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By John Steinbreder
Bob had a great way of making his assistants believe in themselves. He and I met in 1974, when he was an assistant at Oakmont to Lew Worsham, and I was a first-year caddie. Nine years later, Bob was head professional, and I was an assistant there. I had made it through local qualifying for the U.S. Open that year, which was being held at Oakmont, and Bob was exempt through that stage as the host professional. But then came the sectionals. We were all working like crazy that spring, trying to get ready for the Open, and that did not leave much time for us to play or practice. I was freaking out about that, and said as much to Bob as we drove to the site of sectionals, in Ohio. But he told me not to worry. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “We know how to play.” That calmed me down, and I ended up playing pretty well. I missed getting into that Open by a stroke.
Bob had a way of giving us all a lot of confidence in all the different facets of being a golf professional. He put us in a frame of mind that had us believing we could do more than maybe we thought we could. He also set an expectation as to how we did our jobs and the ways we were to conduct ourselves. As players. As teachers. As merchandisers. As tournament directors.
He led by example. That was how he taught us all. Bob was big on delegating, too. He would put us in charge of different things and tell us to call him if we needed help. The idea was to watch how he did things and learn from that.
I’ll never forget that Open back in 1983, the one that Bob played in and I just missed making. Not only was he competing in our national championship, he was also running the entire merchandising operation and taking considerable financial risks doing so. For four days, he played his rounds and then came back to the golf shop each evening to tabulate the day’s sales. I could not believe he could do both things and do them so well and so calmly. The operation made money, and Bob finished tied for 26th with Curtis Strange and a couple of others – and ahead of Jack Nicklaus and Hale Irwin.
We learned from Bob when we worked for him, and we benchmarked off of him when we went out on our own. The way he greeted people by name on the practice putting green or on the first tee. The ways he made his members and their guests feel welcome. The way he treated sales reps from equipment and apparel companies, too. It didn’t matter what brands they represented, he showed them all the same respect.
And Bob really set the standard long ago for merchandising. He was always at the front end of trends and his shops were always so well stocked and so tastefully set up. He also had a knack for knowing just what to buy, and it didn’t matter if he was selling blazers or bathroom slippers. Whenever I went to Oakmont or Seminole after I first became a head golf professional, I also looked to see what Bob was carrying.
Playing was always important to Bob. And by that, I mean playing well. He wanted all of us to keep our games sharp. He wanted us to compete as much as we could.
And he kept tabs on us long after we were gone. I remember running into Bob one spring, and he commented on having seen that Steve Archer and I had played in the section championship one winter for South Florida. He had been checking results to see if we were competing or not.
Bob was also keen on us developing relationships with our members, and of course, one of the best ways to do that was by playing with as many of them as possible. That was a great way to develop a rapport. So was being with them on the practice range or putting green.
Bob also encouraged us to play with him when we could, and that could be very instructive as well.
I remember playing with him one time at Seminole. I was something like 1 under after 14 holes when Bob walked over as we walked off the green and stuck out his hand. “Sorry, you caught me on a bad day,” he said with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. And then it dawned on me that he had just beaten me, 5 and 4, and didn’t feel the least bit bad about doing so.
A few years ago, Bob and I were playing at the Kittansett Club. We came to a longish par-3 on the back nine, and I hit this iron perfectly. It was going right at the hole before coming to a stop about a foot away. Now, there is nothing I would have liked to do more than get an ace in front of Bob. But it was not to be.
Then, he steps up and puts his tee shot right in the cup. And after he pulls the ball out of the hole, he looks at me as I get ready to make my birdie and says, “Devin, that was a really good shot of yours.”
Later, I learned that was the 24th hole-in-one of his career.
Years ago, when I was 26 or 27 years old and working for Bob at Oakmont, we both played in a regional qualifier for the National Club Pro at the Pete Dye Golf Club in West Virginia. We drove over there together and ended up in a playoff for first place. The host professional, Billy Stines, tried to talk Bob into bagging the playoff, so we could split the prize money. Bob, you see, was already exempt through that stage, and Billy knew that as a young assistant, I could have really used the money. But Bob was having none of that. So, we ended up playing, and I won the tournament on the second extra hole. I felt so terrible afterward that I did not speak as we started back to Oakmont. Finally, after an hour, I apologized to Bob for beating him. “What are you talking about?” he responded. “We were competing, and you needed to do everything you could to beat me.”
It was a great comment, and a great lesson. That’s the way it was with Bob. He was always trying to lead us in directions that would make us better.
We learned lessons like that from Bob all the time. That’s because he considered us to be part of his family. We were his “guys.” He cared for us. He looked out for us. He started an annual alumni dinner at Del Frisco’s in Orlando during the PGA Merchandise Show. Then the weekend after the show, Bob would stage a tournament for his former (assistants) and their wives and girlfriends in the Jupiter area, near where he and his wife, Nancy, lived in the winters. They’d have us over to their house for dinner, and we’d play golf at an area club. Eventually, he started holding the dinner at the club where we played instead of his house because there were so many of us.
What has always impressed me are the updates Bob sends several times a year to us all, via e-mail. He calls them “Lukes and Lucies,” and they allow us all to stay in touch. He lets us know who has gotten married and who has become a father. Who has won a tournament or moved on to a new club. It is a way of keeping us all posted, and keeping us all together as a family as he also shows us as golf professionals how we should treat our own families.
He also calls each one of us on our birthdays. He never forgets to do that.
And he surprises us with things. One year, as we are getting ready to open for the season at Seminole, he told all his assistants to be sure to bring their swimming trunks to the club the following day. We did, and we expected Bob would be taking us down to the beach for a swim and a barbecue. But what he did instead was set up a pool party in that famous Seminole pool that no one ever swam in, with basketball hoops and basketballs. Footballs, too. At 3 o’clock that day, he said, “Boys, it’s time to get changed.” And it wasn’t long before we were all diving in. Bob, too. He was right in the mix, dunking on us as we played basketball and had ourselves a time.
Bob is always checking in to see how we are doing with our jobs. And we’ll call him when we have problems, when we need help or advice, when we need to sort out a difficult situation. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of needing a pick-me-up.
And he is always promoting us when we are in the running for a new job. I recently moved to Cherry Hills, and Bob was there every step of the process for me. He called people at the club on my behalf, without my even asking him to do so, and helped me prepare for the interviews.
I am in my fifth year as head golf professional at Oakmont, and I still talk to him all the time. I know what his advice is going to be most of the time. We’ve been together that long. But I still want to hear it from him, so I am sure I really am thinking about things the right way.
One of those things, of course, is making sure we mentor and promote our assistants as well. Bob was the beneficiary of a head professional, in Lew Worsham, who showed him the ropes and really advocated on his behalf, and club leaders willing to take a chance on a young assistant. And he wants us to do the same, to take an interest in the young men and women who work with us and help them achieve their personal and professional goals.
It is his legacy, and we want to make it ours as well.
E-Mail John