Kiawah Island Golf Resort: Roger Warren, President

Roger Warren, ex-high school teacher and basketball coach, entered the PGA of America apprentice program at the age of 38. Fourteen years later, he was elected President of the PGA. These days, he oversees one of the most luxurious and beautiful resorts in the world: Kiawah Island Golf Resort.  He was gracious enough to consent to an interview during my stay there in late March, 2010.

Visit Kiawah’s web site and pack your clubs!

Golf Conversations: Can you foresee a time in the future when the PGA championship might go back to match play?

Roger Warren: Short answer. No.  I think that the tour player enjoys the stroke play format in determining a major championship.

GC: Roger, yours is a real Horatio Alger story: you were a high school teacher and coach for 18 years until you got involved in golf and eventually became president of the PGA of America … and now you’re president of Kiawah Island Resort.  Do you ever stop and pinch yourself?

RW: Every day. My wife and I talk about this a lot when we look back on it. We’ve been married 38 years and we see where we started; she was 19, I was 22 and just out of college. I don’t think either one of us could have dreamed that we could be at the place where we are now. And for me, it’s been a function of two things: having an opportunity present itself and then, I guess, having the courage to go after it and deliver on it. But my success has had a profound effect on me as to what I think my responsibilities are as the leader of this organization: to provide our employees with similar opportunities that I’ve had for professional growth.

We want to promote from within as much as we can. We are proud of the quality of the people we get, we want to give them the opportunity to expand themselves, if they can, to reach for more and provide them with the professional education they need, the learning experience they need. So I don’t get very far from my teaching and coaching background as I do this job or as I did the job at the PGA. It always seems to be a part of what we do, we’re never done teaching, we’re never done learning, and I think that the enthusiasm and passion that the people have here is evident as you’ve witnessed. We want people here who really care and want to do their job.

GC: When did you first start playing golf?

RW: One way or another I’ve had a job in golf ever since I was 12 years old. A neighbor across the street was a local elementary school principal and his summer job was to run a driving range near my hometown of Galesburg, Illinois. He allowed me to be the guy who picked up the range balls but that wasn’t the attraction of golf at that point; it was the driving his big red tractor at the age of 12! But I also started hitting balls at the range and they had a miniature golf course there, too. I went from that job to the local golf course working on the grounds crew during college. So I’ve played and have had interest in golf since I was a kid. And I still go back and play that golf course in Galesburg when I go to visit my family. It brings back great memories of when I was a kid.

GC: Does the course look smaller?

RW: Yeah, but it’s still hard to score because the greens are so small. It’s a fun golf course and I still see people playing there that I knew when I was a kid. Of course, they’re a bit older now but they’re still playing and the golf course is still such an integral part of the community.

GC: Tell me a bit about your college years and what you did after graduation.

RW: I played soccer in college at Western Illinois University where I was a physical education major. I was a walk-on to the basketball team but I got cut so the basketball coach suggested to the soccer coach that I come out for his team. I’d never played soccer before but I ended up ended up earning the first team’s goalie’s job for three years. When I graduated we moved to the Chicago area where my wife is from and I got a teaching job at a junior high school. I coached basketball there for five years and that position led to an assistant varsity coach job at a high school. Four or five years later, I became the head coach.  But soon thereafter, I left to become a golf professional.

Let me explain: I had just gotten the head basketball job, the one I always wanted. Around the same time, the director of golf position at the golf course where I worked during summers opened up. And I just decided that I wanted a career in golf. So I applied and competed against eight PGA members for that job and got it. I wasn’t a PGA member at that time.

While I was director of golf, I still continued to coach basketball at a local high school for two years and then I started the basketball program with the Illinois Math and Science Academy. It was a new residential community for bright kids and they needed a basketball program so I was the varsity basketball coach there for three years. My kids had the best GPA, SAT, and ACT scores in the state but some of them couldn’t remember where to set a pick and roll off. (Laughing)

GC: What was the name of the course were you were director of golf?

RW: The Village Links at Glen Ellyn in Illinois … a 27-hole, municipal golf course. As soon as I got the job I realized that to have any credibility in the golf business I needed to become a member of the PGA of America.  So at age 38, I entered the PGA apprentice program.

