.

1-30-03 – A four-man team led by Dutch Schultz edged one paced by Tom

Huffstuttler to win the scramble at Highland Lakes Country Club.

2-13-03 – Nearly everyone grumbled about the persistent

Aarestad

rain that hindered his golf. Except the winners….Dutch Schultz, Don Thompson, Guy Culberson and Scott Cameron.

GIBSON

Don Thompson Culberson

Cameron

2-27-03 – A three-man team led by Eddie Epley captured top honors.

3-6-03 – Robert Sanders and Jim House fired net scores of 61 to lead.

Sanders

Sherrill House Van Til

3-20-03 – Bud Boleman beat Jim House and Al Sadok defeated Jack Aarestad to win.

3-27-03 – Steve Taylor and Sam Sherrill fired a net 75 for the best score. Tom Martin teamed with Jim Van Til to win.

4-10-03 – Ray and Beth Kiker, Jack and Harriet Aarestad, Don and Sue Thompson, and Clovis and Pat Westbrook took top honors in the Spring Fling.

21 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Wirsing

Demers Engelmann

Fuller

4-17-03 – Twenty-seven teams tried valiantly to beat the 2002 low-net champions, but only one – Jack Aarestad and Jack Wirsing – could defeat Paul Thomas and Gil Engelmann.

5-1-03 – Don Scherz fired a sparkling 75 to pace 16 foursomes.

5-5-03 – Don Scherz turned 70 last month and he’s been on a hot streak ever since…he scored a hole-in-one at Lago Vista Golf Course.

5-8-03 – Don Thompson and Gil Engelmann combined talents to win.

5-22-03 – Only three two-man teams could defeat the club professionals. Coming in with net 65s were the teams of Roy Cooley and Assistant Pro Kori Walsh, Jack Kelso and Dave Kinzer, and Jim House and Fuad Maayeh.

5-27-03 – The team of Jerry Fuller, Ed Moore, Bob Weatherly and Bud Boleman hit a 9-under-par 63 to win the first flight.

5-29-03 – A four-man team led by Ken Demers hit an 8-under-par 64 to win.

6-12-03 – Mike Thornton and Ed Moore combined talents to edge the field.

6-19-03 – Only Joe Euresti could beat Roy Cooley in the “Beat the Low Gross Champion.”

Sybert

Bohn

Sorrels

Euresti

6-26-03 – Dick Bohn and Mike Thornton fired a net 59.to win.

7-17-03 – A four-man team headed by Hoot Gibson hit a 7-under-par 65 to win. the select-shot scramble.

7-31-03 – Bill Woodhull and Dick Humphrey teamed up to win the A-B flight.

8-7-03 – Paul Thomas, J. M. Richardson, Jack Guthrie and Charlie Sorrels hit a net 55 to pace the field.

8-14-03 – Despite 100-degree heat and the hottest weather of the year, teams led by Bob Weatherly and Bob Sybert were sizzling hot themselves, winning their respective flights.

8-19-03 – Ernie Green used a 5-iron for the 150-yard drive that earned him a hole-in-one.

8-21-03 – Bill Woodhull fired a 78 and a net 63 to win.

8-28-03 – David King hit a net 61 and teamed with Al Sadok to defeat O. L. Bell and George Billings.

22 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

King

Hunt Baselice

PEEK

9-11-03 – Dick Halsted hit an 86 to eke out a win over Bob Weatherly. One day earlier, Weatherly hit a hole-in-one on Lago Vista’s #6. Bud Boleman carded a hole-in-one on Lago Vista’s #6.

9-18-03 – Max Peek had reason to like the two-day Electic Tournament. He tallied a net 58 to win.

9-25-03 – Roy Cooley fired a 75 and Dick Halsted a 90, teaming up to win one of 10 matches.

9-27-03 – Dick Halsted defeated George Billings and Jim House to win

10-17-03 – Roy Cooley earned the bragging rights to a hole-in-on at Highland Lakes.

10-23-03 – Darrel Hunt, Don Thompson and Dick Bohn combined talents to win.

10-30-03 – Sam Sherrill, just 10 days shy of his 85th birthday, hit a 94 and a net 9-under-par 63 to easily win.

11-6-03 – Darrell Hunt, playing in his second MGA Championship since his retirement in 2002, hit a two- day 163 to win the title.

11-13-03 – Darrell Hunt, J. M. Richardson, Sid McClung and Stan Miller combined talents to shoot a 9-under-par 63 to win.

11-20-03 – Hospitalized Tuesday night after shooting a 79 in an outing at Star Ranch Golf Club,

McClung

Paul Thomas came home Wednesday and hit a Lance Armstrong-like 77 to win.

12-22-03 – Dwaine Cotton scored an ace while playing in a tournament at the Jimmie Austin University of Oklahoma Golf Course in Norman.

2004

1-22-04 – Jerry Fuller, Dick Bohn and T. J. Yancey combined talents to pave the 50-man field.

3-18-04 – Dick Humphrey hit a 7-under-par net 65 to take first place in the white flight.

4-1-04 – Dave Kinzer and his team of Tom Martin, Eldon Cunningham and Ron Baselice fired a 6-under-par 66 to win the select-drive scramble at Highland Lakes Country Club.

4-15-04 – Lyle Anderson (1941-2008) hit a 9-under-par net 64 to win at Lago Vista Golf Club.

4-22-04 – Malcolm Tuohy’s team, which included Phil Mundt, Randy Kruger and Lyle Anderson, fired a 7-under-par 65 to win.

5-8-04 – Jack Grady and Bob Lehigh teamed up for a sparkling 18-under-par 54. T. J. Yancey hit a hole-in-one during the Police Department Golf Tournament.

23 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

5-20-04 – Dave Kinzer fired a 79 and Hoot Gibson and 80 to lead the first flight.

5-27-04 – Ken Demer’s team, which included Eddie Epley, Allen Casady and Lyle Anderson, eked out a win.

6-4-04 – MGA President Bob Sybert and Vice President Randy Kruger teamed up to hit a 19-under-par 125 to lead the blue flight.

7-8-04 – Sharp shooting Mike Foye scored a hole-in-one at Highland Lakes.

7-15-04 – Paul Nye and Bill Vlach teamed up to hit a net 51.6 and win the second flight.

7-22-04 – Matt Frost’s team edged teams led by Eddie Epley and Don Scherz in a tight scramble.

7-22-04 – Malcolm Tuohy led his team to a 3-under-par net 69 that won the select- shot scramble.

Yancey

Casady

Lyle Anderson

Tuohy Grady

Foye

Lindermann Don Shafford

24 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Frost

ye7-29-04 – Jim House carded an 84 for a net 63 to post the lowest net score.

