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