JohnCinnamon | atCarmel.com

Posted May 13, 2013 - No Comment

ExtravaBandza!

The Second Annual ExtravaBandza!, a Carmel Clay Schools showcase concert featuring 1,150 middle and high school band students, will be held on May 20th in the Carmel High School Gymnasium at 6:30 p.m.

The concert will feature two special numbers performed by all 1,150 students in a mass band: The National Anthem and The Stars and Stripes Forever. In addition, students will perform in groups of grade and ability level: 6th graders; 7th graders; 8th graders; 9th graders and CHS Wind Symphony III and IV; CHS Wind Symphonies I and II; and a solo performance by Wind Symphony I. The percussion sections of the mass ensemble will also present a ‘special’ percussion piece.

Internationally renowned composer, Michael Sweeney, is the guest conductor for the concert. Sweeney is currently Director of Band Publications for Hal Leonard Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of the largest publishers of printed music in the world. Since Sweeney joined the company in 1982, Hal Leonard Corp. has published more than 500 of his compositions and arrangements. He is a 1977 graduate of Indiana University (Bloomington).

ExtravaBandza! will also be the final concert conducted by Richard Saucedo, Carmel High School Performing Arts Chairman and Director of Bands. Saucedo will retire after 30 years of teaching at Carmel High School at the end of May. A reception in honor of Saucedo will be held in the main cafeteria following the concert.

The The National Anthem, which will open the concert, was arranged by Saucedo, with specially-written parts added for 6th – 8th graders. The reverent and moving arrangement has been performed since 2001 by the CHS Marching Band, in honor of victims of 9/11.

Tickets for ExtravaBandza! are available to the public online at: https://www.totalgatesolutions.com/SportingEventTicketCalendar.aspx?schoolId=279 Ticket prices are $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens. Children under 5 will be admitted free.

Posted May 10, 2013 - No Comment

The Career Coach: Three Tips for Changing Careers

By Elaine Voci, Ph.D.

Elaine Voci, Career Coach

Life can be miserable if you’re in the wrong career. The days are long when you spend your time in a place you don’t want to be, doing work in which you don’t have your heart. I am here to tell you that it is not only possible to change, but people are making that leap every day. I have assembled three key tips for making a career change. So if you are seriously thinking of making a new start, keep reading.

Tip One: Take the time to know yourself. Your next career is not going to come to you in a lightning bolt, but it will result from your research, soul searching, and a thorough review of your strengths, what challenges you, what is meaningful to you, what suits your personality and values, and what fits into the future you want to create. It is tempting to think that we can find instant gratification for everything, including a new career. But if you are serious about changing your life, you will need patience and a willingness to commit the energy and time it will take to pinpoint the good, the bad, and the ugly about what you never want to do again and what you would love to do more in your work.

Tip Two: Listen to the wisdom of your heart, and let it lead you. There is an unseen common thread that links what you care about, what you know about, what you are curious about, and what you are good at doing. When you begin listening to your heart, the link becomes apparent to you and generates a momentum of energy that opens up a world of possibilities. You begin to see how your passion and unique gifts can be placed in the service of something greater than yourself. That leads to happiness – the kind composed of optimism, courage, love, and fulfillment.

Tip Three: Know what it will cost you to change your career. I don’t just mean in money – but in time, risks, relationships, inconvenience, and ego. You may have to convince your spouse, for example, that this career is worth pursuing. But other people, money, and time are not going to be your problem; how you feel about these issues is what will turn them into obstacles or not. When you create a plan that helps you confront and manage these concerns, you will liberate yourself from your fears and be able to work on achieving your career goal while keeping a roof over your head.
There are other steps to be taken as you pursue the work you were meant to do, but these three are the foundation you need in order to make the rest happen.

Here are two books that offer inspiration and practical ideas: What Color Is Your Parachute? A practical manual for job hunters and career changers by Richard Bolles (look for the 2013 edition). There is also an iPad app called What Color Is Your Parachute? Job-Hunter’s Workbook Tablet Edition. What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job, by Kerry Hannon for those seeking an encore career.

Elaine Voci is a published author and a career coach located in Carmel at Elaine Voci Life Skills Coaching, LLC. Read more of Elaine’s musings on her blog located at www.elainevoci.com

Posted May 9, 2013 - No Comment

Dream, Build, Grow: The Law Office of Josh Brown

Josh Brown, near his office in the Village of West Clay.

Henry Ford. Walt Disney. The H&R Block Brothers. Conrad Hilton. Harland Sanders. Ray Kroc. Steve Jobs. Familiar names. Legends. People who changed the world through the fulfillment of a dream.

In Josh Brown’s case, it was a childhood dream to become a lawyer like his dad and other family members. Josh graduated from the Valparaiso School of Law in 2006. Since then, he has worked with many great lawyers and an appellate judge, all of whom inspired and assisted him along the way. Josh also won many awards for excellence including being named a Rising Star by Super Lawyers. He even argued a case before the Indiana Supreme Court while studying for the Indiana Bar Exam.

But Josh had bigger dreams – to combine law with his love for small businesses to help others achieve their dreams. “I have always enjoyed helping others,” says Brown. “Being able to help individuals succeed with their small businesses or franchises is a privilege and something I care deeply about. My personal philosophy for success is a simple three words: Dream. Build. Grow.” Naturally, it’s now the mission statement for his new firm, the Law Office of Josh F. Brown, LLC.

Nestled in the picturesque new Village Center in the Village of West Clay, Josh’s new practice is completely focused on small business and franchise matters. “Doing this provides me with a tremendous opportunity to help a lot of Hoosiers realize their dreams of building a legacy while fulfilling one of my own,” states Brown.

Indiana small businesses totaled 474,239 in 2009. They represent 97.4 percent of all employers and employ 48.4 percent of the private sector according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Across the U.S., there are over 825,000 franchised businesses which provide nearly 18 million jobs contributing $2.1 trillion to the economy. A new franchise business opens every 8 minutes. Almost 4% of all small businesses in the U.S.A. are franchises according to the International Franchise Association. This represents an estimated 3,000 different franchises (from fast-food chains, to lawn services, to hair salons).

“Franchises are sophisticated small businesses,” says Brown, “utilizing a trusted legal advisor to help guide them from start-up to growth to sale can prove to be extremely valuable.” My law firm was founded with a spirit of positivity and possibility,” comments Brown. “Too often, attorneys are called to deal with the aftermath of bad situations. And while this type of practice is noble and necessary, my practice helps passionate, focused, and driven individuals build and grow their business in a pro-active manner so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor while, at the same time, limiting liability and mitigating risk.”

