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According to his résumé, Nathan Ollhoff completed the PGA Golf Management program at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 2004 and received a bachelor’s degree from that school.
But through the years, the Minnesota native also has earned the equivalent of an advanced degree in that field, thanks to the internships he participated in during college and the golf-related jobs he held when his studies were complete. Collectively, they provided invaluable training for the lanky blond, who bears a striking resemblance to recent Masters standout Will Zalatoris, as they fueled Ollhoff’s desire to become a head golf professional at a top-flight club.
So, it was not all that surprising when leaders at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minnesota, asked him to begin serving as their head professional in 2009. He was only 27 years old and just the fourth person to hold that position in the past century.
“I tell everyone that Interlachen hired me because the world was in a deep recession, and I was the youngest and least expensive candidate,” he said.
But Interlachen does not operate that way. Founded in 1909, the club is not only one of the most esteemed in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area but also the site of a number of notable championships, among them the 1930 U.S. Open that Bobby Jones won in the year that he captured his Grand Slam. It also has hosted the U.S. Women’s Open, the U.S. Women’s Amateur, the U.S. Senior Amateur and both the Solheim Cup and the Walker Cup.
No, the club was looking for the best available candidate. And Interlachen felt it found that person in Ollhoff, largely because he had been trained by the very best.
His first internship while at Methodist was with Mike Buccerone at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The following summer took Ollhoff to Hazeltine National Golf Club, where PGA professional Mike Schultz ran the operation. Located only 20 miles from the small farm town of Belle Plaine where Ollhoff lived as a teenager, Hazeltine was where Ollhoff worked during high school. And he remembered Schultz schooling him about the importance of organization and attention to detail – and the ways that Hazeltine opened his eyes to the possibilities of one day working in the game. During Ollhoff’s internship four years later, the club hosted the 2002 PGA Championship, which gave him a different view of the industry.
“I couldn’t believe my good fortune. These guys were all the best in the game, and I was learning from them every day.”
Nathan Ollhoff
Then came a stint at Onwentsia Club, north of Chicago, where Bruce Carson had built a reputation as one of the best PGA professionals in the business. And after that, a position at the Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, with Brendan Walsh, who is revered for how he so ably mentors young assistants.
“Brendan was all about being humble and working together as a team,” Ollhoff recalled.
Walsh so liked what he saw in Ollhoff as an intern that he hired the newly minted graduate as an assistant for the following spring. With college behind him and an entire winter season ahead of him, Ollhoff secured a similar position for that period at newly opened Frederica Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Georgia, working side by side with then-head professional Rob Anderson. On his off days, Ollhoff headed down the road to the Sea Island Golf Performance Center to watch top instructors Todd Anderson, Mike Shannon and Mike Cook ply their trade.
“I couldn’t believe my good fortune,” Ollhoff said. “These guys were all the best in the game, and I was learning from them every day.”
Though he also played both football and basketball, Ollhoff grew up in golf. Both his parents played, and so did several members of his extended family. “There was this little course in the town of Owatonna where I lived before we moved to Belle Plaine,” he said. “I started picking range balls there when I was 10.”
Ollhoff was 13 when the family moved to Belle Plaine, which he describes as a town full of mom-and pop farms. “In the summer, I’d ride my bike to the course with my golf bag slung on my back, so I could play and practice whenever I had the free time,” he said. “I got that first job at Hazeltine when I was 16, after I had gotten my driver’s license.”
The more time Ollhoff spent around golf, the more he gravitated to the game.
“It was a pretty easy decision to go to Methodist after learning about the school and the PGM program there,” he said. “I liked how it would prepare for being a PGA golf professional. I liked that Pinehurst was just 40 minutes away. I’d play golf at the different courses in that town. I’d caddie at Mid Pines and Pine Needles on the weekends. It was a lot of fun.”
So was working another season, in summer 2005, at the Country Club. Then Ollhoff took a winter job at Seminole. This one entailed caddying and picking the range, which in some ways seemed a step down from what he had been doing as an assistant at Brookline and in Georgia. But Bob Ford, the legendary golf professional at Seminole, likes his assistants to come out of the caddie yard. And when Ollhoff completed his first season at Seminole, Ford invited him to join his professional staff the following fall.
For two years after that, Ollhoff worked summers in Brookline and winters at Seminole, soaking up as much knowledge as he could from perhaps the top two club professionals in the game.
“They are a lot alike in some ways, and very different in others,” said Ollhoff, who is 39 years old and raising two children, Abigail and Grant, with his wife, Nicole. “Bob and Brendan both have incredibly high standards for themselves and also their teams.
“They are great gentlemen and great golf professionals. But Bob is more of a watch-and-learn guy who leads by example. Brendan is more hands-on and really dives in with you. He’s also a little more high-energy. As for Bob, he never seems to get rattled. His demeanor never changes, even with all he has going on.”
Another thing that Ford and Walsh are known for is their ability to recognize talent, and they certainly saw it in Ollhoff.
As for the young professional, he could not be happier with where he is, what he does and the route he took to Interlachen.
“I try very hard to represent the club well and pay forward the lessons I learned from so many talented professionals,” Ollhoff said.
Clearly, he has learned those lessons well.
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