How much does Pete Lis like working with the Rules of Golf?
So much that he once had them ingrained on his chest.
Well, sort of.
When Lis and Dustin Jensen first worked for the CGA, they shared an apartment. Even now, Jensen can’t help but chuckle when recalling one episode regarding Lis.
“He was a diehard about the Rules of Golf,” said Jensen, now the golf coach and associate director of alumni relations at Jamestown College in North Dakota. “He sat out on the patio at our apartment and was reading the original Rules of Golf or a book like that and happened to fall asleep. He was catching a suntan and had his shirt off. He fell asleep with the book laying on his stomach, and he ended up having the outline of the book burned into his stomach. We thought that was pretty funny. He loved the Rules of Golf to the point that he would burn them into his chest.”
Considering Lis’ deep involvement with the Rules, who could be surprised that after being highly respected in his seven years as the CGA’s director of rules and competitions, he’s earned his way onto a bigger stage?
After wrapping up an almost-decade-long stint with the CGA on Friday (April 19), Lis will go to work — starting Monday — as an LPGA Tour rules official. In fact, he’s scheduled to make his debut at next week’s North Texas LPGA Shootout in Irving.
So how well does Lis (pictured) know the Rules of Golf?
He has gotten ever so close to perfection — without quite reaching it — the last couple of times he’s taken the PGA/USGA Rules of Golf exam.
He said he’s scored 99 on the test twice, tantalizingly close to perfect scores. Considering a 92 or better is good enough to qualify for officiating at a U.S. Open, a U.S. Women’s Open or a U.S. Senior Open, a 99 is pretty rarefied territory.
“He’s as good as I’ve ever seen in a Rules situation — and I mean that,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate. “He’s like a five-tool athlete; he can do it all. He understands the Rules and the principles behind them. He’s a people person and he works well in a group. And he’s level-headed.
“It’s tough to lose him, but it’s gratifying to see people like Pete and Thomas Pagel (a CGA staffer from 2003-08 who is now senior director, Rules of Golf & Amateur Status, for the USGA) achieve their goals. It says a lot about them, and about the CGA.”
With Lis not being officially hired by the LPGA Tour until April 1, Mate said that the current CGA staff will handle his tournament and related duties during the 2013 season. CGA director of operations Briena Goldsmith will take the lead in that regard, but Mate and other staffers will be juggling tasks also this year. Then Mate will look to fill Lis’ position in the 2013-14 off-season.
As for Lis, he’ll be one of eight regular LPGA Tour rules officials. In that regard, he’ll be fulfilling a longtime professional aspiration.
“My career goal has been to work on a tour,” the 32-year-old said. “It’s bittersweet (leaving the CGA) but it’s the perfect time in my career to have this opportunity, especially as a single guy. But the Colorado golf community has been great to me. (The CGA staff) is like my family. I’ve gotten to know them not only professionally but personally. I owe this opportunity to the CGA and USGA for taking a chance on me as a Boatwright intern in 2003. They taught me so much.”
As with the majority of the CGA staff, Lis came on board as a USGA P.J. Boatwright intern. The internship “is designed to give experience to individuals who are interested in pursuing a career in golf administration, while assisting state and regional golf associations, as well as other non-profit organizations dedicated to the promotion of amateur golf, on a short-term, entry-level basis.”
Before he received the internship at the CGA, Lis had been an assistant golf professional in Massachusetts, and he had never before been to Colorado. But of the five or six state and regional golf associations he was interested in for a Boatwright internship, the CGA was the one that responded to his queries.
So Lis started his year-long internship in February 2003, and late in 2004 he joined the CGA’s full-time staff as assistant director of course rating and handicapping, a post held held until 2006. Then he took took over the rules and competitions job he held for seven years.
“Every event I was doing what I love to do,” he said. “On the golf course is my favorite place to be, talking to players and hearing stories.”
But it certainly wasn’t all easy. After all, Lis often had to make the final call regarding enforcement of the Rules and handing out penalties. Lis wasn’t afraid of making those tough calls, even if it involved penalizing a defending champion at the HealthOne Colorado Open, or some players in contention at a CGA championship.
Although Lis sometimes received “blowback” in such situations, he knows it comes with the territory.
Overall, he’ll look back on his experience with the CGA very fondly. And based on the feedback Lis has gotten since telling people he was leaving to take the LPGA job, the feeling is mutual.
“I’ve heard from staff, rules officials, players, and they’ve all been very supportive,” Lis said. “It’s been overwhelming. They’ve thanked me for my time here, and I’ve thanked them for helping me learn. I’m going to miss everyone in Colorado, though I’m going to be around for a while.”
Indeed, Lis said he plans to live in Colorado until probably the late summer or early fall. And, yes, he said he is scheduled to work the Solheim Cup Aug. 16-18 at Colorado Golf Club, where the best female golfers from the U.S. and Europe will square off in their biennial matches. Sometime after that, Lis plans to move to the Orlando area, where he has some family, and which isn’t far from LPGA headquarters in Daytona Beach.
In the meantime, given that he has off weeks here and there, Lis said he may even volunteer for a CGA championship or a USGA qualifier sometime this year.
Speaking of tournaments Lis has worked over the years, some have left an indelible memory. Eric Wilkinson, now the CGA director of junior competitions, remembers Lis getting his Rules cart stuck in the mud at Heritage Todd Creek Golf Club during the 2010 CGA Senior Match Play.
“I think in his efforts to get the cart out, he completely caked himself in mud,” Wilkinson recalled.
Wilkinson also remembers working the 5A boys state high school tournament with Lis at Eisenhower Golf Club in 2008. When the two arrived at the gate to the Air Force Academy, the sentry wouldn’t let them pass since the tags on the CGA van had expired. The guard didn’t believe Lis when he said they were there to run the tournament, so one of the club professionals came to the gate and drove Lis and Wilkinson in so Lis could conduct the rules meeting a day before the tournament started.
Wilkinson recalls Pete saying, “How the (heck) are you supposed to convince a guard with an M-16 that you are there to run a golf tournament?”
To avoid another problem when they returned for the first day of the tournament, Lis drove all the way back to Greenwood Village that night to switch out the vans.
It’s all in a day’s work for a person who lives by the Rules.
