Club + Resort Talks: Delivering Elite Golf with Keswick Hall’s Rob McNamara
[Music] hello I’m Rob Thomas editor and chief of Club Resort Business and welcome to the Club Resort Talks podcast the podcast where we dive into the minds of industry leaders and who are shaping the future of private clubs in the luxury resorts today we’re joined by Rob McNamera general manager director of golf at Keswick Hall he’s a former LSU All-American US Open competitor at just 17 years old and one of the games great storytellers wait till you hear his Gary Player Gary Player impersonation uh we’ll talk about hosting the US Open qualifiers honoring Pete Dy’s legacy and what it takes to deliver elite golf experiences in a resort setting uh but before we get to that let me tell you that today’s podcast is sponsored by JBD JGA Design and Architecture since its founding by Jud Brown and Steve McMahon in 1983 JBD JGA Design and Architecture has successfully completed an impressive array of design projects for private clubs throughout the United States uh their experienced staff of more than 25 design professionals has completed a multitude of award-winning architectural and interior design projects including golf clubs country clubs and city clubs learn more at jbdjga.com uh we got that out of the way thank you very much JG uh JBDjga uh let me tell you a little bit about what’s going on in the news we’re going to start in Michigan harbor Shores Breaks Ground is breaking ground on a Wii course with uh Colin Montgomery the 5 acre 9-hole pitching putt course will open in 2026 that’s right around the corner the design will consist of holes measuring 60 yards or less modeled after the nine most iconic holes of the current Jack Nicholas layout uh I visited there a few years ago i guess it was right during the height of COVID so it’s been probably about four or five years now uh beautiful beautiful area of uh Michigan western Michigan right on the lake uh gorgeous uh the golf course is spectacular there’s um I mean it’s basically three different golf courses in an 18hole setting uh going through Parkland out to the lake and back so uh it’s worth a worth a visit if you’re in the area let’s head down to the Sunshine State for the next spot the Florida Yacht Club charged a bold course with its FYC 150 renovation the multi-year in uh initiative was time to align with Jacksonville Club’s upcoming 150th anniversary and focused on preserving tradition while introducing modern amen amenities uh the pool the uh the dining area uh there’s a bridal suite everything has been touched upon uh down there in Jacksonville i’ve got family down in the area and uh look forward to getting down there and visiting it and seeing it for myself uh a lot going on in North Florida uh before we get to our guest one more thing and this has to do with uh tariffs and our trip to Washington DC uh and industry coalition visited Capitol Hill to discuss Chinese low-speed vehicle imports the meeting comes at a uh critical time in the trade case with the US International Trade Commission’s final decision on tariffs expected within a couple of weeks uh a lot I mean uh they’ve been dumping a lot of uh lower cost lower quality products here on our shores and um the tariffs as everybody knows it’s not a political podcast but uh we pay the taxes not China so we can raise it 150% if you want but um the price is going to come down on us so uh hopefully uh that’s not the uh the situation and um the coalition can address some uh some widespreading issues uh with uh tariffs and other um situations there uh Club Car uh Easy Go they were both involved um we’re big Yamaha fans over here as well so uh everything that’s affecting our friends in the uh cart industry is affecting us so uh fingers crossed that everything gets taken care of uh with all that out of the way let’s get to Robbie Mack and uh look forward to that Gary Player imp Gary player impersonation spectacular hello and welcome back to the Club Resort Talks podcast i’m joined by Rob McNamera general manager and director of golf at Keswa Hall rob welcome to the show well thank you so much Rob delighted to be here with you hey uh Rob before we get into the meat and potatoes of our talk give us a a 10,000 foot view of of Catwick Hall and the uh the golf experience there so Cwick Hall is a fantastic resort and club it’s we we kind of thread the needle of being open to hotel guests we have a luxury 80 room five-star resort hotel we have a Jean George restaurant um the food on property is all under the the guidance of Jean George who’s probably the most one of the most successful commercial chefs in America uh really well I should say the world really i mean he’s got restaurants all over the world so we have great food here we have a great spa and of course we have the private component which is what I oversee and the golf is uh Kzwick club and we have a Pete die golf course that’s great um we’ve done some tweaks to it it’s got a long history this property of sort of reinventing itself and getting a little bit better as it goes um the original as you might see from my logo the original clubhouse uh was now part of the hotel