On Tuesday I received a call from a gentleman, Vaughn Halyard, saying he wanted to visit the club and get some photographs. Thinking it would be sometime next season, I got a text Wednesday saying he was flying into Atlanta on Friday and would be at the Club by 12:30pm! A close friend of our Club Architect, Ron Forse, Vaughn is currently doing some historical documentation of several golf courses, helping Ron with his marketing. Today, he took many still photographs as well as some drone photography of the golf course and our recent projects. As Ron Forse says, "Vaughn is completely immersed in the golf world and extremely knowledgeable about marketing." Today, he is on staff at Golf Magazine.
Vaughn is a member of the Donald Ross S0ciety and is a board member/Green Chairman at Rapid City Country Club in Rapid City, Iowa. He has a passion for golf course architecture and spearheaded the restoration efforts at Rapid City CC, pushing it into the top 100 golf clubs in America, and ultimately getting the first USGA event in the State of Iowa. Interestingly, he spent most of his actual career in the music industry, where he was the recording studio producer for Stevie Wonder, Ramsey Lewis and Prince. He has his own marketing and media company called Story Lounge, doing documentaries for Formula 1 racing in Europe and ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries.
Below is a Link to an interview that was done with Vaughn about work that was done at Cedar Rapids CC by architect, Ron Pritchard, the same architect who over saw the 1998 greens renovation as well as the 1996 Highlands CC Master Plan.
CLICK HERE for that Interview!
It was a great afternoon spending it on the golf course with Mr. Halyard, talking about everything from golf to music!