GC: Is that when you knew you were going to pursue a full-time career in golf?

RW: Yes, and that if I wanted to go beyond the position at The Village Links I would have to become a PGA member. Two years later, in 1990 I accomplished that goal. I was elected in 1991 to the board of the Illinois section of the PGA. In 1992, I was elected secretary of the section, I served two years there. Then I served two years as the vice president and two years as the president.

In 1998, I ran for national election as secretary of the PGA of America and lost by three votes. I gave it another try in 2000 and was the only candidate that ran … the only time in history that one candidate ran for secretary. I won unanimously in 2000, in 2002 I was elected Vice-President, and in 2004 through 2006, I was president of the PGA of America. It was probably the fastest move from becoming a member to president of the PGA that ever occurred and I was fortunate. A lot of things came together: I was the right age, had the right experience, and had an ability to communicate. It was an amazing experience, one that I’ll never forget.

GC: You had quite the meteoric rise to the top, didn’t you?

RW: I think things like this only happen in America. My parents always told me you should believe you can do anything, but I thought that was just parental b.s., something parents tell their kids. Over time I realized that it’s true, but you have to have help. I had people who believed in me, I had those people who selected me as director of golf. I was given a chance to open a new golf course at Seven Bridges Golf Course five years later and be the general manager and start from scratch. That was a great opportunity. I’m also proud of the fact that every time someone showed confidence in me, I’ve been able to deliver. And deliver a product that’s made a difference.

GC: Did you have any financial experience in running organizations like the PGA or  golf courses?

RW: No. I had gone from the organized, regimented routine of being a teacher in high school to all of a sudden having to manage your own time and plan your own day. I felt like I was drowning the first six months. I had to understand how to organize the employees; I had to understand the financial aspects of the business; I had a bunch of events that I had to run, and I just gutted it out. I asked a lot of questions. I wasn’t afraid to go out and talk to people who had experience and ask them how they did it and what were some of the things I should be aware of. Those people were meaningful to me at that point in my life and I’ve never forgotten them because they were willing to share.

When I came here to Kiawah in 2003 as the director of golf, it was an opportunity to go from one golf facility to five. And going from the northern part of the country to the south, I had to learn about the different grasses. I didn’t know about southern grasses, I didn’t know about overseeding.

GC: Did you know about grits?

RW: (laughing) I didn’t know about grits but I found out early on that I liked them! I learned how to take the staff from five organizations and put them together and have them work together. That experience more than anything allowed me to  move from the director of golf to the president of the resort. But again, I didn’t know anything about the hospitality side, I had to learn all the details about how to run a hotel, how to run the Villa program, how to formulate a room rate and a group rate, etc.  Fortunately, I had a lot of good people in place who were smart and I wasn’t so arrogant or egotistical to think that I couldn’t learn from them.

GC: Did you have a similar learning curve as president for the PGA when it came to financial negotiations with television networks?

RW: The president of the PGA is a voluntary position – it’s unpaid.  We have a great organization in Palm Beach Gardens that handles the business side of the PGA. The role of president and officer of the PGA is dominated by the fact that we’re representing 28,000 fellow PGA members across the country. What we’re trying to do with the resources of the PGA of America is to make sure that their lives are better, their jobs are better, that they’re getting the education they need, that they’re getting the support that they need to grow their businesses.

GC: What’s your take on the state of golf now?

RW: I think we ought to separate the state of the game into two categories: growing the game and participating in the game is a separate category from the supply/demand situation with golf. We have an oversupply of golf courses; we got sidetracked back in the ‘90s when we bought into some pretty poor data about what was happening in golf.  We believed that there was an unlimited supply of golfers coming into the funnel; because of that, we thought we could open a new golf course a day forever.

GC: Was that data based on the infamous National Golf Foundation report?

