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The Desert Sun Semptember 8, 2005
La Quinta's Vossler part of first PGA Hall class
By Larry Bohnnan

INDIAN WELLS, CA - Ernie Vossler may be known in the Coachella Valley and the rest of the golf world as a developer of high-profile golf courses. Few remember Vossler started his golf career as a tour player.

"He was a very good player," said Johnny Pott, a fellow player from the 1950s and 1960s who now works for Vossler at Indian Wells-based Landmark Golf. "But at the time when we were playing, no one retired from tournament golf. You kind of built yourself up to something else."

For Vossler, the "something else" was teaching and course development. It is for his contributions to golf throughout his career that the La Quinta resident is being inducted tonight as part of the inaugural class of the PGA Golf Professional Hall of Fame.

"It's an unbelievable deal for me," said Vossler, 76. "I've just done my work all my life. When I got the notice, I didn't believe it. I wasn't an outstanding player. The only thing I'd ever done was a little teaching."

Vossler is one of 122 golf professionals dating back to the 1910s who will be inducted at the PGA Historical Center at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The PGA of America's Golf Professional of the Year in 1967, Vossler is being honored for a wide range of contributions to the game.

"Your dedication to and passion for the game of golf, our association and the people involved in this great game, along with your past service and accomplishments, are examples of why you are receiving this esteemed honor," said PGA of American President Roger Warren in the letter announcing the honor to Vossler.

Other players with Coachella Valley ties being inducted include a variety of teachers and players including Arnold Palmer, Johnny Revolta, Ben Hogan and Paul Runyan. Bighorn Golf Club general manager Warren Smith will also be on hand to watch his father Warren be inducted.

Vossler's induction comes three years after his wife, Marlene Hagge-Vossler, was inducted to the World Golf Hall of Fame for her career as a 26-time LPGA winner and one of the founders of that tour. They may be the only married couple in major Halls of Fame.

Vossler's imprint on desert golf includes developing some of the best-known courses in the Coachella Valley. Along with Joe Walser when both were vice presidents of Landmark Land Company in the 1980s, Vossler developed all three courses at La Quinta Resort and Club and the first four courses at PGA West.

Vossler re-emeged in the 1990s as president of Landmark Golf, which developed the 36-hole Landmark Golf Club in Indio and now manages courses such as Shadow Hills in Indio and SilverRock Resort in La Quinta.
But it is the people he has met, not the courses he has built, that mean most to Vossler in his career.

"That's been the most fun, whether PGA West is the best real estate project in golf or Oak Tree (in his native Oklahoma) is the best golf project," Vossler said. "It's the people, the relationship with their golf games."

In particular, Vossler cherishes his long-time teaching and mentor relationship with Champions Tour member Gil Morgan.

"I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't run into him," Vossler said. "He is the joy of my life."

Vossler first met Morgan in the 1960s at the request of Morgan's father.

"They came down to Quail Creek (in Oklahoma City) and stayed two days. I watched him hit balls and play nine holes," Vossler said. "I told his father I thought he was a cinch on the tour."

Morgan completed his education and became an optometrist before joining the tour, and his teaching relationship and friendship with Vossler remained. In addition to Morgan, Vossler has taught numerous pros, including Champions Tour winner Mike McCullough.

Vossler, whose life started when he was left as an infant on the doorstep of a couple in Tulsa, Okla., joined the tour in 1955 thanks in part to letters written on his behalf by contemporaries and friends Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson. Vossler won five small tournaments in eight years, but he wanted a more stable income to support his wife and four children.

When fellow pro Charlie Coe said he wanted to build a course on a piece of land in Oklahoma City, Vossler took on the job and built Quail Creek.

"I liked it a hell of a lot better than I liked playing the tour," Vossler said. "But I didn't know how to open the cash register. So I hired Joe Walser."

From that partnership came courses such as Oak Tree in Edmond, Okla. and Kiawah Island in South Carolina, as well as the Coachella Valley courses.

"He approached the development of Quail Creek, and all his courses, really, the way he approached his golf game," said Pott, who has overseen the construction of many Landmark courses. "He just puts 1,000 percent into being a perfectionist."

Pott said some of Vossler's innovations, including the bundling of a green fee to include golf carts and range balls, have changed the world of golf developments.

Whatever the reasons for his induction, Vossler still expresses surprise at the honor.

"I never thought there was a place like this for someone like me," he said. "Even though I got the golf professional of the year, I never thought I'd get something like this. I can't believe it still."