was a manor house from 1912 but um our current owners uh Molly and Robert Hardy they they reimagined this property after several iterations along the way in the lastund and change years um they took over in 2017 and they’ve made this place really great the hotel opened our first hotel guest was Bill and Hillary Clinton this was uh in 2021 and the golf just keeps getting better pete Pete died redesigned this place made it from an Arnold Palmer golf course and that’s that took place in 2013 we opened in 2015 and we keep making improvements along the way so it’s just a great luxury resort and we have a club here and we have memberships from local and national and and it’s just a delight to be here it’s awesome you should come visit Red Carpet City i have been invited and but so far I’ve only seen pictures and it is absolutely gorgeous from the golf course to the clubhouse and everything in between so uh I promise to get there sooner rather than later but uh you’re a heck of a stick and what I’m what I understand is you qualify for the US Open at 17 years old second only to Jack Nicholas uh age- wise how did that experience shape your career and how do you draw from it when you’re mentoring competitive players today well heck of a stick that might have been the other Rob McNamera a long time ago i don’t know i I have a hard time remembering those moments but I I do remember a lot about the US Open that was a treasured time in my life i did qualify like everyone else i was 17 years old i was a senior in high school uh at that time they told me I was the second youngest person to ever do it other than Jack Nicholas and I went there with great aspirations and big dreams and hopes and like most people the ode to the mouse so best laid schemes to mice and men off time go astray but I shot 84 77 it sounds like a total train wreck but I I really didn’t play that terrible all things considered um I had a triple and two doubles the first day or the second day I had a triple and three doubles the first day so it was like my bad holes were all confined i mean if you get in the rough at Oakmont I will just tell you it was kneeh high to a giraffe i mean it was brutal how high the rough was and I had never seen anything like that before in my life the the thing about the the US Open experience was the really for me I may have run my race before the tournament even started i I introduced myself to Arnold Palmer and I played a practice nine-hole practice round with him i played two practice rounds with Johnny Miller i played with Gary Player a practice round and and the cool thing about the Gary Player experience I met him on the Sunday prior and on the putting green and he said “Yeah we’re going to play tomorrow you can join me.” So we played the round and of course we got on great and it was just really I mean he’s a he’s a showman he knew what he was doing he knew I was a kid there were a lot of people watching and he goes “You know Robert but you can’t have lunch with me and commission a beam we’re going to have lunch after after the round.” I said “I’d love that you know.” So we go upstairs in the clubhouse and a very little small table for three nobody else around and we had lunch and the conversation this is 1983 he goes “There’s these young lads need a place to mature on the vine they need a place to mature and develop the game and there’s no developmental tour and we need to develop our own tour so these kids aren’t chasing all over the world and play playing in little goo dunk opens and little small cities in America we need to have a real tour.” And that’s what to me probably was the start when Dean Beaman heard him he acted like he had never heard this before and so I think that was the starter to what became the Ben Hogan tour then the Nike tour and Nationwide Buy.com whatever corn ferry today that’s where it started it was kind of cool to be there wow i’ll tell you what that’s a spot-on impersonation first off I I’ve had the pleasure of having uh Mr player on the podcast uh years ago now i think it was right when COVID hit so it’s been a long time but very good on you um and that was Oakmont before the trees got removed right so it’s a different different track back then oh totally different um it it doesn’t even remotely look the same i went back to Oakmont for the US Amter a couple years ago and I was just like “Holy cow this does not even look like the same place that it was.” I mean trees you know obviously you know from golf they define the holes and what we see and when you start having open vistas which frankly I’m a a big fan of that and we have that here at KZwick have beautiful beautiful expansive views where you can see you can see 10 golf holes from the from the hotel and the restaurant it’s awesome to be sitting up there and looking at the course but when you’re going back to a place that you remember as a kid and then you come back what 40 38 years later or whatever it was and you look up there and you think “Holy cow this is not the same place.” But it was really great experience i’ll tell you we got a full circle now that Oakmont’s back in the spotlight and uh you all hosted uh some