8-5-04 – Bill Webb hit a hole-in-one on Lago Vista’s 132-yard No. 3.

8-12-04 – Ron Linderman fired 13 pars and a birdie to lead the first flight.

8-19-04 – Jerry Fuller, Don Shafford, Al Sadok and Scott Cameron shot a 62 to win first place.

9-9-04 – Ron Baselice, the MGA’s leading prizewinner this year, scored a 12-under-par 60 to record the lowest net score.

9-16-04 – Two-man teams of Phil Mundt and Ray Kiker in the first flight, and Dutch Schultz and Skip Schneider in the second, grabbed first-place honors.

9-23-04 – J. M. Richardson and Skip Schneider teamed up to fire a select-drive net 111, the lowest score in the field.

Webb

8-26-04 – Dave King celebrated his return to MGA play following a long illness by joining Jerry Evans to win first place.

9-2-04 – Max Peek and Lyle Anderson fired a 59 to tally the low score.

10-7-04 – Randy Kruger hit a net 64 and Skip Schneider a 57 to lead the tournament.

10-14-04 – Two of the best golfers in MGA, Roy Cooley and Darrel Hunt, teamed up to shoot a net 136 and win.

12-2-04 – Roy Cooley proved that you don’t need 14 golf clubs in your bag to win, and it matters not whether the mercury is hovering at 39 degrees. Cooley fired a 74.

12-9-04 – Jerry Fuller and J. M. Richardson teamed up to fire a best-ball 75 and win.

12-16-04 – Mike Foye fired a fine 79, leading the team of Jack Aarestad, Max Peek and Ron Baselice, to victory.

12-30-04 – Max Peek fired a superb 78…but playing in a six-points-within-the-foursome game, he came away with second place in his group, behind Jack Aarestad, who carded 83.

2005

1-20-05 – Gordon Stokes fired an impressive net 62 to win.

Stokes Dave Shafford

Joe Thompson

Berry

1-27-05 – Dressed for 40-degree weather, Jack Aarestad’s jalepeno-hot team fired a net 66 to win the select-shot scramble.

2-17-05 – Jim Van Til shot an impressive 5-under-pa r 67 to win.

2-27-05 – Joe Thompson and Tom Martin collaborated to win the best-ball competition.

3-3-05 – Sid McClung, Buddy Smith, Ron Baselice and Gordon Stokes all shot excellent under-handicap rounds to win.

3-10-05 – T. J . Yancey hit 12 pars en route to a 9-under-par net 64 first-flight victory.

3-17--05 – Jim Meserole and Don Thompson were hotter than the warm March sun, winning the select-drive, 54-points competition.

25 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

3-24-05 – Jim Van Til fired a sizzling 12-under-par net 60 to pace the competition.

3-31-05 – As best-ball partners should do, Jack Berry and Ed Johnson combined talents on the right holes at the right time to win.

4-14-05 – Joe Euresti and Ron Baselice notched fantastic net 62s – 10 under their handicaps – to pace individual play.

4-21-05 – Matt Frost and Don Scherz proved masters of the short game, hitting sizzling 13-under-par 59sto pave the par 3 tournament.

4-28-05 – Two-man teams of Joe Euresti and Randy Kruger, and Sam Sherrill and Skip Schneider collaborated to take top honors.

5-26-05 – Paced by Sid McClung’s 80, the team of McClung, Phil Mundt, Herschel Williamson and Jim Bernhard took top honors

6-2-05 – It took four tension-packed playoff holes, but Scott Cameron edged Joe Euresti to win the special 2005 match-play tournament.

6-9-05 – Despite two eagles by Dave Shafford’s team, Dave Kinzer’s team had the hot putter in the hands of Herschel Williamson.

Williamson

Kinzer’s team won.

Daigle Burton

Hammonds

Houghton

6-30-05 – Gordon Stokes and Jerry Burton proved that a high-handicap golfer who keeps his ball in-bounds ca n score well in a 36-points game; with a steady game, he can win. Stokes and Burton finished plus-11 to share victory.

7-6-05 – Bob Sybert, Eddie Epley, Dave Houghton and J. M.Richardson scorched the Lago Vista golf course for 29 pars and two birdies, winning the 54-points competition.

7-13-05 – Matt Frost and Ken Demers battled for 18 holes, finishing with a net 66.

7-21-05 – A long-driving Dave Kinzer and a firecracker-torrid Don Shafford teamed up to shoot an 18-under-par 126 and win.

26 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

7-22-05 – First-year Lago Vistans Cindy and Charles Burleson won the Mixed Match-Play Championship, edging J. M. Richardson and Barb Harless 2-up.

7-11-05 – Eddie “Steady Eddie” Epley had consistently good play from teammates Sing Daigle, Noble Smith and Skip Schneider to win.

8-18-05 – The Shafford cousins, Dave and Don, their weapons smokin’ like Cindy and Charles Burleson Sam Bass’ six- guns, held up the MGA to win the better- ball tournament.

8-27-05 – Vince Cravotta, whose company carved out roads around Lago Vista more than 35 years ago, hit an ace on the 132-yard sixth hole.

9-1-05 – Mike Foye shot a sparkling 78, Ken Demers added a nifty 81 and the team of Foye, Demers, Lyle Anderson and Scott Cameron packaged an 11-under-par 133 to win the blue flight.

9-8-05 – Hotter than Texas barbecue, Ken Demers and Dave Kinzer burned Lago Vista Golf Club to win the criss-cross competition.

9-15-05 – Dave Shafford, Randy Kruger and Jerry Burton combined talents to shoot a 109 to win first place.

9-20-05 – Gene Hammonds sank a hole-in-one at the Lago Vista Golf Club.

9-22-05 – Joe Euresti and Max Peek fired a pair of 84s and tied at +4 to share first place.

9-29-05 – Don Scherz and Paul Thomas hit identical 79s and each tallied net 68s.

9-29-05 – Charles Burleson, Paul Thomas and Don Scherz hit identical 78s.

10-6-05 – On a pleasant, breezy fall day, Eddie Epley, Ed Johnson, Jack Wirsing and David Houghton blew away the field.

10-13-05 – Like a cold win from the north, Jack Aarestad blew into Lago Vista and whipped up a 7-under-par net 65.

10-20-05 – The temperature was less than 95…Coming in first place (in the Mixed Classic) was the team of Mark Atwood, Bobbi Bohn, Cindy Burleson and Scott Cameron.

Bymark

Molloy Russo

Atwood

10-27-05 – For the seventh time in his distinguished golf career, 76-year-old Roy Cooley won the MGA Championship, firing a sparkling 77 to go with his 80 Tuesday.

11-3-05 – Randy Kruger’s eagle on hole four tilted the scores enough to put him in the second flight top spot.