RW: That was one of the reports that was always cited as justification for why we could continue to build golf courses. And it turned out to be wrong. I think it was because the data wasn’t as accurate as it should have been. One of the things we did when I was an officer at the PGA was we put together a PGA performance track, which is an industry-used statistical research tool that comes directly from golf professionals and facilities. We know how to collect data, we know how to get it from the people on the ground running the facilities. I think our data collection today is better than it’s ever been which is going to help us make more informed decisions going forward. I believe you’ll see a continued reduction in the number of golf facilities in this country in the next two to three years. It may go down by 10 or 15%. There aren’t enough new golfers coming into the pipeline now to support our current supply of golf courses.

The other side, the difficulty of learning golf, that’s been consistent throughout the history of this game. We’ve had no growth in the last few years; it’s been kind of flat which I think is a win, frankly, when you consider the state of the economy.

In addition, demographics have changed. Today people are starting families when they’re 30, 35, and 40. Those people, in my generation and my parents’ generation, used to be out playing golf every Saturday and Sunday.  Now they’re with their kids on the weekend at soccer games and baseball games; they don’t have the time for golf that previous generations had.

So we had to adjust: how do we offer this game to those people so that it fits their lifestyles? You’re seeing more early rounds, you’re seeing more twilight rounds, more nine-hole rounds. The game is always going to be hard but once you’ve had the experience of hitting the ball right on the sweet spot, that gets into your blood and you’re hooked. Our job right now is to give people the opportunity to try and get hooked on the game, to get excited about it and then provide them with continued learning opportunities. That’s what Play Golf America has done since mid-2000, that’s what Getting Ready For Golf is doing now. I think that’s the role the PGA of America plays in this country. We will continue to be the primary teachers of the game and keep golfers in the game up, let them have fun and grow their participation.

GC: Do you think the golf ball is going too for?

RW: No I don’t. I think it’s great; I love it.

GC: But don’t you think the golf ball is rendering some of our older courses obsolete?

RW: I challenge that statement. We hear those comments all the time. I don’t think they’re justified statistically or in fact. Scoring average isn’t that much lower for the tour players over the last 10 or 15 years. Yes, they’re hitting the ball further but I don’t think golf courses have become obsolete.  Look at the U.S. Open that’s going to be played at Merion in 2013.  It’s got to be one of the shortest golf courses they’ve ever played on. But it will be a difficult course for them to score on.

There’s a lot of stuff that gets thrown out there that needs to be challenged more because I’m not sure these statements are accurate.  Then people who don’t know much about golf start repeating these statements and keep perpetuating them. The golf ball today allows the average player to enjoy the game more.  The equipment that we have allows the average player to enjoy the game more. This game is about the average player; if we start making decisions about the game’s equipment based on the elite .5 percent of tour players, then we’re going in the wrong direction.

GC: But Jack Nicklaus has been saying for years that the golf ball is going too far.

RW: I always find it ironic when you hear Jack Nicklaus say that because he was the dominant player in distance in his career. Most of us as we get older, we look back and think that our time in life was the best and everything else was a travesty. And I think a lot of older players look at it that way. I’d like to have a discussion with Mr. Nicklaus face-to-face because I don’t agree with him.

GC: And I’d like to be sitting there when you have that discussion. (laughter) You’ve been to many wonderful golf courses around the world. Aside from the great courses you have here at Kiawah, can you name three or four of your favorite courses?

RW: My all-time favorite course is Medinah No. 3 in Chicago.  It’s hosted U.S. Opens, and the PGA championships and will host the Ryder Cup in 2012.  It’s got these huge oak trees all along the fairways. It’s an unbelievable setting and it’s a challenging golf course.

GC: What about courses in Great Britain?

RW: I’ve never played St. Andrews. I don’t think you can have a list of the great courses and not include St. Andrews. And I played some smaller courses like Prestwick which was such a unique experience the way golf courses were signed back then. But my favorite course is still Bunker Links in Galesburg, Illinois where I grew up. It’s fun.

GC: Here’s a question I often like to ask PGA pros: does plumb bobbing work?

RW: Not for me. (Laughing) I know people who’ve used it, but it’s never worked for me.

GC: When golfers think of Kiawah, they think of the Ocean Course, but there’s a lot more stuff going on here, isn’t there? And I’m not trying to shill for your resort.

