At age 90, Salinas Golf & Country Club has been reborn as The Club at Crazy Horse Ranch.
Salinas, California is not a place where tradition is taken lightly. Incorporated in 1874, its ideal climate and location (eight miles east of the Pacific Ocean, nestled between two mountain ranges and at the northern edge of California’s fertile “Salad Bowl” agricultural region) spurred its growth into the county seat and largest municipality of historic Monterey County. The city’s development led to its becoming the site of a major stop on the professional rodeo circuit, California Rodeo Salinas, that dates back to 1911. It then gained fame on a worldwide scale as the hometown and frequent source of inspiration for the works of Nobel laureate author John Steinbeck, who made Salinas the setting for his novel, “East of Eden.” Steinbeck’s preserved boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building, now serves as a museum and restaurant in downtown Salinas; two blocks away is the National Steinbeck Center, which was opened as a museum and memorial in 1998.
AT A GLANCE The Club at Crazy Horse RanchLocation: Salinas, Calif. Website: www.clubatcrazyhorse.com Founded: 1925 (formerly Salinas G&CC) Golf Course Design: Jack Flemming Members: Golf, 180; Social/Sports, 62 Clubhouse Size: 10,900 sq. ft. Golf Shop Size: 1,070 sq. ft. Annual Golf Rounds: 30,000 General Manager: Ed Winiecki, PGA Director of Golf: Johnny Eusebio, PGA Head Golf Professional: Robert Hayes, PGA Golf Course Superintendent: Rafael Barajas Director of Food & Beverage: Stefanie James Executive Chef: Moises Alberto Office Manager/Accountant: Sue Morris |
With all of this history and natural attraction, it’s not surprising that Salinas grew into a city of enough size (its current population is over 150,000) to create and support a substantial golf and country club. Founded in 1925 (just six years after its neighbor a few miles away, Pebble Beach Golf Links), Salinas Golf & Country Club soon developed many traditions of its own.
During a period in the 1960s and ‘70s when the pro-tour stop now known as the AT&T Pebble Beach was enjoying its heyday as the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, Salinas G&CC was the site of a popular “Little Crosby” tournament, which brought big-name players like Arnold Palmer, Gene Littler and Don January to its course for a consolation competition held for those who missed the cut at the “Crosby Clambake.” Salinas G&CC has also been the site of the second-oldest junior tournament in Northern California, the Charlie Culver Junior Masters, which was first held in 1955. And like many long-established clubs, other traditions grew out of member activities, such as the media attention that a club member, Louis Foletta, drew to the property when he decided in 2003 to play 72 holes on his 72nd birthday. (Earlier this year, Foletta successfully marked the 12th straight updating of that tradition, as the TV cameras rolled and other club members came out to try to keep up with him for a few of the 84 holes he played on the day he turned 84.)
Time to Break with the Old
As many clubs like it have discovered, however, Salinas G&CC eventually reached a point where tradition could only carry it so far. As the club world, and the formula for success in the club business, began to change dramatically, Salinas G&CC did not. Its golf course was always kept in top shape, but the rest of the club’s facilities stayed stuck in the past. Membership, which had climbed to near 330, began to plummet, and “capital improvements” were limited to whatever band-aid fixes could be made after hitting up the members who remained for several rounds of small assessments.
As the situation became more dire, Salinas G&CC tried to find solutions by bringing in a management company, and even by trying to sell lifetime memberships at $32,000 each (it sold eight, six of whom still remain). But when the recession hit as the club approached its own 90th birthday, there was little daily carryover of the kind of special energy and vigor that Foletta was displaying in his yearly birthday golfathons.
When it got to a crisis point, with Salinas G&CC down to 110 members, the club’s Board decided to put out feelers for an outside buyer. That generated several inquiries, the most serious coming from a New Jersey-based suitor.
When that proposal was presented, reports Ed Winiecki, a PGA professional and industry veteran who had brought experience from several top clubs and management firms to take the GM position at Salinas G&CC at the end of 2011, “that’s when the bulb went off.”
“Everyone thought that if we were going to have to see the club experience change to that extent, we should change it ourselves,” Winiecki says. “This was an institution in the valley, and we needed to save it. The thought of an outsider coming in to take over ticked a lot of people off, and that’s really what it took to bring them together and finally do something to turn us around.”
Big Change in the Winds
In the same way that the ocean fog from Monterey Bay dissipates by the time it moves inland to Salinas (the city has been ranked among the top 10 clean-air cities in the U.S. because of this “natural air conditioner” effect), the vision for how to salvage all that Salinas G&CC had been, while properly positioning it to still have a future, became much clearer once the remaining members decided they didn’t want to be plundered by outsiders.
A group comprised largely of 30 existing members joined with some outside investors to step up and form a new company that would buy the club from the remaining members. Those not joining the investment group could retain non-equity memberships and be guaranteed no assessments or dues increases for two years.