11-10-05 – Four golfers – Jack Aarestad, Richard Bymark, Dale Mitchell and J. M. Richardson – came into the clubhouse with net 65 scores in the “Everybody Hits from the White Tees” Tournament.

27 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

11-17-05 – The team of Bud Boleman, Dick Humphrey, Pat Molloy (1935-2009) and Dave Shafford fired a nifty 6-under-par 66 to win.

12-1-05 – Ken Demers and Robert Sanders fired a pair of 79s to win the first flight.

12-8-05 – Believe it or not – Jack Aarestad hooked his tee shot into the fence on Lago Vista’s 16th hole. The ball ricocheted off the fence and onto the fairway, 150 yards from the green… Aarestad promptly knocked his second shot into the cup for an eagle 2.

12-15-05 – Ed Moore hit a super 87 to lead his team to victory.

2006

1-4-06 -- Lyle Anderson, Sid McClung and Ben Russo carded a 20-under-par 124 to walk away with victory in the…two-low-nets tournament.

1-12-06 – Lyle Anderson carded a net 67, five under his handicap, to tally the lowest score…Buffeted by blustery 25-mile-an-hour winds, Randy Kruger, Al Sadok and Gordon Stokes… won the 54-points tournament.

1-26-06 – Roy Cooley, the MGA’s 2005 champion, fired a sparkling 74 to take first place…in the 36-points tournament.

2-2-06 – Playing a six-points-within-the-threesome game, there were lots of winners…Len Beniretto hit an 82, but came in second to Hoot Gibson, who had 87.

Ed Wright

Beniretto Bernhard Valentine

2-9-06 – Octogenarian Don Brown hit a net 56 – 16 strokes under his handicap – to lead his team to victory…in the select-drive scramble.

2-16-06 – Paul Thomas, Dick Hemer and Jerry Burton walked off with first place…in the 36-points tournament…Max Peek and Ben Russo hit five pars and a birdie apiece…in the better- ball tournament.

2-23-06 – Jack Aarestad took the first flight, with Darrel Hunt in second and Roy Cooley in third.

3-2-06 – Paul Thomas drilled three 50-foot putts for birdies, leading his team to victory…in the one-low-gross, one-low-net tournament.

3-9-06 – Sing Daigle, Jerry Fuller and Dick Hemer all played better than their handicaps, shooting a 23-under-par 193.to win the select-drive scramble.

3-16-06 – Pat Molloy sank a hole-in-one at LVGC’s 6th hole.

3-23-06 – Dave Shafford, Jim Bernhard and Bob Valentine: good and lucky in golf. Despite 40-degree temperatures and a raw 25-mile-a-hour wind – winterlike weather in the first week of spring – Shafford, Bernhard and Valentine combined talents with the luck of a scorecard playoff to win…the scramble.

3-30-06 – Dick Hemer said his team (Paul Thomas, Max Peek and Ken Schodde “brother-in-lawed” to victory…in the Red Ball tournament.

3-31-06 – Dale Mitchell aced Lago Vista’s sixth hole…popping the ball into the cup with a 7-wood from 170 yards away.

4-6-06 – Max Peek shot “lights out” golf…as partners Peek with 79 and Jack Aarestad with 80 – ran away from the field…in the 54-points game.

4-18-06 – Despite record July-in-April heat approaching 100 degrees, Jack Aarestad scorched (LVGC)…hitting a six-under-par net 66 to lead the first flight.

4-26-06 – Judy Cooley played fantastic golf and Darrel Hunt contributed his usual steady, good game to shoot a 15-under-par 129 and win the 36-hole Spring Fling.

May 2006 – Ron Baselice’s ball took flight as gracefully as a Texas hawk, drawing slightly, and landed on the No. 6 green, bounced several times and headed into the cup.

5-4-06 – Playday Chairman Ron Baselice suggested the game, Sweet Sixteen…Baselice threw out his worst holes and netted a 16-hole total of 49 for first place in the third flight…

5-11-06 – To the winners go the big headlines: SYBERT, ENGELMANN, HOUSE AND MOLLOY win golf scramble.

5-11-06 – Sid McClung and Phil Mundt combined talents to shoot a 70 and win first place…in the two-format tournament.

5-18-06 – Gil Engelmann matched his best-ever 82 for a 10-under-par net 62.

5-25-06 – Jim Van Til fired an 8-under-par 64 to record the lowest net score in the first-ever Blue Tee Tournament.

28 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

6-1-06 – Dutch Schultz hit an 83 and his team partners – Jim Bernhard, Dale Mitchell and Ed Wright – contributed more than their share of points to win the…54-points game.

6-2-06 – Dutch Schultz bagged his second ace in eight months.

6-8-06 – Tom Schmitz, Allen Casady, Ben Russo and Winston Harris took first place (in the ABCD scramble) with 65.

6-15-06 – J. M. Richardson shot one

Harris

Schmitz

of the best rounds ever and Dave Kinzer added his usual steady, good golf to pace their team victory…in the three-low-nets competition…Richardson hit an 87 and Kinzer an 83.

6-22-06 – While Al Sadok came in with a 96 and Stan Miller 107, they tallied a net 56 to win the (better-ball) tournament by a single stroke.

6-29-06 – Paul Thomas “shot his age” (80), Buddy Smith hit a 4-under-par net 68 and Gordon Stokes came in with a personal-low 98 to lead the tournament.

7-6-06 – Paul Thomas was singing “with a little help from my friends” after winning the…better-ball tournament.

7-13-06 – Dave Kinzer and Dave Shafford were hot as a firecracker, hitting a net 61.5 in the criss-cross tournament.

7-20-06 – Bill Williams and Hoot Gibson were hotter than the Texas sun…hitting 79s.

8-10-06 – In a game of forgiveness and second chances, Dale Mitchell took advantage of his second chances and hit a 6-under-par 30 to take the top spot…in the Eclectic Tournament.

8-17-06 – Len Beniretto fired his personal-best 79 and Eddie Epley added an 80 to lead their team to victory…in the 54-points game.

8-22-06 – It was Beat the Prez and Vice President Day…Vice President Dutch Schultz sank a hole-in-one on the par 3 third hole, his second this year, and the (President Stan) Miller- Schultz team beat all of the other teams but one – Roy Cooley and Hoot Gibson. Dutch Schultz hit another ace.

8-29-06 – Hotter than a pistol, Dave Shafford hit a 75…scoring +8 in a 54-points game.

9-7-06 – Whipping across Lago Vista Golf Club like a Gulf Coast hurricane, Dave Shafford has been virtually unstoppable the last two weeks…Hurricane Dave carded 15 pars and a birdie…hitting a 76.

