Lago Vista Men's Golf Association - Skip's History
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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.