History in the Remaking at Oakmont CC

With energetic new leadership and a fresh round of capital improvements, one of the most tradition-rich private clubs is primed and pumped to show off its new look and spirit next year, when it will host its eighth U.S. Open.

by Joe Barks (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
May 2006
 

Oakmont Country Club At A Glance Year Established: 1903 Number of Members: 400 golf (800 total) Number of Employees: 87 fulltime, 65 part-time; 250 at peak including summer help Clubhouse Size: 62,000 sq. ft. Annual Golf Rounds: 22,000 Annual F&B Sales: $2 million CFO/Controller: Jim Springborn Executive Chef: Tom Pepka General Manager: Tom Wallace Grounds Superintendent: John Zimmers PGA Professional: Bob Ford

Golfers still “say their prayers” when confronted by Oakmont’s signature “church pew” bunker (left) and devilishly fast greens— but all other wishes of players and members are now being answered.

Making sure that everyone on a club’s staff has proper understanding of, and appreciation for, a property’s history and unique characteristics is always a challenge— especially when the club is over 100 years old and tradition-rich, but many of its managers and employees are so young they don’t remember black-and-white TV.

To help staff members at storied Oakmont Country Club respect and keep its unique legacies front-of-mind, General Manager Tom Wallace relies on a slide that he now features prominently at the beginning of all new-employee orientations, and also during team development sessions with his most experienced department heads. It shows a portrait of a distinguished gentleman from a bygone era, and four letters:WWHD.

The initials stand for “What Would Henry Do?” The reference is to the man pictured: Henry Clay (H.C.) Fownes, who built the famous course and club outside Pittsburgh in 1903.

After coming to Oakmont from The Country Club in Pepper Pike, Ohio (suburban Cleveland) as the new millennium began, Wallace sensed that success in his new role would hinge on being able to promote full passion for, and devotion to, the qualities that make Oakmont one of the true shrines of not only golf, but also the club business.

That might sound like a surprising objective after coming to a place which, at the time, had hosted 15 major championships and was the first U.S. golf club to be designated (in 1987) as a national historic landmark. Unlike at many private clubs, however—where subsequent generations of founding families are still prominent and active, and can thus serve as living, breathing reminders of a club’s traditions and special attributes— there had not been any embodiment of the Fownes legacy at Oakmont for over 50 years. After nearly a half-century when H.C. and his son, W.C., served as the club’s only two Presidents,W.C. resigned in 1949. Save for some distant, non-active descendants, there has never since been a strong on-site Fownes family presence at the club.

Oakmont GM Tom Wallace missed the chance to meet club founder H.C. Fownes by about 70 years— but still keeps him in mind constantly, as does everyone on the Oakmont staff

Wallace sensed that this void might be making it difficult for staff to understand and uphold the club’s sense of place, especially with Oakmont struggling, like all private clubs, to find the best solutions for the challenges it was now facing as the new century began. These included: declining member rounds; a golf course in need of restoration and modernization; an outdated, inefficiently designed, and undersized clubhouse; and a general strategic inertia that was making it challenging to both attract new members and get existing ones to use the club to its fullest.

And just to notch up the pressure a little bit more, Oakmont’s 16th and 17th major championships—the 2003 U.S. Amateur and 2007 U.S. Open—were on the horizon, meaning the world would soon be stopping by once again to take another close look at how—and if—the club was maintaining its great reputation.

As he and his staff renewed the focus on “remembering our foundation” to address the issues at hand and prepare for the upcoming tournaments, Wallace knew that more than slogans and slides would be needed. Fortuitously, another big event—the club’s 100th anniversary—would occur in 2003. This offered the perfect opportunity to draw on Oakmont’s rich history and blend its traditions into new facilities and operations more in step with the changing club world.

“As the Board of Governors, Long-Range Planning Committee and I approached that anniversary and looked at our infrastructure, it was clear that we couldn’t start our second 100 years not taking care of our national historic landmark,” Wallace says. “But at the same time, we had been disappointed to see that more wasn’t being done to emphasize the great history of the club throughout the facilities. We had to move forward—but while doing so, we also wanted to do all we could to enhance the understanding, and value, of our tradition.”