9-11-06 – Don Scherz hit a hole-in-one on Lago Vista’s No. 6.

9-19-06 – Four of Lago Vista’s best golfers battled for 36 holes to win MGA’s first Dick Halsted Memorial Tournament…it took a scorecard playoff to decide the winner – Roy Cooley and Darrel Hunt.

9-26-06 – Len Beniretto nailed 13 skins – including nine in a row -- to win the skins game.

10-3-06 – Dave Shafford out dueled friendly rivals and former champions Darrel Hunt and Roy Cooley to win the 36-hole MGA Championship…It took a new post-2002 championship record 154 to defeat Cooley, last year’s champ, and Hunt, the 2002 winner.

11-2-06 – With two-man teams playing a 54-points game, Roy Cooley and Eddie Epley grabbed first place with +6.

11-9-06 – Scott Cameron hit a Lago Vista-best 89 to cinch victory for his team in a low-net tournament.

11-11-06 – Guy Culberson hit the first hole-in-one of his life…using a 7-wood on the 132-yard No. 3 hole.

11-16-06 – Jim Meserole, Mike Foye, Ed Moore and Don Brown teamed up perfectly, getting birdies and clutch shots when they were most needed to win the four-man team scramble by two strokes.

12-4-06 – Bill Williams hit a hole-in-one with a 6-iron on the 123-yard 12th hole at Kingsland’s Packsaddle Country Club.

12-7-06 – Joe Euresti and Jim Bernhard piled up 10 net birdies and an eagle to win the better-ball tournament.

12-14-06 – Max Peek shot his best round of golf ever in Lago Vista, winning the 54-points tournament with a +13. Peek shot a par 72.

12-21-06 – A-player Mike Thornton started slow, his team played bogey-free golf all day, and Thornton hit a natural birdie on No. 11 to clinch victory for his team in the scramble.

12-28-06 – Dale Mitchell hit a Lago Vista-best 76 and a net 59 to win…the Red Ball Tournament.

12-31-06 – Mark Atwood hit his fourth career hole-in-one.

2007

1-4-07 – Jack Aarestad shredded the first flight…shooting a superb 76 that included 10 pars and two birdies.

1-11-07 – The most notable was Roy Cooley, who fired a stunning 74 on 14 pars and one birdie.

1-18-07 – The first-flight winner was Dave Shafford, who fired a 77 for a +6 in the 54-points game.

1-25-07 – Dave Kinzer’s team, which included Max Peek, Scott Cameron and Jim Bernhard, won the scorecard playoff. Darrel Hunt, Eddie Epley, Randy Kruger and Pat Molloy settled for second.

2-08-07 – Dick Humphrey hit an eagle on the toughest hole, helping better-ball partner Ed Johnson to a net 60 that gave Johnson the victory. Golfers changed partners every six holes.

2-22-07 – Their white hair glistening, octogenarians Al Sadok and Ed Moore whipped the field in the Sweet Sixteen Tournament. Sadok and Moore shot net 50s.

3-1-07 -- Dan Olson, “D” player on the team that included Don Scherz, Dick Humphrey and Al Sadok, carried his team to victory in the 36-points competition. Olson came in with +11 all by himself.

3-13-07 – Jack Aarestad and Bob Sybert teamed up to win the two-man teams, alternate-shot tournament. The sharpshooting duo came in with a 7-under-par 65.

3-20-07 – Dave Kinzer and Dave Shafford combined skills to edge Don Shafford and Robert Sanders.

29 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

4-3-07 – The most impressive win was recorded by Tom Schmitz and Jim Van Til. They won 11 of the first 12 holes and scored an 11 and 6 victory.

4-10-07 – Jack Aarestad and Bob Bradley took top honors in the play-it-down or bump-and-roll tournament.

4-17-07 – High-handicappers Stan Miller and Bernie Harding played under-their-handicaps golf to help Jack Aarestad and Richard Bymark score an unbelievable 34- under- par 182 to win the three-low-nets tournament.

Bradley Bernie Harding

4-24-07 – Kathy and Darrel Hunt collaborated on a fine 14-under-par 58 on Day 1 of the Spring Fling, and then staved off hard-charging Aletha and Phil Wells on Day 2 to claim top honors.

5-1-07 – Dave Shafford’s usual long drives, Sam Albus’ pinpoint approaches and Jack Grady’s sharp putting combined to produce a victory for their team.

5-8-07 – “Bullet Bob” Bradley fired his best-ever 85 – 14 strokes under his handicap – to easily outclass his foursome.

5-15-07 – Mark Atwood shot a stellar round of 78 – with eight pars and a birdie – to pace the MGA.

5-22-07 – Hotter than jalapeno peppers, Dale Beeber scorched the Lago Vista Golf Club, shooting a sizzling 86 – his Lago Vista best – to pace the bump-and-roll second flight.

5-29-07 – Dale Mitchell, Darrel Hunt and Dutch Schultz played outstanding golf – Mitchell a 77, Hunt 73 and Schultz 82 – but Mitchell emerged as the first-place winner in the play-it-down flight.

6-5-07 – High-handicappers Don Olson and Skip Schneider stole the show, leading the field with a winning score of 47.75.

Beeber Speckmann

6-12-07 – Jim “Straight-shooter” Speckmann and Joe “Lucky” Euresti combined talents to hit a net 58 and lead the first flight of the better-ball tournament.

6-19-07 – Teams led by Jim Meserole and Matt Frost took top honors in the 54-point tournament.

6-25-07 – Playing with only three clubs and a putter, Joe Euresti hit 10 pars en route to an 84 and first place.

7-3-07 – Their golf play complimenting each other, as good partners should, Dick Bohn and Bud Boleman played consistently good golf to win the alternate-shot tournament.

7-11-07 – Deadeye Dave Kinzer modestly said his team “putzed along.” Truth be known, Kinzer

and his teammates, Joltin’ Joe Euresti and Ray “Killer” Kiker, whipped everyone else to win.

7-17-07 – Joe Euresti was “hitting the tar out of the ball,’ said playing partner Jim Dougherty. With five pars and a birdie, Euresti nabbed first place in the 54- points tournament.

7-24-07 – As team partners in a golf scramble should, Matt Frost, Buddy Smith, Sam Albus and Ed Johnson rallied when one of them faltered, delivered good shots in the clutch and sank needed putts to score six birdies route to a win.

Dougherty Lowrey

8-7-07 – Gil Engelmann shot a net 65 and Dave Kinzer a net 69 to lead the tournament.

8-14-07 – With hotter-than-Hades near-100 weather, Jim Speckmann blistered Lago Vista Golf Club with an equally sizzling display of driving, chipping and putting to lead the Red Tee Tournament.