Brown continues. “The goal is always to provide ultimate value to my clients. In my view, the only way to do this is to provide exceptional and focused services at a reasonable price. After all, getting great legal advice should not require you to take out a loan.” “Focusing on a couple areas of law that I am passionate about and have experience in, as opposed to all areas, allows me to provide better service and, in turn, better value,” suggests Brown.

Brown’s feelings are echoed in a recent issue of a publication sponsored by the American Bar Association. “In this competitive environment, lawyers must distinguish themselves from the competition in order to claim a bigger piece of the pie. One way to do this: Build a niche law practice.”

Josh concludes confidently, “If you have a dream to build and grow a successful small business or franchise and a focused desire to achieve it, I can likely help you along the way.”

For more, contact Josh at indyfranchiselaw.com

Posted May 9, 2013 - No Comment

Cinnamon Sticks: The Best Golf Holes in Carmel

The 18th hole at Crooked Stick.

Carmel, Indiana, boasts some of the best golf courses in the state, featuring designs by two of the most renowned golf course architects in the world. Crooked Stick Golf Club and Plum Creek Golf Club are both Pete Dye designs. Prairie View Golf Club is the only course in Indiana designed by the acclaimed Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Throw in Woodland CC, Twin Lakes CC, and Brookshire Golf Course and that’s a great variety of quality golf. But what’s the best of the best? What’s the one hole on each course that will test your skill and nerve and have you spending your time in the 19th hole either toasting your abilities or drowning your sorrows? We asked each of the club pros what they thought was the best hole on their course, and why.

Crooked Stick pro Patrick White:
I believe our par-4 18th hole is the best hole on the golf course. The tee shot and second shot are very demanding. The hole reaches back to 457 yards with water along the right-hand side of the fairway. Once you get onto the green, there are four quadrants of the green. If you are on the wrong quadrant, it becomes a very difficult putt to make. Pete Dye was spot on when he designed this hole.”

The 8th hole at Brookshire.

Brookshire pro Brian Ballard:
I think our best hole would be the 8th. It’s a par 5 with good risk/reward. Players’ tee shots need to stay short of the creek. If a player puts the ball in play, there is a chance to go for the green in two but with little room for error. The green is protected by trees and a green side bunker. I’ve seen many good rounds go sideways on this hole.

Plum Creek pro John Pielemeier:
Our par-3 16th hole can be pivotal. It plays about 215 yards from the back tees, over water, with out-of-bounds left and water right. And you’re usually hitting into the prevailing wind. You can come to 16 with a pretty good score and end up emptying your bag in the water.

Prairie View pro Donnie Rogers:
The tee shot on the sharp dogleg left par-4 10th calls for anything from a hybrid to driver, depending on which tees you play. Too far, and you go through the fairway. Not far enough, and you have to lay up with your second shot. Even a perfect drive leaves you a significant iron shot to a green well guarded by bunkers.

Twin Lakes pro Jim Keithley:
Our 18th hole is a reachable par 5 that plays about 520 yards for the members. If you put your drive in a good position, you can go for the green in two. But there’s a large pond on the front right of the green and tall fescue grass behind. It’s high risk and high reward.

Woodland pro Pat Welch:
The par-4 18th is our best. The 394-yard finishing hole has the narrowest fairway on the course. Only 25 yards wide in the landing area, there’s a bunker on the left side and water all the way down the right.

Posted May 8, 2013 - No Comment

What’s So Funny?

by John Cinnamon

Dave Dugan shares a bench in the Arts & Design District.

When you see comedian Dave Dugan perform, you find out he was an early skeptic of the roundabout intersections in Carmel. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn something new,” he tells his audience. “I had just recently caught on to that whole 4-way stop thing.” But he has since had a change of heart. “If I’m havin’ a good time in a roundabout, I’ll stay on it sometimes up to half an hour. Lap 40, I’ve got my shirt off – I’m howlin’ like a wolf.”

That’s the kind of observational, and personalized, comedy that Dugan – a life-long Carmel resident – has parlayed into a stand-up career that started when he first ventured onstage at Crackers Comedy Club on the north side of Indianapolis in 1982. Comedy, however, was not his first professional occupation. That was radio. Other than a brief job in Tampa, Florida, Dugan spent much of the 1970s and early 80s on the air at radio stations here in Central Indiana. Unfortunately, his last two stints at WNAP were tumultuous, to say the least. He credits then-WNAP co-worker Bruce Munson with coining a phrase that summed up Dugan’s situation at the time, a wry take on what you’d see on the workplace fire extinguisher, Munson said: “In case of emergency, break glass and fire Dugan.”

But Dugan used those years in broadcasting to hone his comedy writing and gain the confidence he would need to perform in front of a live audience. During the short time he lived in Los Angeles, Dugan appeared on the popular Arsenio Hall Show, as well as HBO, Comedy Central, VH-1, and he was a regular at L.A.’s famous Comedy Store. The married father of two says he was a shy kid growing up, not the class-clown type, which explains his dry, laidback onstage style – a style that hasn’t changed much over the years. “If anything, I was even more subdued when I first started.” His style would also be considered “clean.” Comedians like Brian Regan and Indiana native Jim Gaffigan have made working clean popular again. And although Dugan believes any kind of classification can run the risk of pigeon-holing a comedian, he says, “I always think clean’s a very positive thing because it’s harder to work clean.”

Dave narrowly escapes a reckless bike rider near the Monon Trail.

Clean works just fine for Dave Dugan, who now uses his hilarious, yet inoffensive, material to entertain corporate audiences nearly every week of the year. Specializing in what is known in the trade as “corporate comedy,” Dugan does the majority of his work these days for company functions like conventions, sales meetings, awards banquets, and holiday parties. Companies like McDonalds, Toyota, and Conseco have hired him for their private functions. To prepare for those performances, Dugan researches the company to mine material he can gear to that specific audience. “I enjoy that part because I think I like writing sometimes as much as performing,” he says. “To customize a show for each one of those groups that’s going to best relate to them not only is going to make me feel more comfortable, but hopefully personalizes it for them and they realize they’re not just getting a cookie-cutter situation where ‘here’s a guy doing his club act everywhere he goes.’” Even though he has plenty of material prepared, he still likes the unpredictability of the interplay with his audience. He says some corporate speakers and comedians find interaction with the audience distracting to “the prepared routine.” But he welcomes audience participation and involvement, saying it makes it all more human.

He always makes it clear to his corporate clients that he is not a sales trainer or any kind of motivational speaker. “There’s nothing about me that motivates,” says Dugan with a self-deprecating laugh. He will, on occasion at the request of a client, inject a short message on behalf of the company: ’Here’s what our company’s been going through…’ something like that is easy enough to do,” he says. “But if I have to be serious for very long, it’s not going to work.”

Dugan at one of his new favorite hangouts.