US Open qualifiers I believe how do you set the golf course or how is it different setting up for the US Open qualifiers as opposed to everyday play well our golf course from the back TE’s is 7250 it’s a big golf course although 7250 now is becoming you know pretty pretty normal and short for these kids today i mean they can hit it forever but it’s still a really good test of golf that they we play the open qualifier here every year and we’re the only site in Virginia so it must be a good enough golf course to host the that that tournament uh we we have US Open like rough a lot here so you you need to be able to hit the ball straight and we have really fast really great greens our green superintendent Troy Frink is fantastic i mean this guy is world class good and our greens are like a tabletop so uh I feel like it’s a good test to get people started through the the local before they go to now what they call the final qualifying used to be called the sectional but those were the glory days full Cry has hosted multiple US Open qualifiers and prestigious events uh what have you learned from hosting these these highlevel events and what do you think you can share with other uh club professionals who are looking to do the same i think a lot of times the the expectation is you think you have to really do a lot more than you have to do if if places are run correctly which I’m sure that today’s professionals and club managers are to me are getting better and better uh just like everything that expectations are higher and people are becoming better at their craft and profession i think if you really do your job right on a day in dayout basis you don’t have to do that much different i mean for something like the open qualifier we have 84 players um you end up having some extra food and beverage cuz they always bring in their sort of entourage between their parents or their caddy or their girlfriend or their wife or their you know their their fan club or whatever so you better have good food and beverage ready um and and take advantage of some easy quick ash outdoor dining because usually people are in a hurry they uh they need to get something to eat while they’re playing golf we we fought the rain this year we got lucky but if you catch a bad break on the rain you definitely be need to be prepared for safety um we were really lucky i mean we came so close to having this thing be a 4-day event and we got it done at the wire but safety is a real thing that you got to factor into the equation getting people off the golf course safely um you have to have a place to put them when they come off the golf course we don’t have a huge clubhouse we have uh conference space that we could have in a real pinch put people if we’re talking about 150 people we could have gone into the ballroom or something like that as it worked out nothing like nothing like that happened and we were in good shape but I know your audience is really trying to understand operations about this so I think safety good food and beverage uh I’m sure the golf courses that are going to host are naturally going to up their game frankly we try to get our golf course good for a long time i feel like our golf course is really good for about 6 months we fought a little winterkill here this year though um that was very unusual and we had to resod about five five and a half acres of sod as it turned out um but that that was an issue that we did not deal with until after the tournament so we just had some areas that were not necessarily desirable but um it worked out the way it did now that’s all been remedied and it’s perfect shape now so it’s uh we’ve solved that problem but for the most part if you do a really good job with your golf operation um my guess is you just have to plan for if you’re going to have a 100 players qualify you better figure out how you plan for three to 400 people being on your property parking safety medical food and beverage just those basic kind of blocking and tackling features before you worry about really getting into the razledazzle place yeah let let the course razledazzle I suppose itself uh one of as one of Pete Dy’s final designs what elements of Full Cry do uh architecture side resonates with you as a professional and how do you kind of like translate that or educate your your players on what to expect from a Pete Dye design well I wish that I had learned about architecture when I could actually halfway play golf because I think it would have made me do a little better than maybe I did i I really because of the Pete Dye element and Scott Sherman who has taken over as our uh Scott Sherman works with Davis Love and Scott was a disciple of Pete Dye just for edification to who Scott is he’s a terrific guy that you would enjoy talking with I think as well and Scott has taught me a ton about golf architecture and when you see this golf course um you start to realize that the green complexes and we’ve created some of these spaces where there’s more fairway around the green and in a way that some people think that makes the golf course play easier frankly I think it makes it play harder uh instead of the ball just ending up a