Back to List
Media Room

Golf News Magazine - January 2007
Four New Desert Golf Courses on 4,000 Acres in the
Planning Stages
By Dan Poppers
Part 2 of a 2-Part Interview Republished by permission from GolfNews Magazine.

When asked the date and place of his birth, Ernie Vossler gave me an answer that nobody has ever given. “I don’t really know the day I was born. The day I observe is Thanksgiving, November 29, 1928. And I don’t really know the city where I was born, but Fort Worth, Texas, is where I was found.” Ernie Vossler, a long-time resident of La Quinta, Calif., is a unique individual. He’s a wise man in its truest sense—he is a man of wisdom; wisdom that is straightforward, uncluttered with depth. Harry Truman-like courage and common sense, that’s how Ernie Vossler can be described. He suggests to young people that one of the most important things in life is to have the honor and credibility that when you say something, it means something. He practices what he preaches. He is the embodiment of authenticity. Vossler is Chairman of the Board of Landmark Golf, PGA Hall of Fame member, and five-time winner on the PGA Tour. Joe Walser Jr. is Landmark Golf Vice-Chairman and sat in with us during the interview that took place at Landmark Golf headquarters in Indian Wells. Landmark Golf’s portfolio of historic and current golf projects include Mission Hills CC (Rancho Mirage), Mission Hills Resort (China), PGA West, SilverRock Resort, Shadow Hills, La Quinta Hotel Golf & Tennis, Oak Tree GC, Paradise Valley and dozens more. Vossler lives with wife Marlene Hagge in La Quinta.

GolfNews Magazine (GNM): Your childhood is unique; tell us about it.
Vossler: At three months old, I was left in a basket on the doorstep next door at the neighbor’s house. Obviously, I was too young to actually remember, but I know this by a newspaper clipping. It was the year of the depression, 1928. They already had three boys, so they decided they didn’t need me; and another neighbor had no children. So, they took me over there. I got given away twice in one day!
My mother went blind when I was five years old. When I was 10 or 12 years old, my dad bought a car for her and took me to a friend in the licensing department and got me a driver’s license. There was a restriction on the license that my mother had to be in the car when I was driving it, and she was blind!

GNM: [laughs] Makes a hell of a lot of sense!
Vossler: But let me tell you something. She knew when I went around a corner too fast.

GNM: How has your early childhood experiences that includes being given away twice as an infant and your parents dying when you were young affected your life as an adult?
Vossler: I know only one thing. I am in this world all by myself. I’ve got to make my own decisions. I can’t let Dan Poppers, Joe Walser or Marlene Hagge make my decisions. I’m very vocal the way I feel.

GNM: How about in the arena of trust?
Vossler: I’m not very trusting until I know the situation and the people. But what I do know is that boy over there [he points to Joe Walser] can ask me for whatever I’ve got and he’s got it. And it’s the same feeling between both of us. I’ve known him for 40 years. Outside of my family, I don’t think there is another person I feel that way about.

GNM: Can you think of some things in your personal and business life that if you could do over again, you would do them differently?
Vossler: I’m sure there is a lot of them. Probably I should have saved more money than I did. Probably should have helped people play the game of golf more than I have.
After we got so involved in Landmark and building our golf courses, Joe and I got out of things we used to do in Oklahoma City when we were golf pros. Had we brought to this community that desire we had there, then this community would be better today. There are a whole lot of kids out here today that aren’t playing golf that could be. That’s one thing we did in the Oklahoma communities.

GNM: You mean in Oklahoma, you gave hands-on help.
Vossler: Exactly.

GNM: If a young person asked you, ‘What’s important in life and what’s not?’ how would you respond?
Vossler: The most important thing is to be truthful. Second, be a religious person to some degree. And, third, have the honor and credibility that when you say something, it means something.

GNM: How much of these three elements do you think is going on these days?
Vossler: I have no idea, but everyone here [at Landmark Golf] does it. We are a place of honor. If somebody here tells you they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it!

GNM: If a young person asked you how to succeed in business, how would you answer?
Vossler: If you’re going to succeed in business, you have to prepare yourself all the time. You’ve got to be honest. You have to be on time. It’s not hard to be successful in the business world.

GNM: If she or he asked you, ‘How do I find peace within myself?’ how would you answer?
Vossler: I think Joe has seen me do this. I’ll take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of it. One side is ‘Good’; the other side ‘Bad.’ I write it down. When I summarize all of this, I try to get more ‘Goods’ in my mind than ‘Bads.’ So, when I go home at night, however ridiculous these people think I am, I am at peace with myself because I did take a look at what we talked about all day long.

