(Photo of Cherry Hills CC by The Denver Post)
General Manager/Chief Operating Officer Thorsten Noth, who has been at the Cherry Hills Village, Colo. club for four years, will become the new COO at Sharon Heights G&CC in Menlo Park, Calif., starting in January. In the spring of 2021, Cherry Hills’ longtime head golf pro, John Ogden, will leave the club after 13 years to be the new Head Professional at Muirfield Village GC in Dublin, Ohio. Cherry Hills CC is set to begin a major two-year clubhouse renovation in January 2021, and a member search committee is currently in the process of securing successors for both positions.
Two top managers are leaving the Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo. for new opportunities, BusinessDen reported.
Thorsten Loth, the club’s General Manager/Chief Operating Officer, told BusinessDen he will be leaving Cherry Hills and starting a position in January as the Chief Operating Officer of Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park, Calif. A Sharon Heights employee confirmed to the publication that Loth would be taking over for the club’s former COO, Michael Nakahara, who resigned in March.
“It’s a better position and better opportunity,” said Loth, who has been Cherry Hills’ GM/COO for four years. “But Cherry Hills was still a wonderful club with a great membership.”
Business Den also reported that Cherry Hills’ Head Golf Professional, John Ogden, has accepted an opportunity to become the Head Golf Professional for Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, in the spring of 2021. Ogden, who has been Cherry Hills’ head pro for nearly 13 years, will be replacing Larry Dornisch, who is retiring at the end of the year, according to Muirfield Village’s General Manager, Nicholas LaRocca.
Muirfield Village GC, which opened in 1974, is owned by Jack Nicklaus, who also designed its golf course, which is ranked as one of the top 20 courses in the U.S., according to Golf Digest, and is also the only venue to ever host the Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup and the Presidents Cup.
“Cherry Hills has not only meant so much to me, but it’s also meant so much to golf in Colorado and throughout the U.S., so it was really hard to walk away,” Ogden told BusinessDen. “But everything runs its course. Everyone needs to reinvent themselves and have another adventure. And I was kind of at the point where I’m getting a little older in my business, so it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.
“I’ve gotten a lot of offers over the years, but working for the greatest golf player of all time was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” Ogden added.
The departures come as Cherry Hills is set to begin significant renovations to its clubhouse, Business Den reported. Work on the two-year project will start in January, according to the club’s interim head golf pro, Derek Rush.
Cherry Hills is currently in the process of securing a general manager and head golf pro through a member search committee, Rush added.
“I brought the U.S. Amateur to Cherry Hills, and they’re going to have that in [2023], so it’s hard to leave for that,” Ogden told BusinessDen. “But by the time the clubhouse got done, I would be 56 years old, and have two years of my career in a trailer. Not that it would be bad, but I thought, if there was a time to exit, it was now.”
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