The new buyer, Gabilan Oaks, LLC (named for the Gabilan Mountain range that sits to the east of Salinas), was incorporated in February 2014, with the business description of “ownership of golf course.” And in May of last year, Gabilan Oaks began its pursuit of for-profit operation of that course, which would now do business as The Club at Crazy Horse Ranch.
The new ownership and existing management felt that rebranding with a completely new club name would be an important part of the transition, to not only signal the start of a completely new era, but also to help overcome any limitations or stigma that might be attached to an identity that was tied solely to Salinas.
But the new name was selected with a nod to the property’s history of being a ranch prior to becoming a golf course, and also to Salinas’ strong ties to Western heritage and the surrounding agriculture-based economy.
“It made sense to change the name in a way that would let us expand the marketing of the club well beyond just the Salinas region, so we could now be much more aggressive, as a for-profit club, not only in seeking new members, but also banquets, weddings and outings business,” Winiecki says.
“We also saw that it would make sense to take a cue from [properties like Montana’s] Stock Farm Club and not have ‘Golf’ in our new name,” he adds. “While golf is still the top amenity and benefit here, we wanted to be able to show that we are more than that, especially with some of the changes we could make in the future.”
At the same time, there was no intention of dismissing or showing shame about the new brand’s previous life. As Director of Golf Johnny Eusebio, PGA, has filled the club’s renovated pro shop with a wide array of apparel and products displaying the new Crazy Horse logo, he’s taken care to include references to “1925” and “Salinas G&CC” as part of the rebranding. “We don’t want to totally erase the past,” Eusebio says. “It’s part of a great story that we’re proud of, as part of taking our tradition and combining it with something new.”
Getting It Done
One complete break that the new Club at Crazy Horse Ranch did want to make from its past, though, was in how decisions on managing and developing the property were (or were not) made.
It was stressed to those joining the ownership group, and to those who didn’t but still retained memberships, that the key to turning around the club and making the rebranding work would be to put decision-making in the hands of a streamlined executive team that would work in conjunction with the professional management.
Three of the new owners—Don Chapin, a 28-year member of the club who runs an engineering and construction company; Dale Huss, a 25-year member and executive with the largest artichoke producer in the U.S.; and Bob Moody, a local judge and 18-year member—were charged with responsibility for all functions previously handled by the club’s Board or committees, which would no longer exist. While input from other owners, investors and members would certainly be welcomed and considered, the message was clear: Having too many chiefs and not enough action got us into this mess; now we need to reverse that equation.
That message was then reinforced by a flurry of action and activity, both symbolic and structural, that began almost as soon as the club’s new Crazy Horse shingle had been hung out for display. Dress rules, still surprisingly stringent for a club in an agricultural region, were relaxed as part of a concerted effort to instill a more inviting and casual atmosphere. And long-overdue renovation projects were started and executed to “take us from 1960 to 2014, pretty much overnight,” says Moody.
The timeframe was actually just over seven months to completely make over the club’s dining room, lounge/bar and pro shop, along with the clubhouse foyer, hallways and a sun room, and back-of-the-house improvements for the kitchen and storage areas. An outdoor “Waterin’ Hole” refreshment station was also added to the patio area that overlooks the golf course, along with a fortuitous find—a 15-foot-high, welded-metal, reared-up horse sculpture (see cover and pg. 16) that Winiecki spotted when driving past a local establishment that sells stone fountains and other outdoor landscaping pieces. Now dubbed “Mr. Ed” in his honor, it immediately became a favored picture-taking spot after being installed on the grounds
All of these initial improvements, plus grounds and parking lot upgrades, were completed for under $1 million, thanks largely to the connections and expertise of Chapin, who, as the majority investor of the new ownership group, has taken its lead officer role. “Don’s the Donald Trump of this area,” laughs Winiecki, pointing to the feature of Trump National Bedminster (N.J.) on the cover of the January issue of C&RB.
“Everyone knows him, and he knows everyone. He has a wonderful reputation for honesty and fair-dealing, and when he snaps his fingers, it happens.”
Those fingers have clearly been getting a workout, judging from all that can already be seen as part of the club’s new identity. In addition to the physical changes, membership has already been doubled from its low-water mark, thanks to aggressive marketing that has included an initiation incentive. And social activity has been revived under the direction of Chapin’s niece, Stefanie James, who brought her experience with John Elway’s restaurant chain in the Denver area to completely revamp (and rebrand) the club’s restaurant offer, which is now open to the public.
More phases of renovations are on the drawing board, including a front-entrance upgrade and the possible addition of a new wedding/event pavilion. “It’s a lot of work, but we’re committed to [the club’s] success,” says Chapin. “[The ownership group] bought this even though every article you read about golf courses would have us believe we were buying into a dying breed.
“But it’s not just about golf; golf is the core, and it’s what you add around it. It’s remarkable to see what’s been done here in eight months, and how the community is responding. All signs are pointing to a wise and good investment, and one that we’re glad to be involved with, to keep this property from being turned into strawberry fields and losing all the tradition it’s been steeped in.”
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