So, I go home thinking I know what’s going on. The next day I find out that probably I didn’t, but that’s okay because I was at peace that night.

GNM: In last month’s GolfNews, we touched upon the Federal Government’s unjust take over of Landmark Land assets back in the 1990s. Why do you think the government confiscated assets like they did? Of course, it affected you dramatically, but it also affected a whole lot of other lenders? What was that all about?
Vossler: They had some bad regulations that people who were dishonest could take advantage of. They didn’t decide who was dishonest and who was honest. They didn’t give us the opportunity to solve our problem ourselves, which we could have done.
We bought a savings & loan and borrowed money from our savings & loan, and did so very responsibly with secured assets.

But there wasn’t any market at that time, because there were so many bad savings & loans and banks around that other properties were available, and people bought those but didn’t buy ours. George Bush [Sr.] knew exactly what was going on…

GNM: And exceptions could have been made?
Vossler: Yes, in my opinion.

GNM: What seems horrific, from my understanding, that once Landmark Land Company sued the Federal Government and won the lawsuit, the judgment in favor of Landmark Land Company was only $21.5 million, when the assets that the government took from Landmark Land were worth an estimated $1 billion. How is it possible that this injustice would be allowed to take place? I don’t understand it. I am dumbfounded at that kind of reasoning. Do you have any insight?
Vossler: If you were to talk to someone that really knew all the details, they would tell you there was unfairness in this deal, but that was the only way those in the government could figure out a way to clean up the savings & loan and banking industry. That’s who we elected for the offices at the time; so we had to do what they said.

GNM: And how do you continue to deal with the emotions? The anger and bitterness. The feeling that you were screwed, if that is a fair, blunt statement.
Joe Walser: We were screwed.
Vossler: We say that we were screwed every now and then to the right people, but we can’t do our business and have that chip on our shoulder.

GNM: What can we learn from what happened to Landmark Land Company?
Vossler: Pay attention. I paid attention but it didn’t do any good. I did my homework and was the only one on the [Landmark Land] Board to vote against the purchase of the savings & loan. And when we voted [in the affirmative] to purchase the savings & loan, I resigned from the Board. I understood financing and what was happening. We already had a very strong financial partner at the time—Olympia and York out of Canada. They helped us get a line of credit worth $70 to $100 million. Just pay attention. The savings & loan deal was a boondoggle.

GNM: Would it also be another lesson to say don’t do something unnecessarily? It sounds like the savings & loan purchase wasn’t necessary to accomplish what you were trying to achieve.
Vossler: To some of our Board members, the idea was to borrow money from our savings & loan and pay interest to ourselves. It’s called ‘greed.’

GNM: So, maybe that’s another lesson.
Vossler: We are in a different situation today. Landmark Golf has many excellent golf projects.

GNM: You got to know Ben Hogan very well. Will you share some of your experiences because I know he was a special person in your life.
Vossler: I would have loved to been him. He was a strict disciplinarian with himself and everyone around him. I would have hated to caddy for him. He was humble down deep.
He was a physical specimen. He was all muscle. People don’t realize he had huge calves. I don’t know how he worked out. I never saw him do a push-up or anything, but he had a body like steel. So, he was disciplined both mentally and physically.

I do not know anything bad about Ben Hogan. He’s treated galleries differently than Arnold Palmer has treated them. But he had an objective, and that was only to shoot the lowest score on the hole he was playing. He wasn’t worried about whether you were in the right place or not. I must have played, at least, 20 rounds of competitive golf with him. I got to play a round in the U.S. Open with him. He was consistent. That’s another trait that he had. He was very, very consistent.

He very rarely knew what you shot on the golf course. I can tell you one story. That round I played with him was in the [U.S.] Open in 1959 at Winged Foot. The greens were ‘bowl-shaped,’ and a lot of the holes were set up that I either had to hit a long iron or fairway wood to the green. Before the tournament, I had asked him, ‘Hey, pro, how do you play this golf course when the greens are bowl-shaped? I would rather have the ball roll off where I could pitch back up.’

He said, ‘Well, if I were you and it worried you, if I had a 4-wood to the green, I would use a 3-iron and lay-up in front of the green.’ As luck would have it, who do you think I got paired with? Ben Hogan. The first hole at Winged Foot is two wood shots for me, Par 4. It had rained the night before, so the fairways were pretty soft. He out-drove me about the width of this room [which is about 12 to 15 yards]. I wanted to hit that 4-wood to the green so bad, but I didn’t do it. I took out a 3-iron and hit it short of the green. He walked up, took four or five steps, took out his wood—POW—hit it right to the middle of the green. I said, ‘Pro, what did you tell me about this?’ He said, ‘I’m better than you are.’ True story.