When it comes to the changes he’s seen in his hometown over the years, Dugan says he really likes a lot of what Carmel has become. “Although I don’t know much about art, other than knowing I have always liked that picture of the dogs playing poker – if you look real close, you can tell the Schnauzer is cheating – I think the Arts & Design District is impressive and fun.” And his change of heart on the roundabouts? In an ironic twist, Dugan says two years ago he had the honor of being the corporate comedian at the National Roundabout Conference (yes, there really is such a thing). So, clearly, his new-found appreciation of our circular intersections became a professional benefit…in a roundabout way.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

See Dave in person: Thursday, May 16th at The Royal Theater in Avon
Wednesday – Saturday, June 5-8 at Crackers Comedy Club in Broad Ripple
Thursday, June 13th at the historic Irving Theater

For more information about Dave or to book him for your corporate event, visit www.davedugancomedy.com or www.duganspeak.com

Posted May 4, 2013 - No Comment

Palladium Lineup for 2013-14 Season

President and CEO Tania Castroverde Moskalenko unveiled the 2013-14 season at the Center for the Performing Arts – home of the Palladium. “The 2013-14 Season presented by St.Vincent Health,” represents multiple series, including Printing Partners Classical, The Stratford Songbook, Taft Law Jazz & Blues, CNO Financial Group Country, Coca-Cola World Stage, and Dance. In addition to the six series, the Center will present Drewry Simmons Vornehm Pop & Rock, PNC Bank Spotlight, Holiday and Family shows.

Highlights include Classical concerts by Lang Lang, Midori, a Jazz & Blues series’ performance showcasing Buddy Guy and a Great American Songbook evening with Patti LuPone. The Country series brings concerts by Merle Haggard and Kenny Rogers.

Series’ subscriptions are on sale Monday, May 6 beginning at 8 a.m. at the Palladium box office window and 10 a.m. by phone at 317-843-3800 or toll-free at 877-909-2787. The season lineup is outlined on the Center for the Performing Arts’ website: www.TheCenterPresents.org.

“The 2013-14 Season presented by St. Vincent Health” includes:

Printing Partners Classical Series

Lang Lang – September 19

Deborah Voigt – October 19

James Galway with the Irish Chamber Orchestra – November 6

Pinchas Zukerman with the Royal Philharmonic – January 15, 2014

Bahia Orchestra with Jean-Yves Thibaudet – February 13, 2014

Haifa Symphony Orchestra – February 19, 2014

Midori – April 13, 2014

The Stratford Songbook Series

Great American Songbook Vocal Competition – July 26

Neil Berg’s “100 Years of Broadway” – October 6

Patti LuPone – November 3

Michael Feinstein’s “The Gershwins & Me” – February 16, 2014

Linda Eder – March 15, 2014

Mandy Patinkin – April 11, 2014

Taft Law Jazz & Blues Series

Buddy Guy – September 27

Tito Puente Jr. stars with the Pacific Mambo Orchestra – October 29

Jonathan Batiste – January 15, 2014

Madeleine Peyroux – January 25, 2014

The Pat Metheny Unity Band – March 14, 2014

CNO Financial Group Country Series

Craig Morgan – September 20

Merle Haggard – October 31

Gretchen Wilson – November 7

Trace Adkins Christmas – December 15

Kenny Rogers – January 31, 2014

Lee Greenwood – February 21, 2014

Dance Series

Hungarian State Folk Dance Ensemble – October 26

Rioult Modern Dance Company featuring the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra – November 15, 16

“Swan Lake” – Moscow Festival Ballet – January 16, 17, 18, 2014

Koresh Dance Company – March 14, 15, 2014

Coca-Cola World Stage Series

Fernando Otero – September 29

Mariza – October 22

Hungarian State Folk Dance Ensemble – October 26

The Chieftains – March 6, 2014

Tao: The Martial Art of Drumming – March 19, 2014

Family Shows delivered by The Indianapolis Star

David Gonzalez – Sleeping Beauty – November 23

An Evening with Groucho – February 21, 22, 2014

TPO’s Blue! The Mediterranean Sea Theatro di Piazza D’Occasione – February 26 – March 2, 2014

Frogz – Imago Theater – March 7, 8, 2014

Cashore Marionettes – March 22, 23, 2014

Drewry Simmons Vornehm Pop & Rock Shows

Kansas – August 9

Aaron Neville & Dianne Reeves – October 1

Gloria Gaynor – October 18

Abba – The Concert – October 20

Jonny Lang – November 10

The Temptations & The Four Tops – February 27, 2014

PNC Bank Spotlight Shows

Arlo Guthrie – October 2

Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby with Kentucky Thunder – October 3

Celtic Thunder – October 11

Coach Bob Knight – April 10, 2014

The 5 Browns – May 16, 2014

Holidays at the Palladium

Jim Brickman – November 29

Dave Koz – December 13

Posted April 1, 2013 - 1 Comment

French Bleu Gallery Goes Au Naturel

Artist Dale Kercheval uses multiple media to create his image of nude model Bovary.

On any given day, you can walk past the French Bleu Fine Art Gallery on Main Street in Carmel’s Arts and Design District and gaze through the wide windows to see the paintings of gallery owner Susan Mauck. The soft pastel colors of her impressionistic images glow off the canvases as you’re reminded of the works of Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt, painters Mauck sites as two of her artistic influences. But on this night, the curtains in the windows are drawn. The glass in the front door is covered with an opaque plastic sheet. Even the transom glass is blocked to keep out the potentially prying eyes of residents on the upper floors of Sophia Square across the street. Why the need for such privacy? Because on this night, as happens about once a month at French Bleu, a small group of artists will gather for an evening of nude figure drawing – with a live nude model.

Mauck refers to these casual, invitation-only gatherings as “Wine and Poses.” The ‘wine’ part is because of the BYOB rule for the other artists. And the ‘poses,’ well, that’s self explanatory. These sessions started out with around 12 to 14 people, but that number became too cumbersome to accommodate comfortably in the gallery. Now, Mauck limits it to a more manageable five to seven. This time, joining Mauck for the three hours of artistic creation are Beth Forst, Randall Scott Harden, Dale Kercheval, and Jerry Mannell. As they finish setting up their easels and preparing their media (charcoal, oil, watercolor, or some combination thereof), the evening’s model, Bovary, walks out from the rear of the gallery and

(l-r) Randall Scott Harden, Beth Forst, and Susan Mauck draw nude model, Bovary.

makes her way to the center of the room. Wearing only a black silk robe featuring an Asian motif, Bovary slips it off and drops it on a nearby chair as casually as you toss your jacket when you get home from work. Suddenly being in the presence of a nude woman is business as usual for this group of professional artists. For this writer, it was not nearly as titillating as expected. Actually, it’s the contrast of her jet-black hair – cut Dutch Boy style – and black eyebrows against her light skin that draws the most attention. That and the intricate, full-back tattoo – a work of art in itself.