couple of feet off the edge of the green you you where you have to learn how to hit a wedge or hit a lob shot out of high rough now you might end up 10 12 15 feet away and the the novice golfer can putt that ball so that might be easier for them but I would rather be a foot off the green in the rough than 15 feet off on fairway up a slope over a real little tiny target now maybe someone that’s kind of just getting going in golf I think they like to have that putter in their hand so it ends up being a nice balance for both but the trick around this golf course is the greens the greens all pinch in at the back and if you get greedy going for back hole locations you’re going to pay the price so if I was advising people if you can really play every golf hole from the from the hole back to the tea you if you could make that your habit instead of playing it from the tea to the green play it from the green backwards you’ll start to become a better golfer that makes perfect sense uh sounds a little bit like Pinehurst number two with the green the ball rolling off and not just stopping there the pros can obviously hack it out of 4 inch rough around the greens but when you got to get creative with a uh you know when it rolls 10 20 yards off the green that’s tricky um but I do like I appreciate the putter off of the green being a a hacker myself uh 10 handicaps can’t always handle the the rough but um old bro old broke down golf pros can’t always handle the rough either hey I like that uh I’ll give you a better chance than me though um you touched upon the luxury hospitality there at Keswell Call uh what are the keys to successfully aligning the golf operations with your everyday golfers and your hotel resort guests uh with um expectations it it is a very tricky exercise uh so I worked for 27 years at the Farmington Country Club which is on the opposite end of the the county that we are in Albamar County which is Charlottesville Virginia we’re Kzwick is a a community to the right uh side of the the center of Charlottesville and when you work at a place like Farmington it’s super busy i mean place is packed with people it has we had so many members over there it was unreal so it became very difficult just to handle the volume of members especially during co I mean Farmington was always busy because it had a big membership you come to Kzwick now you have a smaller membership but you also have this hotel that in theory if it’s full with 80 people that all wanted to play golf well guess what you could have a problem so you thread the needle fortunately we don’t have that situation happen very often this this hotel is very nice it’s a It would be an incredible place for you to bring a significant other in your life and have a romantic weekend or romantic week because the spa and the the the hotel experience and the food experiences and there’s so many things to do in this area for visitors so that that that tends to take away some of the demand but let’s just say you have a high demand hotel on a high demand club member day and you’re putting 130 140 golfers on the golf course that is a tricky deal to do in a resort when some people want to play in a two ball and there’s only what 54 starting times a day so you end up threading the needle on a lot of things to try to make it work we’re we’re not like El Beach that are going to tell you every time you play that we’re going to pair you with with someone that you may not know if you you know we’re trying our best to have people enjoy the experience that they came to enjoy but there are times that you end up having to do some of that so it’s just a game of compromise i’m from Kentucky originally henry Clay the statesman from Kentucky was known as the great compromiser settled a US presidential election sometimes settling the golf at Kzwick Hall making everybody happy is a tricky deal but it seems to work i will tell you this it seems to work and I think people have a really great experience when they come here well there are no strangers right just people we haven’t met yet so uh I hope that’s the case there bingo bingo we talk a lot about hiring and retention of uh of of staff here at Club and Resort Business uh with COVID not only did golfers increase but uh interest in golf careers has increased as well what qualities do you look for when you’re hiring an assistant golf professional or anybody at the staff or at the club and how do you support the professional development well those are really good questions i think the most important thing you try to figure out with someone is their character what What type of person am I dealing with here is is it a person that’s honorable are they are they honest can they do they have a spirit of being trustworthy are they loyal uh are they hardworking do they have a great personality i mean our business is still the service business and it’s a game where you have to have good communication skills and the the question always asked at Farmington and I think we Farmington is is was and continues to be a great place we do the same thing here we ask people “Are you a PhD?” And they’d say “A PhD?” “Well no I’m just in the 11th