GNM: How did that make you feel?
Vossler: I’ll finish that up. As we played, I shot lower than him that day. I shot 70 and I think he shot 72. We didn’t have pressrooms in those days. You guys had to chase us down. I was sitting in the locker room when we finished and Ben said, ‘Let’s go have a beer.’ We’re sitting on the bench and here come about ten of you writers. They wanted to know how we did this or that. Since I beat him by a couple of shots, they were asking all the questions of me not him. Since they weren’t asking him any questions, he finally said to me, ‘What the hell did you shoot?’ I said, ‘You kept my score!’ He said, ‘But I don’t know what you shot.’ I looked at him, ‘I shot 70.’

GNM: Did he have any reaction?
Vossler: No. He kept my score and didn’t even know what I shot.

GNM: The stereotype that he didn’t talk much during a round, is that true?
Vossler: He didn’t have much to say.

GNM: As close as you were, I think you mentioned once to me that he either said one word to you during a round of golf or winked, and that was it. Do you remember that?
Vossler: Yes, I remember it very well. Every once in awhile, he might say ‘Good shot, fellow.’ He called you ‘fellow.’ He never called me ‘Ernie’ in my life. It was ‘fellow.’ But I had nothing but respect for him. I never saw him mistreat anybody. Even when a gallery person got out of place, he would get a marshal or someone to move him.

GNM: How do you define ‘success’?
Vossler: That’s a tough question. [Pause] It’s a different thing in different people’s eyes. Some people are limited to a certain degree of success, and that’s all they can do and they’re very successful. You take a guy like Phil Knight of Nike, who is a friend of mine, and obviously there is no telling what success is to him. I define success as doing what you want to do. If you do what you want to do, you’ll be successful. If you’re doing something you don’t want to do, you are going to fail.

GNM: How about an update on Landmark Golf? What are some of the projects you are currently working on?
Vossler: We manage two facilities here in the desert—Shadow Hills and SilverRock. We manage a project in Fallbrook, The Golf Club of California; and we manage a project in Pahrump, which is a suburb of Las Vegas, Mountain Falls Golf Club. We are in the planning stages and working on a big 4,000-acre project in Riverside County with the Glorious Land Company. The property is six to eight miles east of Indio called Paradise Valley. We’ve been working for the owners five or six years, and they are very honorable. Four golf courses are part of the design. We’re also involved in Paradise Ridge in Scottsdale, Arizona.

GNM: Ernie, do you still have a multitude of TV sets in one location and simultaneously watch different sports events?
Vossler: I’ve got a cabinet that has six TV sets in it.

GNM: How is it possible to watch six different sports events at the same time? How do you learn to do that?
Vossler: They’re not different sports events, for one thing. It’s a situation that allows me to watch pro football or college football.

GNM: So, you can watch six different football games at the same time?
Vossler: Yes.

GNM: To me, that’s an art form. Not everybody can do that well.
Vossler: It’s not hard. I promise you. I understand football very well. That’s my hobby.

GNM: You have a long time love affair with the Palm Springs area, correct?
Vossler: When I arrived in the Palm Springs area to live permanently to develop property, I never once thought about living anywhere else. I’ve had a lot of opportunities. I think this is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. You couldn’t make me leave. I haven’t told many people this story. I originally came out here on Ben Hogan’s recommendation. I’m trying to learn to play golf [in Texas], practicing like hell and playing with Hogan now and then. He said, ‘What are you going to do this winter? I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘You’re not going to learn to play golf here [in Texas]. You need to go to Palm Springs. I have a friend that has a house at Thunderbird,’ and there wasn’t but three courses here at that time. ‘He’s got a little guest house out there; I’ll call him and see if you can come stay in it.’ So, he did and I came out. Loved it. Practiced at Thunderbird everyday. That was in 1954. I learned about the weather and said this is where I want to be. As years went on, I said to Joe that we need to go to Palm Springs. That’s how we got here. One decision we made was we wanted to build a Ben Hogan Golf Club. Ben traveled around the desert for a couple of days looking at property, and came back to Thunderbird. He had his white hat on his knee, dirt fell out of it, and he said, ‘Man, that’s the worse looking properties I’ve ever seen. There ain’t going to be anybody that will build a golf course in any of those places.’

GNM: This is one time Ben was wrong. Thank you, Ernie, for sharing so much of your personal and professional life with us.
Vossler: You’re entirely welcome.