Mauck says live model nude drawing classes are fairly common in the Indianapolis area. Herron School of Art offers such classes as does the Indianapolis Art Center in Broad Ripple. However, she’s not aware of any other “events” like hers in Carmel – hers not being a class, per se, but rather a friendly get-together for camaraderie and to practice a craft that has been around for centuries. “Drawing from live models goes back hundreds of years,” says Mauck. “It’s really important to keep doing it. If you can draw the human figure and draw it well, you can draw just about anything.”

Susan Mauck, owner of the French Bleu Fine Art Gallery, with one of her signature ‘mother and children’ paintings.

Susan Mauck came by her love of art at a very early age. Growing up in the tiny town of Odon, Indiana, about 40 miles southwest of Bloomington, she says “I was that little girl that the teacher always had make all the posters.” Even the limited resources of a small-town school (no high school art teacher) didn’t deter her from pursuing a fine art degree, which she got at Indiana University. She calls her style “impressionistic with a contemporary edge” and much prefers painting portraits and figures to the more mundane landscapes or still life. One of the pieces hanging in her gallery is of a young boy in early 20th century period clothing. She was commissioned to create it for the Booth Tarkington Decorator’s Show House a few years ago. The boy in the painting is her grandson, Gabriel, and the piece went on to win Best Portrait at the Hoosier Salon. “That one’s not for sale,” Mauck says with a smile.

Although she teaches an oil class every Thursday and hosts what she calls “Mentor Monday” every other week where she mentors students as they “do their own thing,” Susan says her real bread and butter is doing commissioned work. Ranging in price from $900 to $9,000, Mauck will do individual portraits or family portraits. She’s especially fond of painting scenes of mothers with their children as if she’s captured them in that intimate moment on a lazy weekend morning and the kids have crawled into bed with Mom. She has even done nude portraits. Mauck likes to tell the story of a couple who came into her gallery one evening during a gallery walk. The husband spotted one of her nude figure works on display and said to his wife, “That kind of looks like you.” The couple joked a bit and Susan told them she could make that happen for real. The next day, the wife called the gallery and did, in fact, want her nude portrait painted as a surprise birthday gift for her husband the following week. She and Mauck quickly arranged the required posing sessions.

One of Susan Mauck’s nude figure studies on display in her Carmel gallery, French Bleu.

On the way to his birthday dinner a week later, the wife suggested they stop by the gallery where Mauck had the wife’s new (nude) portrait on display. “He went right to the one he had seen before,” explains the still-giddy Mauck, remembering the excitement of that moment. “And then he glanced across the gallery and saw her in the painting and just – I get chills, he was so thrilled and she was thrilled. I think they really treasure that. It wasn’t just about getting the painting, it was the whole experience.”

Mauck also creates that same kind of experience for parents, particularly fathers who will have their children’s portraits done for Mother’s Day or the mother’s birthday, then bring the mother into the gallery to “discover” the portrait on display. Even though the cost of a commissioned painting is considerably more than the typical posed studio family photograph, Mauck contends that the painted piece captures the essence of the person at that moment in time and becomes a priceless heirloom cherished for generations to come.

Susan Mauck (left) and Beth Forst (right) have their own interpretation of nude model Bovary (center).

Bovary, the nude model, moves gracefully from pose to pose every few minutes as the “Wine and Poses” artists quickly create what most would consider keepsake art from a blank page. Susan Mauck, Randall Scott Harden, and Jerry Mannell use mostly charcoal or black pencil. Beth Forst chooses a burgundy oil, while Dale Kercheval goes multimedia, using everything in his arsenal from pencil to watercolor. Mauck says most of the other gallery owners in the district are aware of what goes on behind the curtains every month at French Bleu, which has been open for about two-and-a-half years, and obviously have no problem with it. It is, after all, an art form as old as time. But what about the Carmel residents in the area? Has she received any negative feedback from them? “I don’t think they even know about it,” says Mauck with a mischievous glint in her eye. “I guess I’ll find out when they read this story.”

—————-

French Bleu
Fine Art Gallery
Susan Mauck, Artist & Owner
111 West Main Street, Suite 145
Carmel

Posted March 31, 2013 - No Comment

Cinnamon Sticks: Golf365

Sam Foley Blends Virtual Golf with Real Instruction at Golf365

Sam Foley, owner of Golf365.

It’s 9:00 a.m. and you’re on the first tee of the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, the course that’s home to the famous 17th-hole “island green.” The tree-lined fairway stretches out in front of you as you prepare for 18 holes of championship-quality golf. A few hours later, you’re finishing up the par 5 18th hole at iconic Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula in California, with the vista of the Pacific Ocean reaching to the horizon left of the green. Thirty-six holes on opposite coasts and you’re still home in time for lunch in Carmel (Indiana, not California). How? You’re playing the ultra-realistic golf simulators at Golf365, a sprawling indoor practice, learning, and entertainment facility inside the Hamilton County Sports Complex.

Golf365 is the brainchild of Sam Foley, a native of Veedersburg, Indiana, and the state’s only PGA Tour-credentialed teaching pro. A 1983 graduate of Franklin College, Foley got his first golf job at Valle Vista Golf Club in Greenwood, Indiana, right out of college. It didn’t take long for him to realize that teaching golf was going to be his real passion. He appreciated the nearly-instant progress he could see in his students. “When it comes to teaching, folks in other professions have to work on a project for months and months before it comes to fruition,” says Foley. “With golf instruction, your results are right there in front of you.” But he also realized that if he was going to be a full-time teaching pro, it would mean moving somewhere warm where he could ply his trade 12 months a year. So it was off to Arizona.

After a brief stop in Sedona, Foley moved on to Scottsdale where he set up what would become a network of golf instruction academies. He set up operations in Denver, then Park City, Utah, Palm Springs, and finally San Francisco. It was the early 1990’s, and with the tech boom just starting to hit, Foley took advantage of things like high-speed video and motion-capture technology to enhance his teaching methods. “To differentiate my brand of instruction from what else was out there, I got very involved in technology,” says Foley. “Being right there in Silicon Valley, I had access to the latest and greatest technology coming out.”

Sam Foley hits a drive in one of the simulators

Ultimately, his golf road led him back to Indiana where he helped open Heartland Crossing Golf Course in Camby in 1998-99. From there, he moved to Brickyard Crossing Golf Course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, creating the Brickyard Crossing Golf Academy and becoming the course’s first full-time instructor from 2000 to 2009.

