Presidentially Speaking
I have had the privilege of visiting Del Paso Country Club since I was a small child. My grandfather Higgins loved the game of golf and loved Del Paso. I remember many visits to our club with him, I remember one day when he showed me his membership certificate he was so proud of, it’s one of those experiences you never forget. My parents loved Del Paso, for many years when I was a child it felt like our whole year revolved around the Magpie. Things were pretty relaxed around our house on Memorial Day weekend. I have many fond memories with family and friends at our club, but more importantly I’m making new ones every day. Serving as your President is something I never dreamed of being able to do, I’ve had a wonderful experience and would like to thank everyone for the opportunity. We have a wonderful group of people as members. We all aren’t perfect, but we generally get along and have a good time together. I had some trepidation when I began my term that there would be several challenging situations and difficult conversations. There were a couple, but what surprised me was the number of hugs I received. We really do have a great membership, and I am blessed with some close friends that have helped me immensely. If you have the time volunteer to serve on a committee, you will learn more about our club, make some new friends, and hopefully have a positive impact on its future. Our club has the benefit of a strong Board of Directors who have great insights into the operation of the club and know how to act in a decisive manner when needed. We have a number of members that have served on our various committees, some for many years who we should thank for their service. We have an energetic staff that are focused on providing a high level of service to our members. And we are all blessed by the efforts of Clint Luedtke and his team who never ceases to amaze all of us with how well our course is being maintained. Fix your ball marks! Not too long ago I was serving on the Finance Committee when in December 2019 the club had a sell list of 76 members, many of which had been waiting to sell for several years. I was worried about the future of the game of golf, “Would younger generations that grew up with video games and social media embrace it?”The Admissions Committee got a group together and did some brainstorming, the Board agreed to take a risk and lowered our initiation fee to a very competitive amount and created some new membership categories to stimulate applications. We were in the process of starting to reduce the sell list when covid hit in March 2020. We ended up with a large influx of new members and transitioned to a wait list. This rapid change in our membership demographic may be difficult for some members to adjust to, but our club is now well positioned to flourish as we move forward. One issue we have to deal with is complacency. Andy Grove used to tell a story about the crease in the carpet. You might have an area rug at home that has bunched up and instead of stopping and straightening it out, you train yourself to step over it. You get used to working around a situation that you should just fix, at least you do until you finally trip over it and stop and fix it. Sometimes we get used to the status quo – be it poor service, lack of housekeeping, weeds in the parking lot. Good leadership from our Board and Management requires dealing with the difficult issues and not kicking the can down the road. Whatever challenges that may occur can be turned into opportunities, as we did in 2019. I am confident and excited that our club will remain as the club of choice in Northern California. Thanks again for allowing me this opportunity to serve our club. This article was not written by ChatGPT. Who is John Gault?
Dave Higgins, Jr. President
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