8-21-07 -- Twin storms – “Hurricane Dick” Bohn and “Deadly Dave” Shafford – ripped through Lago Vista Golf Club to take top honors.

8-28-07 – Chip-in birdies from Gil Engelmann and Ben Russo, C and D players on the team along with Dale Mitchell and Jerry Lowrey, propelled the foursome to victory.

9-4-07 – Don Shafford played a consistently good golf game – mixing good drives, on-target approaches and a magic putter – to win the 54-points tournament.

30 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

9-11-07 – It took a scorecard playoff to determine the winner of the 36-hole second annual Dick Halsted Memorial Tournament, with Dave Shafford and Dave Kinzer squeezing by Larry Shive and Greg Ochoa.

Shive

Ochoa

Carl Beach

9-18-07 – Undulating lightning-fast greens at Packsaddle Country Club notwithstanding, Joe Carl, a guest, toured the 18-hole Kingsland layout as if he owned it, helping his team top victory in the 54-points tournament.

9-25-07 -- Four-man teams led by Karl Beach and Dutch Schultz battled to a tie in the triple-format tournament.

10-2-07 – Dynamic duo Jim Van Til and Sam Albus went together like ham and eggs, shooting a 13-under-par 59 to win.

10-9-07 – Making five birdies and sinking clutch shots for par was the magic formula for Eddie Epley’s team, which won the Mixed Fall Classic.

10-15-07 – Ron Baselice hit a hole-in-one, the second of his career, on Lago Vista’s third hole.

10-16-07 – Hoot Gibson and his team singed the Packsaddle Country Club layout, coming in 42.5 strokes under par to win the three-low-nets competition.

10-23-07 – It took a three-way, sudden-death playoff to establish the 2007 MGA champion Mark Atwood, a first-time winner who birdied the first playoff hole to eliminate Dave Shafford and Greg Ochoa.

10-30-07 – Max Peek and Bob Valentine returned from their summer vacations to beat the MGA in a 54-points game.

11-10-07 – Jim Meserole saw his shot hit the 12th green…and disappear…for a hole-in-one. Don Scherz hit his fifth career hole-in-one on the third hole

11-13-07 – For Randy Kruger and Dutch Schultz, it mattered not that the rules of the day’s game required them to tee off from the blue tees. They took the longer 6,198-yard course in stride and forged into a tie at net 67.

11-20-07 – Matt Frost brought his son Mark as a visitor and the young man promptly powered his team to victory.

11-27-07 – Darrel Hunt’s team looked like world beaters, coming in at 14 strokes under par to easily claim victory. Hunt had 77, Sam Albus and Dick Humphrey 91 and Skip Schneider 101.

12-4-07 – It wasn’t a limbo contest, but the team of Mark Atwood, Jerry Lowrey, Don Shafford and Jerry Evans definitely moved the bar very low. During a game of three-low-net, select drive, the team shot an incredible 45 strokes under par.

12-11-07 – With Jack Frost nipping on their heels on a cold morning, the team of Jack Aarestad, Bob Bradley, Richard Bohn and Jerry Evans shot a red-hot +11 for victory in the 35-points game.

12-18-07 – Jack Grady was red-hot from the red tees, shooting a 12- under-par net 60.

2008

Evans

1-9-08 – Seven-time MGA Champion Roy Cooley sank another hole-in-one at Highland Lakes, the 17th of the 78-year-old’s marvelous golf career.

1-15-08 – Don’t underestimate 91-year-old Buddy Corgan. Wielding his unorthodox hickory-stick putter with a steel plate attached to its head, MGA’s oldest active golfer shot a “lights out” 98 – 10- strokes under his handicap – to lead his team to a first-place tie.

1-22-08 – Hotter than the Texas sun in July, Dave Shafford ignored the chilly January drizzle to walk off with most of the prizes. Playing in a six-points-in-the-foursome game, Shafford carded an 80, paced his group and won two of the three closest-to-the-pin prizes.

1-29-08 – Exploding like the 40-mile-an-hour wind from the Hill Country, Richard Bymark and Bill Vlach whipped through the Lago Vista Golf Club.

2-4-08 – Bob Valentine fired a sterling net 60 – l2 strokes under his handicap – to top the second flight.

2-5-08 – Bill Williams score a hole-in-one at Avery Ranch Golf Club, his ball bouncing into the cup on the 126-yard 17th hole.

2-12-08 – Undeterred by the cold and biting wind, Dale Mitchell, Sam Albus, Guy Culberson and Bob Valentine combined their talents and staved off their opponents to win.

2-19-08 – Working together as good teams should, three teams paced their flights in the one-low-net tournament. Bill Williams and Hoot Gibson led the first flight with a net 60. Tom Schmitz and Skip Schneider turned in 59 to win the second. Len Beniretto and Tom Rugel took the third flight with 60.

3-4-08 – Jim Van Til fired an 88 to win one of five first-place prizes.

3-11-08 – Working together, hitting clutch shots whenever one faltered, Don Scherz and his team – Dick Hemer, Bob Valentine and Skip Schneider – came into

31 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

the clubhouse with a –23 to win.

3-20-08 – Randy Kruger and Gil Engelmann combined talents to post a net 62 and win the better-ball tournament at Highland Lakes Country Club.

Rugel

3-25-08 – Deadeye Dick Humphrey nailed nine pars and a birdie to pave the first flight. in the 54-points tournament. Humphrey’s 84 – seven under his handicap – gave him a +7.

4-1-08 – It took a scorecard playoff to determine that Jack Aarestad had beaten Len Beniretto in the first flight. Both hit net 66, Aarestad with a gross 81, Beniretto 79.

4-8-08 – Sid McClung shot a solid 82 – seven strokes under his handicap – to lead his team to victory.

4-15-08 – Buddy Corgan was closest to the pin on No. 18, and sank a 35-foot birdie putt on No. 12 to lead his team to victory.

4-29-08 – It’s hard to beat Jack Aarestad. He played some of his best golf, winning the 54-points tournament by shooting eight strokes under his handicap.

5-5-08 – Charlie Hensen made a killing, dropping his shot within four inches of a hole-in-one, snagging two closest-to-the-pin prizes and leading his team to victory.

5-13-08 – Shooting six strokes under his handicap, Bob Valentine thoroughly dominated his foursome to emerge the big winner.

5-22-08 – Don Shafford shot an 89 – his best ever at Highland Lakes Country Club – to lead his team to victory.

5-27-08 – Last-minute substitute Jim Meserole

Hensen

Cotton

partnered with a trio of high handicappers – Herschel Williamson, Buddy Corgan and Skip Schneider – shooting “lights out” golf to win.