Around 2010, Foley decided to strike out on his own again and was aware of the then-defunct indoor golf facility in the Hamilton County Sports Complex. It had originally opened under a different brand, but was closed after little success. Foley saw the potential and re-branded it Golf365. After some minor structural adjustments, it re-opened on January 1, 2011.

The biggest draw at Golf365, of course, is the four golf simulators where you can play nearly 50 different PGA courses, from the aforementioned Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass to Kiawah Island and The Old Course at St. Andrews. But there are also other hitting bays designed specifically for practice and instruction. A conference center is available for off-site business meetings and team building.

Foley explains that some of the traditional knocks on golf are that it costs too much, takes too much time, and you don’t get the correct (or any) instruction. “I think we have tapped into a model here that addresses all those things in a very powerful way,” he says. You can play golf in less than an hour and also get great instruction, club-fitting, fitness, and even mental game training. Foley says, “We’re the only facility in the country that addresses all those aspects under one roof.”

UPDATE:
The Balmoral Club, a private golf estate in Fishers, Ind. has announced a partnership with Indianapolis-based golf professional Sam Foley to provide management and instructional services, including the Sam Foley Golf Academy.

“The Balmoral Club is a special, one of a kind golf property, and I consider it a privilege to be involved.” said Foley. “With the golf academy, we will be able to offer a wide array of instructional services to members and non-members alike. Everything from private lessons to junior golf camps to golf schools will be available.”

Balmoral owners Rick and Diane Eaton built the course on family farm land in the late 1990s with the intention of hosting family and friends. In recent years, limited memberships have been offered in addition to making the intimate 2,000-square-foot clubhouse available for various functions. “We are very excited to have Sam join us as Director of Golf here at Balmoral Club,” said Rick Eaton.

Posted March 12, 2013 - No Comment

Taste of Carmel: Recap

This shrimp from Granite City Food & Brewery was only a small fraction of the huge variety of food to sample at Taste of Carmel.

More than 800 guests attended the 10th Annual Taste of Carmel, March 7th at the Ritz Charles. Forty restaurants, wineries, and breweries took part in the fund-raising event that benefits Orchard Park Elementary School. Through ticket sales, silent auction, raffle items and sponsorships, Orchard Park Elementary raised $26,000, exceeding its goal of $20,000. Proceeds from The Taste of Carmel will be used by OPE to help build soccer fields, fund art and music programs, provide materials for classroom support, and provide school-wide programs for students and their families. If you’d like more information about the programs at Orchard Park Elementary or you’d like to get involved or make a donation, contact Ann Bernard at anncbernard@gmail.com or call 848-1918.
In the meantime, here are some of the sights from the March 7th event.

Event emcee Jeff Worrell (left) chats with Bryan Ferry.

Taste of Carmel guests (l-r) Ashlie Duncan, Laura Johns, Abbey Hall, Katie Fucik.

(l-r) Steve Lawson, Vanessa Pournourbakhsh, Connie Lewis, Bill Gurney.

Brad Angle (right) serves wine at The People’s Winery.

Taste of Carmel attendees look over some of the silent auction items.

Emcee Jeff Worrell encourages guests to buy a “Bling Ring”.

Singer Shane Rodimel entertained the guests at Taste of Carmel.

Posted March 3, 2013 - No Comment

Spring Housing Market: Another New Chapter

by Greg Cooper

Greg Cooper is a real estate agent with the Dick Richwine Group at Prudential Indiana.

It’s nice, isn’t it? All those great headlines telling us the housing market is back and better than ever. I’ll admit to participating in those headlines as one of those who frequently comments in the media about housing. What I rarely have time or space to explain in full is yes, it’s better but there’s still an asterisk. Too many sellers are already giddy at the prospect of this spring being a ’seller’s market’ here in Carmel and in many other places with the shrinking of available inventory for sale. To that, I’d steal a line from a sports commentator. Not so fast, my friends.

It is true that our overall housing inventory is down – in places, WAY down from where it was two years ago. One would think that within the simple laws of supply and demand that most of us learned in the 10th grade that a lack of supply would push demand to absorb what homes were out there. This is where the asterisk comes in for today’s consumers. Your home may be for sale, but that alone will not get you a sold sign. That will get you a parade of buyers who may say a few good things about you but in the end just can’t pull the trigger. In the meantime, you clean and pick up and yell at a spouse or kids or pets or all of the above for not having your home ready for the next showing appointment.

To get to the closing table and see the maximum return on your home, you have to do more than simply be ‘for sale.’ To get done and move on in Today’s New World of Real Estate, your home must match the demands of the market. That may sound simple, but it’s not. I promise you, I’ve heard a thousand times, “Well, my home has this and the home that just sold down the street didn’t.” That’s fine. Are you putting up a sold sign today or are they? This is not rocket science, friends. Your ‘product’ either has it or it doesn’t.

So how do you know what path to take? Get good counsel. You will need the right person who understands the needs and demands of the market and can help you strike a balance in preparing your home for sale. I don’t care if it’s an outstanding real estate broker, home stager, or sherpa. Someone who knows must help you prepare your resources so that you can get across the finish line. Whomever that may be, get honest, no-nonsense direction before you take the plunge and put a home on the market. What’s at risk? Only months of your time and hours of effort that can determine whether you spend next Christmas in your new home or spend the holidays wondering why you couldn’t get your property sold.

Posted March 3, 2013 - No Comment

Cinnamon Sticks: Golf in 50 States

Bob Plaskett displays just a few of the scorecards he’s collected in the process of playing golf in all 50 states.

Bob Plaskett picked up his first golf club when he was 12 years old and 65 years later he’s still playing. But even more impressive than the fact that he’s been playing golf longer than most of us have been alive, is that Plaskett has played the game in all 50 states. Through a combination of vacations, business trips, and living in four different states over the years, Plaskett had managed to play golf in 28 states as of about seven years ago. That’s when his wife, Marge, saw a story about someone who had run marathons in all 50 states. Realizing that her husband was more than halfway there, Marge encouraged Bob to accomplish the same feat with golf.

Fortunately, getting it done wasn’t going to be much of a hardship. “She likes to travel, I like to play golf, and we put the two together,” says Plaskett. To that end, the strategy was simple for playing rounds in the 22 remaining states: knock off three or four courses in one trip. For instance, the Plasketts drove west so Bob could play golf in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Another trip was a flight to New England for rounds in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island. They also paired a reunion trip to Maryland with golf in New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

In an effort to make playing multiple courses in one trip a little easier, Plaskett would eschew famous courses such as Pebble Beach in favor of ones that made more sense geographically. “When I was picking courses to play, I’d go to the internet and find courses by location,” says Plaskett. “I was looking to see what courses I could get that were maybe at the edge of a state so I could get to a course in the next state.” That was not an option when looking for a course in the state that would complete his 50-state quest – Alaska. He settled on the Anchorage Golf Course and was lucky enough to get a 60-degree day one August. The weather wasn’t quite as favorable for his round in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where early-morning snow made play a little tricky, not to mention a little chilly.

