General Manager Nancy Palmer, who has been at the Owings Mills, Md. club since it first opened 30 years ago, talks about welcoming the BMW Championship, its impact on the club and community, and her career with the facility.
In August, the BMW Championship will take place at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md., marking the first time in 60 years the PGA Tour is making a stop in Greater Baltimore, the Baltimore Business Journal reported.
C+RB reported on the PGA Tour selecting Caves Valley at the time.
The Baltimore Business Journal spoke with Nancy Palmer, the club’s General Manager, and one of the first employees at Caves Valley, about her career path, as well as the club’s history and what next month’s championship event means for the Baltimore region.
Baltimore Business Journal: What led you to a career in the golf industry and to Caves Valley?
Nancy Palmer: I majored in accounting, which is kind of interesting. I’m a proud alumnae of Towson University. Once I graduated, I started with one of the Big 8 firms, Price Waterhouse [now PricewaterhouseCoopers] and worked for a number of years there.
In my background prior to college, I was a military brat. We moved all over the United States and I never had any roots anywhere. The longest we lived anywhere was four or five years; the majority was two to four. So, working at Price Waterhouse in the Baltimore office, I really began to love Baltimore and the roots that are very strong in Baltimore. I really loved being able to pick up the newspaper and know who people were.
In the late ’80s, there was a lot of talk about this Caves Valley Golf Club being built in Owings Mills, and I was very interested in that. I really felt that Maryland needed a Caves Valley to sell people on Maryland, and on Baltimore. The more I read about it, the more intrigued I was by what the original board was trying to do. So I pursued it. I made an opportunity to meet with Les Disharoon, the then-chairman. I sent my resume to him and after several months of back and forth and interviews, and ultimately interviewing with five or six of the key board members at the time, I was offered the position of General Manager at Caves Valley Golf Club
It’s a pretty amazing story when I think back on it. I was in my 30s pursuing this, and I was hired partly because the board knew if there were going to be financial challenges, they thought rather than hiring a club manager from the food-and-beverage side of the business, let’s take an accounting person and see if we can teach her the food-and-beverage side of the business. And that’s what I did, I took the position and I started in December of 1990. I was one of the first three employees, myself, Dennis Satyshur—the Golf Professional at the time, and still today’s Golf Professional—he and I are the two that remain, and there was a golf course superintendent already on staff. I was hired to build the club to where it is today and to be part of this three-person management team and I haven’t regretted that decision ever. It was very unusual for me to pursue it, but it certainly came in handy, my accounting background.
Baltimore Business Journal: What does it mean to be a female general manager in the golf world, and for this exclusive club in particular? Are you seeing more interest in golf from women?
Palmer: I wish I could say that were the case. We have women members, [but] we don’t have enough. The club doesn’t do any formal marketing, it’s all through the membership. So, I can’t speak to it other than to say as a career woman—and you have to understand, Caves Valley Golf Club was built for successful business leaders, so you have to remember that when you think about who our members are—I will tell you there aren’t many weekends where I want to spend five hours playing golf.
Caves Valley was really at the forefront of having a truly diverse membership in every way, even back to the original mission statement of the club. There are no rules that restrict anything at the club based on someone’s gender—no restricted tee times, no restricted dining areas, which are very common in many clubs today, even some of the finest clubs in the country. They have places where women can’t dine. We’ve never had that, and I’m proud to be a part of that. It was always part of the mission, the focus was on our business—members doing business, entertaining at the club—and we would never want any member, or guest for that matter, to feel uncomfortable because they were a woman coming to Caves Valley. They were equal in every way at Caves Valley Golf Club and always have been.
We’ve done a lot of golf championships, outside events that have come to the club and we’ve had our share of women’s events as well. We’ve really tried. Why we don’t have more female members—you have to ask the women out there, the businesswomen of the world—but we’re here and we’ve been here and we would love to have more female members.
Baltimore Business Journal: The BMW Championship is the first PGA Tour stop in Greater Baltimore since 1962. What does this mean for the Baltimore region?
Palmer: I think it’s going to be wonderful for the local economy. They’re predicting $30 million in economic impact to this area and it’ll be in Baltimore County obviously, but also Baltimore City. There are many people staying downtown as a part of the event, enjoying the downtown restaurant scene, but they’ll also be in the county hotels and dining establishments.
We expect to have somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 people a day visiting Caves Valley during the championship days, which are August 24 through 29. Those people are going to need to dine, many people are coming in from out of town and need places to stay, so the impact is going to be great, and it couldn’t be a better time post-pandemic. There’s so much good here—the restaurants, the venues, the waterfront—and that’s part of the mission of Caves Valley from the very beginning, to give people a reason to come to Maryland and Baltimore.
Baltimore Business Journal: What kind of response have you seen from members and the local community about hosting the tournament?
Palmer: It’s just been amazing. We started selling hospitality right as the pandemic hit. So in March of last year, we had just kicked off our hospitality sales and we were blown away by the fact that people were purchasing hospitality during the pandemic, not even understanding what the impact might be on the championship. But our members, as well as the local community, supported this unbelievably well. We have sold out on corporate hospitality. We’ve broken records on hospitality sales for the BMW Championship.
The community has supported us greatly. There are 2,000 volunteers for this championship annually that make sure everything happens seamlessly, and when [the Western Golf Association] opened up the volunteer assignments, they were sold out on volunteers within 10 days. And that’s just unheard of. So, the hospitality sales are at record levels, the volunteer signups sold out also record level, and our ticket sales are ahead–the 2020 event obviously didn’t have attendance but we’re ahead of the 2019 event at [Medinah Country Club in Illinois] ticket sales, which is wonderful.
Baltimore Business Journal: Do you anticipate more major tournaments to be hosted at Caves Valley?
Palmer: We certainly welcome that opportunity. For 30 years, we’ve had a history of having championships. Fortunately, we had the 2002 Senior Open, the LPGA International Crown [in 2014], the Senior Players event in 2017—we’ve had many events and we would like to continue that. We don’t intend to have a championship every year, that’s never been our intent, but to have an opportunity every three to five years would be wonderful to bring people to Maryland and to have them experience Baltimore County and Baltimore City.
Baltimore Business Journal: What can people expect to see in this year’s tournament at Caves Valley? What’s on the menu?
Palmer: We really try to make sure the Caves Valley experience for anyone coming on the property is consistent throughout the day. That starts at the front gate with the guard welcoming you when you arrive. Many clubs welcome the members and recognize the members, but the guests don’t receive that kind of welcome. We really work hard to make sure our guests and our visitors are as welcome, if not more than the members. That’s what our members want—they want their guests to be leaving and saying, “when can I come back?”
The Western Golf Association is working really hard to give some local flavor to what’s going to be happening in our concessions onsite. They’re going to have some local vendors and there will be a beer garden at a confluence of three or four of our holes. It will be a place for people to congregate and easily get to different holes to watch the game and enjoy the local flavor.
And you know, 70 of the best players in the world, that’s really amazing when you think about it. No cut. It’s not a large field, so you can get around and see them. When it’s 150, you’ve got to get there really early in the morning to see certain people, and other people you might want to see are later in the day. But 70 players is a manageable field to enjoy onsite, so that’ll be fun for the spectators.
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