6-3-08 – Dwaine Cotton and Dale Beeber partnered the path to victory, scoring a net 55 to win.

6-10-08 – Imagine a golf round with 11 pars and seven bogeys….That’s the kind of round “Dandy Don” Scherz fired to win top honors.

6-17-08 – Sid McClung shot a Tiger-like 73 – his best ever at the Lago Vista Golf Club – but the rules of the Sweet Sixteen Tournament didn’t allow him to count all 18 hole scores. But McClung’s 11 pars and three birdies, for a net 50, carried him to victory.

6-24-08 – Being restricted to just three clubs and a putter under the day’s rules was a walk in the park for Len Beniretto, who shot a 3-under-par net 69 to take top honors.

7-1-08 – Richard Bymark’s easy swing and arrow-straight shots carried him to a net 67 and the top of his first flight.

7-8-08 – Paint a white stripe down the middle of the fairway and Len Beniretto’s drive would lane there. Follow Beniretto’s putt and it rolled radar-like to the cup.

With 11 pars, Beniretto led his team.

7-15-08 – Dynamo Dave Kinzer teamed up with Pat “The Judge” Molloy, showing no mercy as they won the better-ball tournament.

7-22-08 – Solid teamwork – with each team member making significant contributions – paved the way for Don Scherz, Dewey Nunley, Jack Grady and Dale Beeber to win.

7-29-08 – Matt “Frosty” Frost iced the sultry Lago Vista Golf Club, pacing the first flight.

8-5-08 – It didn’t matter whether Dick Humphrey hit from the red tees, white tees or blue tees, he hit ‘em all into the cup. Hotter than a firecracker, hotter than the August Texas sun, Humphrey fired a 76 on 14 pars and four bogeys to lead his team to victory.

8-14-08 – Like a hot summer wind sweeping across the

32 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Nunley

prairie, the team of Richard Bymark and Dick Bohn swept through the competition.

8-19-08 – Len Beniretto fired a 7-under-par 65 – with 12 pars and a birdie – to pace the first flight.

8-26-08 – Dave Shafford, Don Shafford and Skip Schneider – the Super S trio – corralled four birdies en route to a 3-under-par 69 to eke out a razor-thin one stroke victory over Dwaine Cotton, Bob Bradley and Paul Thomas.

9-2-08 – Twin Hurricanes Mitch and Eddie (aka Mitchell and Epley) swept through the hills of Lago Vista Golf Club, strewing birdies and pars in their wake to win top honors.

9-16-08 –Eddie Epley by a landslide – with a little bit of luck. Playing a game of “Sweet Sixteen,’ allowing Epley to throw out his two worst holes, he almost ran the board. He came into the

clubhouse with a net 55.

9-16-08 – Newcomer Marco Linares from the D.C. area and old-timer Dutch Schultz tied for first place with net 68s each.

9-21-08 – Jerry Brown hit a hole-in-one on the third hole.

9-23-08 – Eddie Epley and Dave Shafford teamed up to top the leader board, whipping the field by four strokes.

Linares Jerry Brown

9-29-08 – Carding pars and birdies as routinely as breathing, Darrel Hunt and Roy Cooley won the 36-hole Dick Halsted Memorial Tournament, firing a record-low 145 for the third annual tourney.

10-2-03 – Bob Bloom, Jack Grady, Doris Hamblin and Wilma Vlach hit a 5-under-par 67 to win the mixer select-shot scramble.

10-8-08 – Trevor Schwartz unleashed a mighty 6-iron on the 18th hole, sending his ball into the cup for an ace.

10-9-08 – Always helpful, Ron Baselice offered early in the round to write this story: “Local bon vivant man about town Ron Baselice and his partner, Richard Skipper, won..Baselice and Skipper laid waste to most of the field, hitting a remarkable 15-under-par 57 to lead the second flight.

Cupit

Skipper Schwartz

10-30-08 – Max Peek, Jack Aarestad and Bob Valentine – back from summers elsewhere – came back with a vengeance to capture the top spots in all three flights

11-7-08 – Two younger, newer golfers – Malcolm Tuohy and Marco Linares – grabbed the spotlight of the MGA Championship early and set a dizzying, exciting pace over 36 holes only to finish in a tie. It took a two-hole sudden-death playoff to decide the winner…Tuohy.

11-12-08 – Good advice: when you need someone to fill a vacant spot on your team, ask Eric Cupit to play. Kathy Hunt, Bob Lehigh and Dick Humphrey teamed up with Cupit to win the Mixed Fall Classic.

11-20-08 – Bill Williams and Sam Albus notched 9-under-par 63s to record the lowest net scores.

12-4-08 – Near-freezing weather could not keep 22 members from their appointed rounds at the Lago Vista Golf Club. Nor could anyone match the +6 scores turned in by Sam Albus and Don Thompson.

12-18-08 – Dave Shafford and Dick Bohn topped the leader board for the Sweet Sixteen Tournament.

33 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Appendix B

Lago Vista’s Golf History

1971 – National Resort Communities opens first nine holes at Lago Vista course

1973 – Second nine opens

1974 – Women’s Golf Association forms

1974 – Men’s Golf Association begins organized playdays

1976 – Men’s Golf Association elects its first president

1977 – Bar-K course opens

1978 – Highland Lakes course opens

1981 – POA declines to buy courses

1989 – POA unable to buy courses

1989 – Taiyo Corp. of Japan buys courses

1994 – Taiyo Corp. gives up courses to trustee

1995 – Evergreen Alliance Golf Limited (EAGL) buys courses

1999 – Evergreen closes Bar-K

2003 – Bank of America assumes ownership of the Lago Vista and Highland Lakes courses

2004 – GP Golf LLLP buys courses

January 2005 – GP Golf LLLP closes Highland Lakes course

2005 – Bar-K comes back to life as Hills of Lago Vista

December 2005 – Community Golf Links, Inc. sells Hills of Lago Vista to Jay Mann

February 2006 – GP Golf sells LVGC to Club Golf Partners LP

February 2007 – Club Golf Partners LP files for Chapter 1l protection

June 2007 – Highland Lakes course reopens

February 2008 – Club Golf Partners LP emerges from Chapter 11

February 2008 – City of Lago Vista files petition to condemn Lago Vista Golf Club

April 2008 – North Shore LLLP files for Chapter 11 protection

July 2008 – City of Lago Vista buys Lago Vista Golf Club

November 2008 – North Shore LLLP’s reorganization plan approved by Bankruptcy Court

34 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Appendix C

The Price of Golf Over the Years

Course Family Membership Single Membership Green fees, weekdays Green fees, weekend

1977 $50 initiation (no dues)

1978 $10/month

1979 $50/month

1988 $600 initiation, $125/month, plus $50/month cart fee

1990 $1,000 initiation

1993 $215 + $50 cart fee

2003 $205/month $175 $30 $40

2004 (2 courses) $205/month $175 $30 $40

2005 (2 courses) $2,000-$3,100/yr. $35 $40

2006, LVGC $385/mo. $230/mo. $29, M-Th $35, F-Su

2006 after 5-1 $450/mo. $280/mo. $32.99, M-Th $36.50, F-Su

2006 after 11-1 $279/mo. $259/mo.