Plaskett goes through his golf scorecard collection.

The Plasketts were among the original residents of Carmel’s Brookshire neighborhood when it was new back in 1971. They lived there for 13 years before moving around a bit (including several years in Wisconsin) and finally settling in Noblesville. However, Bob still plays the majority of his golf at Brookshire Golf Club. Now that he has reached the 50-state plateau and with a hole-in-one to his credit (on a Mississippi course when he lived there in 1963), what golf goals does the 77-year-old Plaskett have left?

“I’d like to shoot less than my age,” says Plaskett. “It seems to be getting more difficult because as I get older, the scores go higher.”

Posted February 9, 2013 - No Comment

Carmel Goes to War

First in an Occasional Series about Carmel War Veterans

VFW Post 10003 members Guy Able (World War II), and Tom Blandford (Vietnam).

by Ray Compton

The slogan on the baseball cap summarizes where Tom Blandford is with his life after 65 years.
Life Is Good, reads the script.

For Blandford, life is good now days. Especially after personally coming to grips with his combat duty in the Vietnam War several years ago. Particularly after winning a battle against leukemia a few years past. And life has taken another swing upward as he continues his most recent tour of duty as the Post Commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 10003 in Carmel.

“All of us associated with the VFW believe we are making a difference in the community and with our military families,” said Blandford. “It makes you feel good about life when you are doing positive things for deserving people.”

And making a difference inside community and with former military members is a top priority for the VFW, which globally has over 2 million members and more than 10,000 posts. The VFW mission statement believes in enhancing pride in service; supporting efforts to find the causes of treating illnesses afflicting veterans; perpetuating core American values; improving the quality of life in community; bolstering national defense and enjoying the company of other veterans.

Blandford and the 525 members of Post 10003 have tackled those objectives.

“We have a bond,” said Blandford, a former manager at the Gene Glick Company. “You identify with veterans. You know what they have been through and you are able to share stories or just listen. We are here to help.”

Blandford’s journey to the Carmel post started in 1967 when he joined the Indiana National Guard.

“I thought I would be helping out with tornados and floods,” he remembered.

Instead the 151st Infantry, Company D was soon dispatched to the Panama Canal for two weeks of jungle training. A brief time later, the 220 guardsmen were sent to Vietnam, becoming the only National Guard unit in America to serve in infantry duty in the southeast Asian war.

The unit suffered the loss of four soldiers to military action and two others in a helicopter accident. For Blandford, there was another internal defeat after he returned to Indianapolis.

“I wanted to forget the past,” Blandford recalled. “I had no interest in remembering the war or what all of us went through. I didn’t need to be associated with a veterans group. But eventually I began to gain appreciation and I wanted to help other veterans.”

The first step of acceptance of his Vietnam experience came at age 55. He got a tattoo on his right arm, honoring the Ranger Airborne 151st Infantry, Company D. “I am very glad that the country is so supportive of us now,” said Blandford, a graduate of IUPUI.

Three years ago, the members of Post 10003 took a major leap. They moved from the downtown location to the Carmel site on Old Meridian Street. The commander admits there are challenges ahead. With each passing year, more World War II veterans depart. And all service organizations are struggling in connecting with younger generations.

“You want to stay relevant,” he admitted.

The post and its leader are meeting the challenges head on. They continue to become involved with community activities (parade appearances, donations to police and fire organizations, etc.) and recruit new members, provide advice and support to veterans and their families and are willing to pursue financial assistance for soldiers from all wars, including Iraqi and Afghanistan.

“You feel compassion when you see veterans having difficulties after war, no matter what their age is. What you get in war applies to all warriors. We are here to help.”

Posted February 9, 2013 - No Comment

Cinnamon Sticks: Brad Gehl

Carmel Resident Brad Gehl Makes His Mark on Oklahoma State Golf Team

Brad Gehl

by John Cinnamon

PGA Tour star Rickie Fowler has 433,344 followers on Twitter. But maybe only a handful of those 400,000+ can communicate with him any time they want in more than 140 characters. One of them is 21-year-old Carmel resident Brad Gehl. Although Gehl didn’t actually play on the same Oklahoma State University golf team as Fowler (Fowler turned pro in 2009, the same year Gehl entered OSU), he counts the Tour young gun as a friend. Gehl says the current and former members of the Oklahoma State golf team are more like a family. And that’s what drew the 2009 Cathedral graduate to the OSU program.

“It’s everything to do with the people there,” says Gehl, explaining why he chose Oklahoma State over Indiana University, Purdue University, and the University of Louisville. Oklahoma State has a reputation for having a world-class golf program that has produced 10 national championships and a state-of-the-art golf complex with all the latest technological bells and whistles you can imagine. But it was more than that for Gehl. “All the ‘stuff’ is nice,” he says, “but it’s not important.” He finds more value in the camaraderie of his teammates and the drive and direction of his coaches. “I knew the environment out there was conducive to what I wanted moving forward,” says the third-year OSU Cowboy walk-on.

Golf has been in Brad Gehl’s blood from an early age. His mother, Liz, played collegiate golf at San Jose State. The family home, situated on the back nine at Crooked Stick Golf Club, has a basement that is a golfer’s dream, featuring an indoor driving range. Countless rounds as a member at Crooked Stick clearly honed young Gehl’s talent, as he helped lead Cathedral to the 2008 Indiana Boys High School Golf Championship. He was also his team’s Most Valuable Golfer in 2009.

Gehl credits much of his golf success to the support of his family and to the support of the staff at Crooked Stick. The BMW Championship, played at Crooked Stick last September, was named the PGA Tour’s Tournament of the Year. “That’s something that got to me. That makes me so proud,” says a beaming Gehl of his home course. Did Gehl offer any of his intimate knowledge of the course to his friend Rickie Fowler when the Tour came to town? “We talked,” he says. “But I’m still in college. Rickie’s on tour.” Gehl explained that as a tour pro, Fowler has a different way of looking at a course and seeing things that even an everyday player at the club doesn’t see. “So if anything,” Gehl continues, “next time I play, I’ll be asking him a couple questions.”

Brad Gehl “juggles” a golf ball in the basement driving range of his family’s Carmel home.

Brad Gehl hopes to be on the PGA tour himself one day, supporting his home club with the Crooked Stick logo on his bag. And with a PGA Tour return to Crooked Stick a strong possibility, Gehl may have the opportunity to put his course knowledge to the real test.

