Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2012 - 19

(mga profile
)
I'm a Golf Pro
Hazeltine pro Mike
Schultz will retire after
37 seasons at the
Chaska course
Interview by Jon Roe
It seems like the right time to move onto
something else. I thought about staying
until after we host the 2016 Ryder Cup, but
I'm 64 right now, and I wanted to be young
enough when I left to be able to do at least
some of the things I'd like to do.
Hazeltine National has been my life, it's
been my family. This year is the 50th anniversary
of the club, and that seemed like
a good time for me to move on. My wife,
Diane, and I want to do some traveling in
the summer, and then we'd like to get into
managing some charity golf tournaments.
We want to try to give back something to
golf, which has given so much to us.
The highlight of my time at Hazeltine is
the 1991 U.S. Open. We had really taken a
hit in 1970 with the comments that Dave
Hill made about the course, and then we
had started to make a comeback with the
1983 U.S. Senior Open. The amazing thing
about getting the 1991 Open was that in
1986 we had to re-sod our entire course,
but we still were able to get our invitation
to the USGA to host the 1991 Open. That
was a lot of work by Warren Rebholz, Reed
Mackenzie and Irv Fish.
We had really done a lot of planning for
that Open, selling tickets, getting corporate
support and setting up a merchandise
tent. We had a whole new plan for spectators
to purchase merchandise; the USGA
didn't think it was going to work. We just
went ahead with our plan, and the whole
thing went off well. Record tickets sale,
record merchandise sales. It was great.
" I have always felt my job was to make the
members like me. "
Diane came up with the ideas for the
merchandise buildings that we used at
the 1991 Open. Along with John Winberg,
a member who was working at Dayton's at
the time, we came up with a system that
allowed people to move to various sections
for merchandise, and then be able to go to
several checkout stands so there weren't
long lines to pay for the items.
I'm proud of being on the PGA's national
rules committee from 1989 to 2000.
That's a very difficult committee to get
on. You have to do well on a rules test and
have the approval of a board to get on the
committee. I had a test score of 92, and I
got approval from the board. One of the
rewards was being able to be a rules official
at the 1999 Ryder Cup.
I actually wasn't the first choice for this
job. Bob Olds was at Minnetonka Country
Club at the time, and he was asked but decided
to stay there. I was working for Joel
Goldstrand as an assistant at Minneapolis
GC when I interviewed and got the job.
I think I've been here for 37 years because
I have always felt my job was to make the
members like me. I tried to make sure to
think before I started to talk. I always tried
to make the members understand why
we decided to do whatever it was that we
did. And I always tried to make sure that
one member didn't get an advantage over
another. I wanted them to feel that Mike
Schultz was going to do everything he
could to make sure they had a good time
at Hazeltine National.
www.mngolf.org
Summer 2012 MINNESOTAGOLFER 17
PHOTO BY MATT SEEFELDT
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2012