2007, HLCC $350/mo. $300/mo. $40, Tu-Th $45, F-Su

2007, HLCC, after 6-1 $1,800 for 9 mo., $275/mo.

2008, LVGC $279-289.mo. $259-269/mo. $32.99, M-Th $36.50, F-Su

2008, LVGC after 8-1 $290/mo. w/cart or $195/mo. w/cart or $32, M-Th $39, F-Su $3,150/yr. $2,115/yr.

2009, HLCC $1,800 for 9 mo. $30, Tu-Su

Initiation fees were required occasionally.

35 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Appendix D

Membership Over the Years

Year Club Members MGA Members MGA Dues

1976-77 43

1981 185

1983 200+

1984 150

1985 180

1988 156

1989 300-350 193

1990 198

1991 189

1992 375 196-225 $30

1993 194

1994 178-236

1995 400* 168

1996 141

1997 143

1998 142

1999 126

2000 122

2001 149

2002 138

2003 260 151 $35-40

2004 260-287** 174 $40 ($45 after Jan. 1)

2005 231 132 $40

2006 124 $40

2007, LVGC 80-125 125 $40

2007, HLCC 12-15

2008, LVGC 123 $40

2008, HLCC 12-15

2009, LVGC 90 (+ 100 119 $40 mulligan members)

*Included non-resident members.

**Included 36 non-residents. Did not include 39 social and 11 non-golf memberships.

36 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

APPENDIX E

Lago Vista Golf Club - low rounds

62 – Chris Shive

64 – Roy Cooley, 1990

65 – Ron Linderman, 2002

67 – Jack Wirsing, 1995

67 – Larry Shive, 1986

68 – Terry Meares, 1990

68 – Jerry Fuller

69 – Paul Thomas, 2001

69 – Vince Cravotta, 1976

71 – Bob Musselwhite, 1986

71 – Richard Skipper, 1990

71 – Darrel Hunt, 2003

71 – Matt Frost

72 – Jerry Edwards, 1993

72 – Max Peek, 2006

72 – Bob Sybert, 2008

72 – Dave Shafford, 2006

72 – Malcolm Tuohy

72 – Greg Ochoa, 2000

73 – Ray Kiker

73 – Sid McClung

73 – Tom Martin, 1993

73 – Barry Wilson, 2005

73 – Don Scherz, 2005

73 – Phil Wells, 2009

74 – Harold Burgeson, 1981

74 – Don Valz, 2006

74 – Jim Van Til, 2008

74 – Hoot Gibson, 2002

74 – Dick Humphrey

74 – Ed Johnson

74 – Jim Meserole, 1993

75 – Jim Speckmann, 2008

75 – Robert Sanders, 2002

75 – Bob Bloom, 1988

75 – Tom Schmitz

76 – Jerry Starr

76 – Brian Schwab

76 – Eddie Epley, 1998

76 – Dutch Schultz

76 – Jack Aarestad

76 – Tommie Thompson, ‘96

76 – Olley Anderson, 1988

77 – Dale Mitchell

77 – Karl Beach

77 – Marco Linares

77 – Len Bejtlich, 1999

78 – Bud Boleman, 2002

78 – Jack Grady

78 – Ed Moore

78 – Al Sadok, 1998

79 – Mike Thornton, 2005

79 – Don Shafford, 2000

79 – Jack Berry

79 – Dave Kinzer

79 – Doyle Dodson

79 – Mike Foye

37 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Highland Lakes Country Club - low rounds

62 – Chris Shive

64 – Roy Cooley

67 – Ron Linderman, 2002

70 -- Larry Shive

70 – Terry Meares, 1990

70 – Jerry Fuller

70 – Richard Skipper, 1992

71 – Matt Frost

71 – Jack Wirsing, 1995

72 – Greg Ochoa, 2000

72 – Darrel Hunt, 2003

73 – Bobby Richardson, 1997

74 – Dick Halsted, 1991

75 – Vince Cravotta, 1982

76 – Mike Pederson

77 – Paul Thomas, 2002

77 – Robert Sanders, 2003

78 – Don Valz

78 – Bob Weatherly

78 – Harold Burgeson

78 – George Wilder

78 – Len Bejtlich

79 – Olley Anderson, 1988

79 – Gene Markley, 1999

79 – Billy Davis, 2003

79 – Phil Mundt

79 – Bill Webb

Appendix F

MGA Members, 2008, and Their Birthdates and Places

Aarestad, Jack – 1943, Laramie, WY

Albus, Sam – 1948, Pep, TX

Anderson, Lyle – 1941, St. Paul, MN

Atwood, Mark – 1946, Houstonville, KY

Baselice, Ron – 1933, Philadelphia, PA

Beeber, Dale – 1941, Mason City, IA

Beniretto, Len – Marlin, TX

Bernhard, Jim – 1940, St. Paul, MN

Berry, Jack – 1926, Blackwell, OK

Billings, George – 1928, Mart, TX

Bloom, Bob – 1923, Detroit, MI

Bohn, Dick – 1939, Racine, WI

Boleman, Bud – 1932, Boston, MA

Boman, Bernard (Bud) – 1941, Mt. Clemens, MI

Bradley, Bob – 1938, Chicago, IL

Brown, Don – 1923, Milwaukee, WI

Brown, Jerry – 1934, Austin, TX

Bryson, Keith – 1959, England

Burgeson, Harold – 1927, Arkansas

Burke, Joe – 1938, Erie, PA

Bymark, Richard – 1940, Minneapolis, MN

Carl, Joe – 1941, Salt Lake City, UT

Cameron, Scott – 1936, Brooklyn, NY

Camp, Robert – 1943, Morrilton, AK

Cooley, Roy – 1929, Plains, KS

38 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Corgan, Buddy – 1916, Hugo, OK