grade.” Or “I’m I’m just a you know I was just a branch manager of a bank.” I said “You’re not a PhD.” They said “Well no.” I said “You’re not poor hungry and driven.” And that’s the attitude that you look for in people in the service business are you poor hungry and driven with your spirit are you willing to do whatever it takes to make sure people have a great time i mean we try our best and I feel like we do a really good job of carrying that culture that we’re working hard to make people have a great experience and create this magical special place here at Kesler College it just fits perfectly because you can have the great buildings and if you don’t have the great spirit of the staff it won’t make it won’t make sense and we have both yeah people make a difference obviously big time big time now you asked about the development of of the staff there’s a lot of upward mobility in a place like KZwall because the benefit of having such a diverse business model of whether you have the spa or the hotel or marketing or sales or the golf or the tennis the shops i mean there’s four retail stores here there we We just recently had a a a person that went from working in the golf shop now they’re a marketing specialist helping do marketing for the whole property i mean a lot of places would not create those opportunities we had a we had a young lady that went from being the beverage cart girl to the assistant restaurant manager to the grill manager i mean that’s those are pathways within the organization that you can move up within your organization and then we constantly have cultural Hezwick University moments where we as a group especially in the winter it’s gets trickier this time of year hezwick University where we’re teaching training on customer service on the hiring the development of staff all of those things are part of the the program that will prepare you to work here experience those things in reality and then trace them to the next facility that you happen to go to if we don’t have places to move people up uh you’d mentioned golf shop and our buddy Zach which that leads me to my next question our buddy Zach was wearing a an awfully nice uh Grayson hoodie he got from your pro shop which means times have changed 10 years ago you’re not finding a hoodie at a golf shop uh but now you are so the the private clubs and resorts have changed and have kind of adapted with the time uh how have you seen it over your over the last decade from Farmington Country Club to now Kwick Hall uh and how have you adapted to the change well the the the stickler at a place like Farmington two two things that that are going to change whether people want them to change or not it’s just going to be the very few clubs that can keep people’s shirts tucked in i mean that’s that when when people go to a resort they want to be able to let their hair down and have some fun and take untuck their shirt there’s still and that’s a huge conflict for a lot of lot of club people and but there are places out there and a lot of people in the clubs that are really trying to police that are driving themselves crazy and their members or customer crazy by telling them tuck your shirt in that’s that’s one thing that’s for real the the actual style of clothes what people wear with mock you remember when Tiger Woods came out with the mock collar 15 years ago uh now the hood is the thing i’m sure there’s always going to be something that’s the thing what seems to be on the female side that gets everybody’s attention is how short the skirt keeps moving up to play golf in when it started when I really got in the business I mean I’ve been in the golf business since I was about 13 years old if you want to know the truth i’m 59 i’ll be 60 in September so for my whole life the skirt started at the knee well now it’s almost it just keeps moving up it’s about an inch every 5 years so you can do the math on that and uh that one gets a lot of attention as well at the at the private clubs that don’t have a resort element the resorts tend to be less strict on those sorts of things because people are on vacation they want to get a break from some of that you’re seeing PGA Tour players wear shorts in practice rounds it started with the caddies about 10 years ago then then it goes to the players are now wearing shorts they’re wearing shorts on the Live Tour all the time so this whole thing is like everything in America is kind of being dumbed down there’ll be a moment where it finally catches up to everybody but maybe Augusta National okay well I know u our girl Paige Biranic has caught some uh flack from the private club side with some of her outfits and I’m not complaining uh but um times they are changing right so you you guys are in the heart of wine country down there which makes me you know reason number 243 I want to visit uh how do you leverage local character with to create a unique golf experience well we have a a great couple of vineyards that are really close southwest Mountain Vineyard owned by Paul Manning a great great guy he’s a great friend of Rory Mroy by the way i mean you can get there and it’s a 5minute drive down the street having wonderful