Posted January 9, 2013 - No Comment

Sale of the Century

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Sale of the Hilbert Mansion

by John Cinnamon

Realtor Greg Cooper stands outside the gates of the Hilbert (Lucas) estate he helped sell.

Oprah Winfrey. Howard Rockefeller Hughes, III. An unnamed NASCAR driver who already calls Indiana home. These are just some of the people who may, or may not, have had a serious interest in buying what many consider the most opulent residential estate in Indiana. The sale of the Hilbert Mansion, as it was known colloquially, spanned more than five years and saw a reduction from its original asking price of a staggering $20 million to the ultimate bargain basement (make that, finished basement) price of $3 million. These numbers are part of the public record. But what went on behind the scenes is an eye-opening look at the world of high-end real estate, high-stakes legal wrangling, and high-profile home buyers.

Nobody had a better vantage point for the whole sordid tale than Greg Cooper. A broker with the Dick Richwine Group at Prudential Indiana, Cooper was the lead broker for the sale of the 25,000-square-foot mansion at 1143 West 116th Street in Carmel that the original occupants ostentatiously called Le Chateau Renaissance. His agency was hired by Conseco to sell the property in an effort to recoup part of the $62 million judgment that Conseco won against its former CEO, Stephen Hilbert. But selling a $20 million estate that is the subject of a lawsuit is quite different from selling the average 2,500-square-foot, three-bedroom ranch.

“We thought it would have some level of global appeal,” says Cooper. “We have some industries here, the racing industry for example, that are very strong. The sports marketing industry. When we listed the home in 2005, we had several NCAA Final Fours scheduled and there was also talk of a Super Bowl. We thought there would be a bigger market outside Central Indiana and as it turned out, there really wasn’t.” The other thing that made selling the home even harder was the terms laid down by Conseco’s special projects manager, the person hired by Conseco specifically to sell the estate. Cooper explained that the special projects manager required that any potential buyer put down a $1 million non-refundable deposit with no contingencies. You could not get out of the deal for an inspection. You could not get out of the deal if you couldn’t get financing. That obviously limited the number of serious buyers.

High-profile celebrities would certainly be able to afford the $20 million price tag and $1 million deposit. And Cooper speculates that a number of celebrities were interested in the house. Unfortunately, all he can do is speculate. No actual celebrities toured the property. That’s what their “people” are for. Cooper related the story of a group who came from Chicago. “They had something to do with broadcasting, and they asked a lot of questions that were broadcast specific: ‘We’d like to do this here, we’d like to do that here. How far to the airport?’ Frankly, I always thought they were Oprah Winfrey’s people,” Cooper surmises. “But no one ever told me that.”

“There were representatives from a number of high-profile NASCAR drivers, a couple of whom live in the state,” he continues. “You can probably imagine who they are.”

The one time a prospective buyer did give a high-profile name, it was a false alarm. But alarming, nonetheless. “We had a guy who started leaving us these long, rambling voicemail messages at night,” says Cooper, “and he identified himself as Howard Rockefeller Hughes, III. He didn’t really sound drunk, but he didn’t sound quite right.” Cooper says the messages continued for some time until one Friday afternoon when he got a call from the front desk saying that Howard Rockefeller Hughes was there to see him.

The main house of the Hilbert estate.

“I can’t imagine who this guy is,” says Cooper. “So I go dashing to the front and as I get there, he’s decided to leave. He has a long, black trench coat on, black high-top tennis shoes, black pants, and dark glasses. He looked like Jim Morrison.” The man then walked out to 82nd Street in front of the Prudential Indiana office building and headed east on foot. They didn’t hear from “Hughes” for six months until he started calling again and reappeared at Cooper’s office. This time the police were called. “It turns out he was someone who was being cared for in a mental institution,” Cooper explains, “and had stopped taking his medication and left his mother’s house where he was supposed to be. When you see somebody like that in your office when you’re getting these incoherent ramblings, you don’t know if the guy is there to shoot the place up or not.”

There was one potential buyer who actually did put down the $1 million deposit. Cooper thought the deal would close. “When you have a million dollar non-refundable deposit, you’re thinking ‘this is gonna go’.” However, 29-and-a-half days into the 30-day contract, the woman who made the deposit called and asked for an extension. Conseco’s special projects manager said no. That sale didn’t close, the buyer lost her $1 million, and she was never heard from again. However, about a year-and-a-half later, Cooper got a call from an FBI agent in Florida asking questions about the woman. “She had apparently made some representations about the property,” says Cooper, and according to the FBI, “other people had lost their money on it.”

The typical reasons for not buying a house – the kitchen’s too small, there’s not enough closet space, there’s no sports barn with a full-size replica I.U. basketball floor – were not an issue with the Hilbert Mansion. So what reasons did Cooper hear from those looking at the house for not buying? “It’s too much to take care of,” says Cooper, “even for people with that kind of money.” Property taxes alone would be $250,000 a year. He explains that the property is unusual even for homes in that price range ($15 million +) across the country. Besides the enormous main house, the huge complex also includes five other buildings: a catering kitchen, pool house, sports building, guest house, and power generator building.

The opulent two-story library in the Hilbert Mansion.

Ultimately, it was Lucas Oil Products founders Forrest and Charlotte Lucas who got the deal of the century. After first touring the home in December, 2008, when the asking price had dropped to $10 million, the Lucases came back two years later and closed on the property in October of 2010, paying a shockingly low $3 million. Ironically, the stadium in downtown Indianapolis that bears Forrest Lucas’s name covers a mere 25 acres, compared to the 33 acres that encompass his new Carmel home.

For Greg Cooper and the Richwine Group, the entire process from listing to close lasted five years and four months. Was it worth it? “I don’t know,” says Cooper. “I’ve thought about that a long, long time. Thousands and thousands of hours. Over $100,000 in marketing out of our pockets. If the house had sold for $16 million, that’s a reasonable investment. But when you sell at $3 million, clearly on that particular sale it was not a moneymaker.” Cooper says it wasn’t all for naught, however. They did make several contacts that led to other home sales that made the experience worthwhile.

According to Cooper, two years removed from the sale, the online virtual tour of the Hilbert (now Lucas) Mansion still gets as many as 5,000 views a week. “The interest in the house never seems to end.”

“Her” master closet.

The ornate grounds of the Hilbert Estate.

Posted January 9, 2013 - No Comment

Cinnamon Sticks: Winter Golf

A group of Carmel golfers don’t let the winter weather stop them from hitting the links.

By John Cinnamon

Golfer Steve Turner wears two thermal gloves for his cold-weather rounds.

