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Lore and Legends

A Meeting of the Minds
as told to Judy Vossler

Ernie Vossler on partnering with Joe Walser, Jr.:
I’ll tell you how Joe and I got together. We played amateur golf against each other before we “turned pro.” Joe was from Oklahoma, and I was from Texas, but that didn’t stop us from liking each other! We both started competing on the PGA Tour about the same time. We became friends, a friendship that has lasted a lifetime. As I remember, I only played one round with Joe on the PGA Tour, since then we’ve played golf together more times than we can count.

When I was playing on the PGA Tour back about 1960, my children were getting to be pre-teens, the age when I promised my wife I would stop traveling on the PGA Tour and do something else in golf so I could be at home to help raise our family. I was in the right place at the right time; a great job opportunity came along as head golf professional at Quail Creek Country Club in Oklahoma City. The club was in the developmental phase and was the first new country club golf facility to be developed there in many years. I jumped at the chance to be involved with the development from ground up of a residential golf community. Back then, Quail Creek was out north of town, well past residential development and community services. Looking back, that’s where I learned the importance of developing a golf project in the path of growth. I’d never worked in a golf shop, and I’d never worked on a golf course; however, I’d played lots of golf in all kinds of environments. I’d worked all my life and I had owned and run a plumbing contracting business. I knew about the governmental permitting processes; I had a good sense about quality, service and what was right. I like people, and I knew I would always have club members trying to beat my golf game!

So I moved my family from Fort Worth, Texas, which seemed like quite a drive in those days. We arrived on the southern outskirts of Oklahoma City, and I remember thinking, “Ok, we’re here; that wasn’t so bad.” Then we had to drive miles to the north side of town and on farther to get to the place that was going to be Quail Creek Country Club. It was nothing but flat land and acres of red dirt. I thought my whole career was going down the drain, and my family was questioning the move to a distant uninhabited place. In my heart I wanted to be part of the entire development process, and I knew we were lucky to have the opportunity. I am proud to say it turned out great for all of us. My whole family worked together; it was a family business from the beginning. My kids grew up in the Golf Shop where they learned and participated in the first 12 years of successes at Quail Creek Country Club.

I’d never been in the golf business so I wanted to work with someone who had good experience. A friend told me Joe Walser, who was from Oklahoma City, had hurt his wrist and couldn’t continue to play on the PGA Tour. I said to myself, “Now there’s a man I need to hire because I liked Joe and knew he’d been raised in the golf business. He also had heard I might be looking; we can’t remember who contacted the other first. We both went to work at Quail Creek; and with Joe assisting me, I was able to continue playing some annual PGA Tour events, including the Bing Crosby at Pebble Beach and the early Bob Hope Desert Classics.

During the 1960s our friendship and my professional respect for Joe Walser continued to grow. Joe moved on to become the Head Golf Professional at Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club, and though our clubs were competitive, we were the best of friends. By the early 1970s our children were growing up and leaving home, and Joe and I both wanted to follow our dreams of developing our own golf clubs with the knowledge we had gained independently and collectively.

For sure, the best big decision we made was to take a risk and start a golf development company together with our own money. And that’s how our original company Unique Golf Concepts, Inc. came to be. We had planned well and saved our money to secure options on California real estate which today are Carmel Valley Ranch Resort and La Quinta Resort. We decided one of us would quit his job to pursue our new business on a full time basis. We agreed I’d quit my job, and Joe would stay employed at Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. Our deal was: if we couldn’t make it in golf course and community development, we would share Joe’s income to support our families until I could find another “real” job. It was just a handshake deal; that’s the way it’s always been with us. We got lucky and never had to share Joe’s paycheck. In hindsight, that was quite a gamble. Between us, we had eight children to raise and educate!

Our first contract was to develop and build The Cardinal in North Carolina, followed by Marsh Island in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and Oak Tree Golf Club and Oak Tree Country Club in Edmond, Oklahoma which Joe and I owned in Unique Golf Concepts. About that time, we sold our company to Landmark Land Company, Inc., hired very talented people and subsequently started developments at La Quinta Hotel Golf & Tennis Resort, Carmel Valley Ranch, PGA West, Kiawah Island Inn & Golf Resort and Palm Beach Polo and Country Club. We’ve rolled along together, weathered the ups and downs and now it’s over four decades later…

Says Ernie about meeting Johnny Pott
This is a great story. I met Johnny on the PGA Tour in 1957. I was on the practice tee at the L.A. Open. I was a “name” on the Tour at that time, and JP was just starting out. While I was hitting practice balls, I heard the announcer
say, ”Next on # 1 Tee: Billy Booe, J.C. Goosey, and Johnny Pott.”
I thought the starter had to be an LA comedian or something; what the heck kind of a group is that? I had to see for myself so I headed off for the first tee. Before I could get there, I heard the announcer say, “First on the pot is Johnny Tee!” I made up my mind that at the end of the round I’ve got to meet this guy, so that’s where we first met. Johnny went on to become a “star” on the PGA Tour and represented the United States as a three-time Ryder Cup Matches team player. I guess the nickname Johnny Tee never hurt his game!