RW: The hard thing for me is to not sound like a shill for the resort because of my position but I try to remain as objective as I can so we don’t remain satisfied with where we are. I’ll go to other places and experience them, but every time I come back to this island, I’m struck by its uniqueness. A lot of credit goes to the developer because they established a plan here that places high value on maintaining as much of the natural environment as possible. The setbacks of the homes on the oceanfront go back much further back than they would at other communities.  The houses were put back into the trees; they left the natural dunes and they didn’t encroach upon the beach. This certainly reduced the amount of money they could make but it expanded the beauty of the island.

As a resort, we are very attuned to our environmental responsibilities. You can see things here in nature that you may never see anywhere else. You can hike, take a canoe or kayak, ride a bike on miles of paths, really get close to nature. Of course, you can also play on five different golf courses designed by five different architects.

The interesting thing about architects is that they are artists.  They take their concept of how the game should be played and place it on the canvas of the ground that they have. And certainly today there has been a value placed on those architects who can do it in the more natural way. If they’re fortunate enough to be given a piece of land that allows that.

But there have been a lot of great architects who’ve taken some pretty common land and have done some things that have made them into unique golf courses And I think that’s what happened here at Kiawah. We are pretty flat here. Each of the architects created an experience that’s unique. All of the courses are fun, all have memorable holes, all of them have the distinctive characteristics of the architects who conceived them.

GC: Do you have any desire to design a golf course? You’ve done so much in golf and I’m wondering why not try your hand at creating a course?

RW: No. I don’t consider myself to be artistically creative. Having spent a lot of time with Pete Dye on the golf course, I know that he just looks at things differently than I do and I think that’s a gift that architects have. It’s their perspective and perception of what they’re seeing. Pete Dye can walk across a green right now and he can tell you by walking with his feet the drainage pattern, changes in elevation because he can see it and feel it. And I can’t do that. And I think it’s presumptuous to assume that anybody in golf necessarily has that creative gift.

GC: If golf cart rental income wasn’t a factor, would you like to see golf in the United States be more of a walking game?

RW: Yes with a caveat: It’s never going to happen. The reason it’s not is the trouble in this country with the overall physical condition of our people. If we decide to make golf a walking game it would be great for them because from a health perspective that’s one of the best things they can do for themselves. And yes, I think the game is enjoyed more when you walk.  At Kiawah, the cart is included in the greens fee whether you walk or not. The Ocean Course is walking only.

If we went across this country and said were going to charge less money and take away your cart, I think there would be a hue and cry from the average player; they’d say “where’s my cart, don’t take it away from me this is a social game it’s not just about the golf.” And that’s the reality of the way golf is today.

GC: If you could change one thing about how golf is conducted in the U.S., what would that be?

RW: I’ve never been asked that question before.

GC: (Laughing) See? I told you this wasn’t going to be a waste of time!

RW: I wouldn’t change anything about the game. I think the game is pure. I sometimes think that the powers that be in golf overthink things and make it too complicated. We had so many multiple entities in the past that fought for recognition as the integral players in the game … and this created conflict.

But today we’re as close as we’ve ever been in the history of the game in this country in working together for the good of golf. There’s a movement now called We Are Golf where the course superintendents, the Club Managers Association, the Golf Course Owners Association, and the PGA of America are all going to represent the game in Washington with a unified front. I think that’s a huge step forward.

I also believe that there are people in our federal government who don’t understand the golf business … they don’t understand the value of our business, for the amount of jobs and revenue that we produce. We’ve got to get the federal government out of the way of American business to let American business succeed. There’s too much intervention right now. And that’s a political statement on my part that I’m comfortable making.

GC: In terms of the golf industry, how is the federal government intervening?

RW: I’ll express it in terms of golf and the hospitality industry: when federally elected officials feel comfortable making a statement where they want to tell particular groups and businesses in this country that it’s inappropriate for them to do business, I think that intervention is wrong.

