Clayton Cole is part of a very select group, in more ways than one.
He’s one of just six people who have served as head golf professional at Cherry Hills Country Club in the 87-year history of the course. And on Thursday, Cole will become the first member of the Colorado Section PGA to receive the national Bill Strausbaugh Award, given for exemplary mentoring of fellow PGA professionals.
It’s a fitting way to cap a career as a club professional that lasted almost four decades. Cole, who will turn 68 in March, retired in April after a 17-year stint as head pro at Cherry Hills.
Asked where he ranks receiving the Strausbaugh Award among the many honors he’s gotten over the years, Cole said, “The No. 1 position. It’s a national award, my one and only.”
The Englewood resident is scheduled to be feted during the PGA of America Awards event, which is held during the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla. The day before (Wednesday), Colorado PGA executive director Eddie Ainsworth said a contingent from the Colorado Section will host a get-together in Cole’s honor.
“This definitely has meaning for me,” Cole said in an interview before he left for Orlando. “It probably has more meaning because it defines my career in certain respects. I also knew Bill Strausbaugh during the 1970s (Strausbaugh was a golf pro in Maryland). He was a terrific guy at promoting the PGA and PGA pros. He was a great role model. He also had a way of make meeting with him an almost uplifting experience.”
The Strausbaugh Award is given both on a Sectional and national basis to a PGA professional “who, by their day-to-day efforts, has distinguished themselves in mentoring their fellow PGA golf professionals in improving their employment situations and through service to the community.”
Cole certainly fits that bill, having helped 14 of his assistant professionals (11 at Cherry Hills and three at Dallas Country Club, where Cole was head pro from 1974-86) advance to head pro jobs, or something similar. Among those protégés from Cherry Hills are Mike McGetrick, Joe Assell, Mike Clinton, Rudy Zupetz, Jeff Hanson, George Karhoff, Seth Berliner, Kevin Vena and John Ogden, who succeeded Cole as head pro at Cherry Hills last April.
“Those guys did a great job once they got head jobs, and that’s very meaningful to me,” Cole said. “It’s nice to see.”
Cole and two of those former assistants, Assell and Clinton, started the GolfTEC instructional business in 1995, and Assell and Clinton still run it. The idea was hatched when Cole bought a $25,000 swing motion trainer for Cherry Hills that wasn’t being kept busy enough by members. Cole subsequently recruited Zupetz to use the swing trainer for other golfers during the off-season, and when the move paid off monetarily, Assell and Clinton took over. Cole said he still owns some stock in the company, which has now given more than 1.5 million lessons nationwide, according to GolfTEC.com.
For his many accomplishments in mentoring, Cole received the Strausbaugh Award from the Colorado Section PGA in the fall of 2007. The Strausbaugh is one of seven PGA Section awards Cole has garnered during his 38 years as a club pro, a career which started with a four-year stint as an assistant pro at Cherry Hills under Warren Smith. Appropriately, one of the honors for Cole was the Warren Smith Award for lifetime achievement in 2005. Cole also was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, in 2003.
The Strausbaugh Award Cole received from the Section led to him becoming one of 41 candidates for the national honor. After being named one of the finalists, he received a call shortly after the PGA Championship notifying him of his national award.
“My reaction was, “˜Wow, I never thought I’d win a national award,'” Cole said. Though Cole retired from Cherry Hills in April, he anticipates still staying active in the golf business in some respect, especially given the recent economic downturn. He worked for three months on a project in Bozeman, Mont., and hopes to do other golf-related jobs in the future.
“I am looking to do something,” he said. “I want to be active. I think I did the right thing (retiring); you shouldn’t second-guess yourself. But I just want to make the best going forward.”
When the Palmer Cup, a Ryder Cup-like competition between the best college players from the U.S. and Europe, is contested at Cherry Hills June 3-5, Cole will serve as tournament chairman. In that regard, he notes that Arnold Palmer himself has said that, barring the unforeseen, he plans to attend the event.