So while an impressive 260-page, full-color coffee table book was produced to properly commemorate its first 100 years, a sizeable campus renovation began, to give Oakmont the facilities it would need to thrive for another century.

Golf in the Snow

On the golf side, the blending of tradition with new ideas has been led by the club’s longest-tenured department head, PGA Professional Bob Ford. Just the seventh head golf professional in Oakmont’s 100-plus years. Ford has held the position since 1979, when he succeeded Lew Worsham, the club pro who beat Sam Snead in a playoff to win the U.S. Open in 1947.

Ford has since done more than his part to uphold the tradition of bringing honors to the club, winning numerous Pittsburgh-area tournaments, competing on the national tour, and earning National Merchandiser of the Year and National Club Professional of the Year awards from the PGA. He has also led the club into new areas of golf-related activity, most notably through the Golf House all-weather practice facility and training center (see photo).

It has been a difficult “challenge,” Ford admits, to watch the number of annual member rounds at Oakmont fall from a peak of 30,000 10 years ago to 22,000 currently. But he’s proud of his operation’s ability to stabilize rounds for the past five years—and even prouder of the success of the Golf House, where players can hit yearround from covered and heated bays, and have their swings analyzed by state-of the-art video equipment.

“We took a lot of heat when we said we were going to build it [in the late 1990s],” reports Ford, who himself heads south for a “winter job” as head professional at Florida’s prestigious Seminole Club. “The reaction was, you’re going to spend a lot of dollars for a small group of guys to hit a few golf balls in the winter.

“But I’d say that now, easily half of our membership makes regular use of it—pretty much anyone who hits a golf ball on our course also hits balls [in the Golf House]. And when tournaments like the U.S. Open come, we can sell it as a hospitality center, and that alone more than pays for what it’s cost to build and operate.”

 

The year-round popularity of Oakmont’s Golf House is the latest in a long line of successful innovations directed by Bob Ford—head pro since 1979 and only the seventh in the club’s 100-plus-year history.

The Golf House’s popularity has added some non-traditional, non-seasonal duties to the maintenance side of Oakmont’s golf operations—and even though some 25,000 balls are picked up every two weeks during the winter, Grounds Superintendent John Zimmers says there are still countless more to be gathered up once the snow melts for good. But Zimmers—who came to Oakmont in 1999 to join a distinguished list of predecessors that includes Paul Latshaw (who went on to Augusta National) and Mark Kuhns (now at Baltusrol)— appreciates the added value that the Golf House has brought to Oakmont’s overall golf operation, even if it does make for a little extra work.

Zimmers also has renewed appreciation for the original H.C. Fownes course design most responsible for putting Oakmont so prominently on the golf map. Oakmont’s current superintendent is just now catching his breath (and storing it up for the Open preparations) after directing the final phases of an extensive restoration that, he feels, has taken the course back much closer to the original inland-links style that Fownes intended.

In Oakmont’s case, “taking it back” went well beyond the usual tree removals or narrowing of fairways; it also meant painstaking restoration of the club’s trademark—and plentiful—bunkers.

“While the average course may have 60 to 70 bunkers,” Zimmers notes, “we’ve had as many as 300. That got scaled back to around 180 at one time, but after this latest renovation we actually put about 30 back, so we now have around 210.”

And this wasn’t a matter of just digging holes and dumping sand randomly around the course. Instead, Zimmers became quite in tune with “what Henry would do” by poring over old photos and drawings, to keep all decisions as historically true as possible. The restoration process, which even included adding new rows in the famous “church pew” bunkers (see photos), gave Zimmers new appreciation for what is still Oakmont’s most special attribute.

“What [Fownes] designed is fascinating—he definitely had unique ideas,” Zimmers notes. “And I now know, more than ever, why, in the end, it’s the condition of the golf course that affects everything else here. If the course isn’t good, no matter how great the kitchen is performing, more people are going to think the soup’s bad.”

Rave Reviews

Grounds Superintendent John Zimmers has renewed sympathy for golfers victimized not only by the “church pews” (above), but all of Oakmont’s 200-plus bunkers.