Cotton, Dwaine – 1938, Sedgwick County, OK

Culberson, Guy – 1932, Eldorado, AK

Demers, Ken – El Paso, TX

Dildine, Richard – 1943, Bellfountain, OH

Dodson, Doyle – 1940, Canute, OK

Dougherty, Jim – 1934, Bowling Green, KY

Eeds, Walter (Chap) – 1949, Lockhart, TX

Engelmann, Gil – 1938, Beaumont, TX

English, Frank – 1916, Tulsa, OK

Epley, Eddie – 1935, McMann, OK

Euresti, Joe – 1937, Houston, TX

Evans, Jerry – 1937, Utah

Foye, Mike – 1943, Lake Charles, LA

Freeman, David – 1938, Weymouth, England

Frost, Matt – 1938, Waterloo, IA

Fuller, Jerry – 1948, Chicago, IL

Gibson, Hoot – 1942, Austin, TX

Good, Gene – 1937, Canadian, TX

Goodwin, Floyd – 1948, Galveston, TX

Grady, Jack – 1930, Port Arthur, TX

Guidry, Chester – 1940, Arnaudville, LA

Guthrie, Jack – 1924, Waukomis, OK

Hall, J. R. – 1947, Monohans, TX

Hammonds, Gene – 1937, Houston, TX

Harding, Bernie – 1939, Seattle, WA

Hefford, Bob – 1933, Boston, MA

Hemer, Dick – 1931, Ida Grove, IA

Hensen, Charlie – 1955, Chicago, IL

Holt, Don – 1954, Houston, TX

Humphrey, Dick – 1926, Lakewood, OH

Hunt, Darrel – 1947, Alvin, TX

Johnson, Ed – 1926, Hebron, TX

Kiker, Ray – 1924, Bront, TX

King, David – 1933, Pittsburg, TX

Kinzer, Dave – 1942, Glendale, CA

Kruger, Randy – Taylor, TX

Lee, Eddie – 1947, Fort Worth, TX

Lehigh, Bob – 1930, York, PA

Linares, Marco – 1966, Washington, DC

Lowrey, Jerry – 1939, Golddonna, LA

Martin, Tom – 1925, Chicago, IL

McClung, Sid – 1933, Centralia, WV

McGary, Edwin –

McGlynn, Gene –

Meserole, Jim – 1935, Austin, TX

Miller, Stan – 1938, Cincinnati, OH

Mitchell, Dale – 1938, Postville, IA

Molloy, Pat – 1935, Brooklyn, NY

Moore, Ed – 1923, Deanville, TX

Musselwhite, Robert – 1927, Midland, TX

Niblock Gerry – 1939, St. Louis, MO

Nunley, Dewey – 1935, Pampa, TX

Ochoa, Greg – 1949, San Antonio, TX

Olson, Dan – 1935, Minneapolis, MN

Paglia, Tony – 1957

Patten, Pat – 1935, Ardmore, OK

Peek, Max – 1934, McAllen, TX

Rogers, Jim – 1950, New York, NY

39 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

Rugel, Tom – 1935, Charleston, WV

Russo, Ben – 1934. Houston, TX

Sadok, Al – 1921, Manhattan, NY

Scherz, Don – 1943, Oshkosh, WI

Schmitz, Tom – 1951, Milwaukee, WI

Schneider, Skip – 1933, Manitowoc, WI

Schodde, Ken – 1938, Anthony, KS

Schwartz, Trevor – 1965, Austin, TX

Schultz, Dutch – 1931, Litchfield, IL

Selph, Bill – 1942, Palisade, NE

Shafford, Dave – 1949, Santa Monica, CA

Shafford, Don – 1932, Beaver County, OK

Skipper, Richard – 1950, Los Angeles, CA

Smith, Buddy – 1936, Shiner, TX

Smith, Noble –

Speckmann, Jim – 1943, Chicago, IL

Starr, Jerry – 1948, San Angelo, TX

Stokes, Gordon – 1934, Hartsville, SC

Sybert, Bob – 1938, Italy, TX

Thomas, Paul – 1925, Jacksonville, FL

Thompson, Joe – 1931, Birmingham, AL

Thompson, Don – 1923, El Paso, TX

Thompson, Tommie – 1938, Atlanta, GA

Thornton, Mike – 1942, Corpus Christi, TX

Travis, Ron – Boston, MA

Tuohy, Malcolm – 1954, New Orleans, LA

Turner, Tom – 1940, Houston, TX

Valentine, Bob – 1943, Bronx, NY

Van Til, Jim – 1944, Grand Rapids, MI

Vlach, Bill – 1932, Hanover, KS

Walker, Wayne – 1935, Brunswick, MD

Weatherly, Dick – 1949, Amarillo, TX

Wells, Phil – 1947, Borger, TX

Williams, Bill – 1935, Altoona, PA

Williamson, Herschel – 1936, Houston, TX

Wilder, George – 1938, Hartshorne, OK

Wilson, Barry – Riverside, CA

Yancey, T. J. – 1946, Centreville, AL

Acknowledgements

What started out as a history of the Lago Vista Men’s Golf Association became, as I delved into the research, a history not only of golf in Lago Vista but also a history of Lago Vista itself. I hope this proves to be informative and interesting to everyone in our community.

I found that written records were sparse. But dozens of people have been helpful in filling in the blanks and confirming recollections of others. Without their magnificent cooperation, this history would not have been possible.

I am indebted to Vince Cravotta, who vividly recalled the early days of Lago Vista when residents were few and far between. From his personal files he produced membership lists that confirmed MGA’s official founding and publications and photos that brought to life the 1972 dedication of the Lago Vista golf course and the participation of Lee Trevino and Orville Moody. The history includes photos that Vince loaned to us.

Schneider

40 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM skipshistory http://lvmga.org/Skipshistory.html

A special thanks to the Lago Vista Library for allowing us to use the line drawing from the newspaper flyer promoting Lago Vista prior to 1969.

Providing valuable details on the period from 1970 to 1990 were Ray Thomas, Gloria Van Cleave, Rusty Allen, Fred Harless, Cliff Day, Kay Williams, Greg Small, Leon Howard, Ted McClure and Zach Padgett.

Current members who recalled their early years included Frank English, Tom Martin, Jim Meserole, Jack Guthrie, Bob Bloom, Don Brown, Ed Johnson, Ray Kiker, Al Sadok, Paul Thomas, Bill Williams, Stan Miller, Buddy Smith and Dale Mitchell. I turned to them to serve as a team of reviewers, checking the accuracy of what has been written and offering perspective on the events of the last 40 years.

My thanks to all who graciously contributed their time and talents.

In addition to the MGA web site, www.lvmga.org, a printed copy of this history will be available at the Lago Vista Library.

If there is sufficient interest, this document could be published as a bound black-and-white booklet.

Your comments, suggestions, additions or corrections are welcomed. Send them to [email protected].

Home | Membership | News | Playday Schedule | Our advertisers | How to contact us | Legal Stuff, etc. | Our Past |

Copyright © 2015 Lago Vista Men's Golf Association. All Rights Reserved.

41 of 41 5/11/2019, 8:01 AM