In 1971, as Johnny was leaving the PGA Tour as a full time contestant, Joe and I recruited him to oversee a golf project at Marsh Island in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Since then, Johnny has been an important part of every golf project we’ve been involved with. Johnny has an invaluable sense of what it takes to create a quality golf course and a memorable golf experience. Another good decision Joe and I made early on was to ask Johnny to share our dreams…today Johnny is a partner in Landmark Golf.

Joe Walser Jr. on starting a company with Ernie Vossler:
For a time period of two or three years after I went to Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club, Ernie and I continually talked about starting our own company and building a golf project on our own. It was easier to do in the 1970s. Finally, we had an opportunity, and I said to Ernie, “The worst that could happen is the deal won’t work out, and I make enough to take care of both of our families for a while so you go do what needs to be done to get us goin’, and if you need money, we’ve got it.” Fortunately, we were very successful in accomplishing what we set out to do. That’s the kind of friendship we’ve always had; our word is our commitment. To this day, I believe the atmosphere we created then is the culture our company lives on today. We trust each other.

Ernie’s response:
Joe’s right; we’re all pretty close. There are no secrets in Landmark Golf; everybody speaks up. Joe and I’ve never had an argument. Through the years, Joe seems to think things over more than I do. Joe is the quieter of the two of us; he’s a real thinker. He works hard to avoid problems. Well, we might have disagreed on something like whether we wanted to use a tree or a deer for an emblem. We’d go home and think about it more. Then we get back together, ask the opinion of those involved around us and think about it some more. In the end, still today, we usually do it Joe’s way! Joe has always been our centering force.

Joe Walser, Jr. on meeting Johnny Pott:
We met while we were playing college golf. We crossed paths in places like Houston. Johnny’s always been too tough to beat!

Johnny Pott on meeting Joe Walser:
I remember one year my team had won the NCAA Team Championship, although I lost my match to a guy from Joe’s school, Oklahoma State University. I had Brookhaven, MS on my golf bag. He thought it was Brookhaven, Massachusetts, and he thought I was putting him on with my southern accent. He told me this story about 10 years later. He said he never would have beaten me if he’d known I was from Mississippi. He thought I was trying to pull his leg a little bit, and that fired him up!

Johnny Pott on working with Ernie and Joe:
In the early 1970s I was still playing the Tour and starting to do some other things in golf. Ernie had moved to Greensboro to work on The Cardinal with Pete Dye, so I went there for a while to see what they were doing. Folks I knew in Ocean Springs, Mississippi wanted to build a golf course on three islands and name it Marsh Island. I asked Pete, Ernie and Joe to look at the site in Mississippi with me. We had to get on a boat to get there. I’ll never forget Pete Dye walking all around in the marsh grass in his Gucci loafers. That turned out to be an exciting project, and I’ve been with Ernie and Joe ever since…

Johnny Pott on one of the many Pete Dye stories:
The contractor who built Marsh Island then moved on to build the first course for Landmark at Oak Tree in Edmond, Oklahoma. The tees and greens at Marsh Island were small due to the budget. I didn’t want this to happen at Oak Tree so I made periodic trips there during construction. Pete Dye was there during one of my visits. I told Ernie and Joe that the third green was really too small. We all talked with Pete about this. Right then, he had the shaper, named Fluff, enlarge the green toward the front; and we thought we all left happy. The next day we were surprised to see the green was back to its original small size. So we confronted Pete. He said, “You guys are all wrong.” And that ended our telling Pete Dye what to do! To this day, that same small green is on the third hole at Oak Tree Golf Club.

On the Meetings of the Minds:
By the early 1980s, a Landmark culture of open communications was well established; it continues today because the corporate philosophy has always been that human interaction, idea exchanges, experience sharing, expressed opinions and solutions from collective input, all discussed in person are the preferred methods for communication, storytelling and training of the “Landmark Experience.”

The “Meeting of the Minds” began with Ernie and Joe starting their days over a casual breakfast at 6:30 a.m. on the patio of La Quinta Hotel. The breakfast meetings drew management personnel and company employees who needed direction on the challenges of the day/week and wanted to hear about the upcoming plans of the company. For years, a core group of company executives attended regularly; project directors, golf professionals and resort executives from Landmark’s projects across the country attended when they were in town.

With the opening of the La Quinta Hotel’s Golf Clubhouse the breakfasts moved to a golf environment where golfers, club members, homeowners and staff members could interact with the management of Landmark’s vertically integrated company. No problem was too small to bring up; solutions were the order of the day. The topics of the day ran the gamete, interspersed with golf tips and tales from the PGA Tour. The goal was to communicate, educate and manage in a consistent manner with quality, value, customer satisfaction and happy employees always is Landmark’s top priorities.

In the early 1990s, Landmark Golf opened corporate offices in Indian Wells, California. Some of the faces have changed; and breakfast meetings became a daily lunch meeting schedule; however, the philosophies and information exchanges remain the same. On any given day, at lunchtime Ernie, Joe and Johnny can be found sharing their experiences with the next generation of Landmark Golf.