When the federal government said that AIG and companies like that should not come to resorts like mine to do business, they hurt my business and I think they were wrong to do it. A lot of times they don’t think about what they say. When Hurricane Katrina happened and the federal government set the standards by which businesses would receive federal funds, they excluded massage parlors, some other businesses, and golf courses. That had a detrimental impact on the economy of that region because they didn’t understand the game and they made decisions that had many unintended negative consequences for businesses. I think we in the golf industry have to do a better job in educating government officials about our game’s positive impact on the economy … and they need to understand the gravity of the decisions that they make. We were hurt significantly by comments from  Washington about our business.

GC: That was the Barney Frank thing with the Northern Trust Open last year?

RW: It was.  And President Obama making comments about Las Vegas; he’s done it twice. Well, Las Vegas is an American business with a lot of American people who have jobs there and the more they talk about not going to Las Vegas, there were people who lost their jobs there. It is irresponsible to make those kind of comments; they think they’re on this idealistic platform of being right and don’t think about the ramifications of their comments. So I just think it’s reflective of an environment in Washington where they need to spend less time getting in the way of American business and do more to support us so we can help ourselves.

GC: In the case of AIG, they spent $405,000 of taxpayers’ money to entertain clients at a golf course a few weeks after the federal government bailed them out for $65 billion.  Do you think Washington was wrong to criticize AIG for that?

RW: I don’t think that was wrong at all. If that had been where it stopped it would have been okay. But it spread to other businesses who didn’t receive any money from the federal government, but they were afraid in that environment because of the frenzy that the federal government created and the media buying into it that any company that did it would be looked upon unfavorably.

Many companies thought they’d be tarred by the same brush as AIG because they took the TARP money. Even today as people pay back TARP money, they feel like somebody’s going to come out from… when you have media camped outside of luxury facilities trying to see who’s going in… and it had nothing to do with TARP money … it was just the media trying to create a frenzy about luxury resorts. It hurt the luxury resort business to the point where it shouldn’t happen in this country. And that was the problem and it’s still an ongoing problem.

I don’t know if we’ve learned the lesson but I think it’s something that we in our industry have got to realize: that we’ve got to be in Washington as a player, making sure that the people who are making these decisions are informed. That they don’t make decisions that have unintended negative consequences.

GC: Do you think that because President Obama likes to play golf, you might have a more understanding friend there as opposed to someone who knew nothing about the game?

RW: I have no reason to believe that that would be the case. I think that the fact that he likes to play the game is a plus — any time you can show the leader of the free world playing a game that we love, that is really important to our business. But I don’t think his priorities are going to be around golf. He’s got too many other priorities like getting elected. If golf were about getting elected, he’d really be happy about it. But being seen playing golf, I don’t think he sees this as something that’s going to help him get elected so it will be a low priority.

GC: And I heard that he counts all of  his strokes, too.

RW: Unlike other Democratic presidents. (Laughter)

GC: When you go on vacation, is playing golf involved? And does your wife play golf?

RW: She does. We haven’t been on a real vacation in I can’t remember when.  We do go to some of the PGA events though. But right now if we went on vacation, golf probably wouldn’t be involved.  We’d go to someplace like Italy or New Zealand just to be tourists. We haven’t done that in such a long time I think that’s what we would like to do.

GC: What are some your interests besides golf?

RW: I love to read fiction. I just finished the Twilight Series which I found entertaining. I like to work out.  My wife and I like to spend time together, we like to go to Charleston and have dinner

GC: Why is golf such a difficult game to learn …especially for adults who take it up later in life?

RW: Because we as adults try to learn the game as a cerebral process and kids learn it by feel. You put a club in a kid’s hands and they start swinging, they don’t think about clubhead position.  By trial and error, they’ll work through it and figure out what works.

But adults don’t trust ourselves enough to do that when we learn the game. When I used to teach beginner adults, I used to give them as little swing information as possible. I’d get their hands on the club, get them set up properly, and then kind of work their way through finding it. The biggest challenge I had was their ego more than anything else. Adults are so concerned about how they look and if somebody else sees them hit a bad shot …they feel embarrassed. We have all these emotions as adults that work against us.  Kids never feel that. A kid could miss 10 times in a row and get angry at himself but he doesn’t care if anybody sees it or not.  He hits the good one and he wants to come back and do it again. There is an emotional development that happens with kids in their approach to learning golf that’s awfully hard for adults to emulate.