Multiple layers of clothing? Check. Hat to keep the head warm? Check. Gloves? Check. Sounds like somebody’s ready to shovel the driveway. Think again. It’s Bill Barneclo and his small band of hardy cohorts ready for golf at Carmel’s Brookshire Golf Club. At a time of year when most Indiana golfers have either stashed away their clubs for the season or headed to Florida for a few months, the 68-year-old Barneclo and his friends keep swinging away here like the season never ends. “We played 36 times last year in December, January and February,” says Barneclo. That’s more rounds in the winter than most golfers play all year.

The worst weather he’s ever played in? Barneclo, a retired Whirlpool account rep, recalls a round several years ago. “I was playing by myself in early January, and I was having a great round,” he says. “Then it started to snow. I had just got the ball on the green on a par-3 in regulation, and the snow started to stick when I hit my putt. Well, as the ball rolled through the fresh, wet snow, it started to pick up the snow like a snowball. It stopped right before the hole,” says Barneclo, as if still feeling the sting of missing his birdie putt.

Barneclo’s general rule of “to-play-or-not-to-play” is based on the expected tee-time temperature. “I never make a decision ‘til right that day,” he says. “I try to make 40 degrees the cutoff, but we’ve played in less than that.” Other seasonal rules for Barneclo’s group include moving up one set of tees – from the whites they play during the summer, to the shorter, more forgiving, senior tees. Also, “There are a lot of gimme putts,” Barneclo adds, “mainly just to keep things moving so the cold doesn’t set in.” One final exception he makes for off-season play:“I don’t keep score in the winter.”

Bill Barneclo on the first tee at Brookshire Golf Club.

And he doesn’t play for money, either. He leaves that to two of the other guys in the group, one of them is Bob Armstrong. A 73-year-old retired IBM marketing rep, Armstrong admits it’s not exactly high stakes. He says they play for about a dollar a round. Even at that, Barnelco is skeptical about how much money actually changes hands. “One of these days, I’m going to write down the serial number of that dollar,” he says. “I think it’s the same dollar. They just keep passing it back and forth.”

It’s all part of the fun of golf for him and his friends, no matter what the weather. Much like U.S. Postal Service, neither cold, nor snow, nor gloom of sand traps keeps Bill Barneclo from his appointed “rounds.”

Posted January 5, 2013 - No Comment

10th Annual Taste of Carmel

The 10th Annual Taste of Carmel will showcase over 40 restaurants, wineries, and breweries located in and around the Carmel area. Come with your friends to enjoy sushi, pasta, steak, seafood, appetizers, desserts and more, Thursday, March 7th from 6 to 9 PM at the Ritz Charles, 12156 N. Meridian.

Experience locally brewed beers and handcrafted wines as you peruse works from local artisans featured in the silent auction. The 100+ item silent auction has something for everyone!Find the newest Vera Bradley bags, a Colt’s football signed by Peyton Manning, Disney World tickets, summer camps, golf outings, Wine Club memberships and so much more!

Best of all, 100% percent of proceeds from Taste of Carmel will benefit Orchard Park Elementary students. As a targeted Title 1 school, over 40% of Orchard Park students are on the free and reduced lunch program. Proceeds will be used to purchase soccer goals, percussion instruments, and resources to support classroom instruction.

This event is a great night out for friends or colleagues. For $25 you will have more than you can eat and drink…and you will be helping nearly 800 local students. Get advance individual tickets for $25 by clicking here. Tickets are $30 at the door. A table for 10 is also available for $225.

Posted October 8, 2012 - No Comment

Best Seat in the House

Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods await their turn to putt on the 8th green while Crooked Stick residents look on from their back yard.

For most of the 150,000 golf fans who ventured out to Crooked Stick Golf Club for the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship in early September, half the battle was just getting to the course. They had to negotiate the often-congested roads of 116th Street, Ditch Road, and Towne Road. Then they had to find a parking place in Coxhall Gardens or the alternate parking area near 116th and Pennsylvania. And finally, they had to hop on the shuttle bus to the course.

But for a fortunate few, the commute to the gallery ropes was as easy as walking out their back door. These are the people who live in the Crooked Stick neighborhood with homes bordering the course. Bill Bonner has lived in his house near the number three green since 1994. He said tournament organizers had few, if any, restrictive rules for the residents that live adjacent to the golf course property.

“Just put off cutting grass between certain hours and make sure you let your dogs out when nothing’s going on,” said Bonner. Cleaning up after the dogs was a given – the high rough and deep bunkers were enough of a hazard for the likes of Tiger and Phil without also having to dodge a pile left behind by Sparky.

Scott Prince has a home on 116th Street that backs up to the teeing area of the fifth hole. He and his family and friends were sitting in lawn chairs lined up just to the left of the cart path. In addition to the mowing and dog-walking rules, Prince explained that residents were not allowed to put up tents featuring advertising nor could they make any direct solicitation of the golf patrons. Despite the luxury of being able to watch the tournament for free from his backyard and walk anywhere on the course, Prince chose to purchase a grounds pass good for the entire week of the tournament. “I just wanted to be compliant,” offered the six-year Crooked Stick homeowner.

Muffi James watches Tiger Woods putt on the 7th hole at Crooked Stick GC.

On Saturday during the third round of the tournament, Muffi James was sitting at the top of a small hill to the left of the seventh hole anxiously waiting to see Tiger Woods’ group play through. James, a 36-year resident of Crooked Stick, has access to perhaps one of the best vantage points on the course. She lives on Prestwick Lane, a cul-de-sac that forms something of a peninsula that extends into the small lake on the eighth hole.

“We can see here seven, the tee on eight, we can see them play three, and we can watch them all the way down eight,” said James. She has lived in Crooked Stick long enough to see the 1991 PGA Championship, the 1993 U.S. Women’s Open, the 2005 Solheim Cup, and the 2010 U.S. Senior Open. James has also been a volunteer for each of those events.

Traffic in and out of the neighborhood was mostly a non issue for the residents. Leaving his house on 116th Street, Scott Prince found it “easy” to go west, away from the glut of cars headed to the Coxhall Gardens parking. Muffi James said she had little problem using Ditch Road, as long as she only wanted to go south. “If you wanted to go on up to 116th, it was terrible,” she said.

While Prince and James relaxed in their strategically-placed lawn chairs, back at the third hole, Bill Bonner seemed happy to stand in his back yard with drink in hand watching the action through an unusually-large space in the trees that ring the course. “I got a diseased tree that had to come down,” he explained. “So it worked out well.”

With talk of the BMW Championship returning in 2016 or even another PGA Championship in 2020, Bonner, Prince, James, and the rest of the Crooked Stick residents could once again have the best seat in the house.

BMW Championship winner Rory McIlroy chips to the 14th green as fans look on from the back yard of a home on 106th Street.