 

But just as there’s now a much smaller chance, after all the work and money put into restoring it, that Oakmont’s course will now meet with any displeasure, the risk of dissatisfaction has been greatly reduced on the clubhouse side, too. Last month, two big events of 600-plus people each—an Easter Sunday brunch and a Grand Reopening reception—gave members a first chance to see the results of extensive work that has also been completed to expand, upgrade and increase the functionality of Oakmont’s broadgabled clubhouse, which still stands on the same spot, and remains remarkably similar in structural appearance, to what was first erected in 1904.

Phase One of the project involved an upgrading of the infrastructure (HVAC, electrical, fire systems, etc.); renovating and expanding the clubhouse’s main entrance, foyer and ballrooms (see photos); extending the terrace off the back of the building; creating new men’s and women’s rooms on the main floor; and expanding one end of the house to create a new, separate banquet kitchen. There is also a new Fownes Room, featuring H.C.’s portrait, that will be used for small private functions (and maybe visited by staff who need a little extra personal direction from Henry).

Phase One of Oakmont’s clubhouse renovation included upgrades and expansions of its main entrance and foyer (above) and ballroom (below). Both new areas were put to significant tests by two big events last month— and passed each with high marks.

Phase Two, to begin later this year and end before next year’s Open, will focus on upgrading the remaining infrastructure and look of the clubhouse’s living room, runway, library, and front desk.While they must work until then in a facility that’s literally a mix of old and new, the Oakmont staff has already seen enough, based on how smoothly last month’s big events were pulled off, to enthusiastically embrace the improvements the renovations are bringing, and show a revived, can-do spirit as a result.

“Having the new banquet kitchen for Easter was a lifesaver,” enthuses Facilities Manager Rob Hirst, as he leads a whirlwind tour of what’s been accomplished to date in the clubhouse. And Hirst is equally charged up about the new storage and organizational areas that the renovation has carved out of space that was previously unaccessible or unusable in the venerable building’s sprawling understructure and catacombs.

“They even put in an elevator to the basement that wasn’t in the original plan, and they had to hand-dig out [the shaft],” Hirst notes. “We lost some of our great places to hide where no one could find you,” he jokes. “But set-ups are going to be so much faster and easier now.”

To keep Hirst’s crews hopping, the Oakmont F&B team has big plans for how to make the most of its new capabilities. At the culinary end, Executive Chef Thomas Pepka will continue to direct expansion of the elaborate menus and presentations featured in his “Chef to Chef ” interview in last July’s C&RB (“Oakmont’s Keys to Dining Excellence,” pg. 32).

 

At the same time, Oakmont’s ambitious food and wine programs will continue to grow under the direction of an energetic team led by Assistant GM Chris Hampton, Beverage Manager Brad Ladik, and Banquet Manager/Event Coordinator Peggy Schaal. And the service staff will continue to receive expert guidance in what can be offered and provided to members and guests through the intensive training and direction coordinated by Assistant Manager Carl Gurtner, Dining Room Floor Manager Mary Agnes Rieger, and Manager-in-Training Katie Keenan.

All told, F&B has grown into a $2 million annual operation at Oakmont that is now well-balanced between a la carte and banquet business, and making significant positive contributions to cash flow. “We are making money in operations now—close to $1 million over the last couple of years,” says Wallace. “And the long-range plan is to continue and improve upon that trend.”

Also making significant contributions to the bottom line will be revenues from the club’s newly renovated Gatehouse and Pro’s Cottage lodging facilities, which are now proving to be very popular not only with local members, but also those from outside the area who have joined Oakmont through a new national membership status initiated in 2001.

Through data mining from the new POS and operations systems implemented under the direction of CFO Jim Springborn, the Oakmont team expects to find an endless stream of ways going forward to identify and capitalize on how all members, current and future, want to use the club. The last several years brought almost twice as many new members as the previous five,Wallace reports, and the overall membership’s averageage has come down slightly over the same period.

Of all the numbers now at their disposal, however, the one that everyone on the Oakmont team remains most focused on is 500,000-plus—the number of positive “moments of truth” (defined as “anytime an employee interacts with a member”) that team members collectively strive to achieve over the course of a year.

And when there is evidence of staff providing these moments in a way that would make Henry Fownes proud, another figure often comes into play: $100 gift certificates to local retail establishments that top managers are empowered to award on the spot. Which proves that there is indeed something very special and unique about the “new” Oakmont—it’s a place where it actually is possible to take slogans to the bank. C&RB

 

 

The Oakmont Staff