wine tasting mary Mill which is right down the not far from there either there there are 106 wineries in this area virginia last year won the award for outstanding wine region in America um by the wine enthusiast magazine like one of the top credited awards you could get virginia is for more than just lovers it’s for golf it’s for wine it’s for history we have three of the first five US presidents are from here madison Monroe and Jefferson everybody always hears about Jefferson but Madison had a home here and and Monroe had a home right next door to Jefferson uh Ash Lawn so you have a lot of reasons to come visit that more than just taking a dip in the Chardonnay and the Savon Blanc hey you had me at at Savvy B right so um I’ll get you out on this one Rob uh we got like uh I always ask people to take take your crystal balls out right i want you to look five years down the road 10 years down the road first what do you see changing at Kesler Call anything new on the horizon and maybe what do you think the industry can look forward to as a whole well I don’t want to give away any trade secrets about what we’re thinking about doing necessarily i I know that Mrs hardy first of all this lady has got such an amazing haste uh it just the the ambiance that you feel with the decor and the design is spectacular and she is always looking to make things better and we continue to do things to add little features to make the the property better but um where I see the industry going certainly this technology in golf and the sophistication I’m not sure it makes people the average Joe better it’s definitely making the elite better can you imagine i can’t imagine i never saw my swing on video till I was 23 years old um these kids they they start swinging on camera when they’re six and the dieting the the food the weightlifting the exercise so there’s going to be a change in the golf program if you ask me that if you don’t have high-end performance centers and we’re looking at at at at those things now we’re obviously weighing all of our options and we’re always taking a look at things um and it may or may not be the right plate for us but but I I definitely see that as going to be a major component of the golf business in the next 10 years it’s going to almost be um just SOP with any good facility you’re going to have something in that wheelhouse of indoor golf to video golf uh the Trackman the Top Tracer type experience that’s certainly coming uh you’re going to see more and more into fitness you’re going to see more and more of the clubs evolve into having things other than just traditional golf tennis swimming fitness it’s going to keep growing and growing and growing with more and more things because people trust their clubs people trust their clubs and that’s a really important part of the club business that it’s a place that you feel safe to go to um and we saw evidence of that really on steroids during co it’s a home away from home that’s what I think the f Exactly and and we treat you like you’re coming to your home so and and that’s why people like them and and that’s one of the things I think we benefit when the hotel guest comes here they we we treat a hotel guest like a member that’s a we’re we’re not treating a member like a hotel guest so that’s a big thing that that really that really makes someone feel special to be part of a luxury experience well hey from your mouth to God’s ears let’s get it done let’s keep moving this thing forward and Rob McNamera thank you for joining us on the podcast well thank you so much Rob and I I sure appreciate it and I I think uh I’ve seen your work before i love what you do and thank you for including me thank you for incl has a call i know it’ll be uh it’ll be nice to hear you say these nice things about us we we just want you to come visit and be a guest please please visit
Welcome to Club + Resort Talks, the podcast where we dive into the minds of industry leaders shaping the future of private clubs and luxury resorts. Today, we’re joined by Rob McNamara, General Manager and Director of Golf at Keswick Hall—former LSU All-American, U.S. Open competitor at just 17, and one of the game’s great storytellers. We’ll talk about hosting U.S. Open qualifiers, honoring Pete Dye’s legacy, and what it takes to deliver elite golf experiences in a resort setting.
In the news … Michigan’s Harbor Shores breaks ground on its Wee Course with Colin Montgomerie. The five-acre, nine-hole pitch-and-putt course will open in 2026. The design will consist of holes measuring 60 yards or less modeled after the nine most iconic holes of the current Jack Nicklaus layout.
In the sunshine state, the Florida Yacht Club charts a bold course with its FYC150 renovation. The multi-year initiative was timed to align with the Jacksonville club’s upcoming 150th anniversary and focused on preserving tradition while introducing modern amenities.
Lastly, an industry coalition visited Capitol Hill to discuss Chinese low-speed vehicle imports. The meetings come at a critical time in the trade case, with the U.S. International Trade Commission’s final decision on tariffs expected within a couple of weeks.