The Applegate Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tee

The game of golf can be contagious, especially when it means hanging out with a Dad who was a golf professional and ran the city golf course in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Add those ingredients together, and you have a recipe for a life-long love affair with the sport of kings.

“Dad got us started, and it was kind of an addiction to the game of golf,” says Ron Applegate. “That kind of got me in the business world as well, because he had a business degree and he stocked his pro shop. When I was there, I would work in the pro shop, and so he would teach me a little about business.”

It wasn’t all work and no play for young Ron. In addition to working the pro shop, he also played in the Ann Arbor junior golf tournament. In high school, Ron was a football, basketball, baseball, and track kind of guy. Although there wasn’t a high school golf team on which to compete, Ron decided after his senior year that he was going to attend Grand Rapids Junior College and try out for the team.

“So I worked on my game everyday and went to JC and made the team. And just every year got better,” Ron humbly states. “Then I did some teaching for the community ed program after I had played golf for a couple of years—they were looking for instructors. So I taught for the Caledonia Community Ed program. And so I’ve been teaching since I was about 18 years old.”

Other than having a golf pro for a father, was there anything else that attracted Ron to this sport? “I wanted to play a collegiate sport, and I wasn’t good enough to play collegiate sports in the other areas. To be honest with you, I was never a very good student in high school. Education was not a high priority in our family. I wasn’t even sure I was going to go to college. Fortunately, I did. Golf really is what kept me in school, and that was the attraction of going to school. Then I transferred from Grand Rapids Junior College to Central Michigan, made the team there as a walk-on. My senior year I played back and forth between number one and number two man.”

In order to perform at a high level, Ron would need to rely on something other than his 5’9” frame. “Because of my size in athletics, I always felt you could out-program everybody,” adds Ron. “So you just had to work a little bit harder, and that’s always kind of been my motto. ‘You work a little bit harder; you out-program people, and you’re going to be successful’.”

After attending college, Ron, a lifetime member of the Professional Golfer’s Association, began a long career in teaching others how to play the game of golf at Lansing Community College. But what exactly piqued his interest in spending hour after hour with folks who struggled to hit par for his course?

“The thing that intrigued me the most was the expression on somebody’s face when they hit a golf shot that they never hit before,” explains Applegate. “People used to always say to me, ‘How do you teach seven or eight classes a week and give all these private lessons? Don’t you get burned out?’ I said, ‘You never get burned out when you see somebody hit a shot and start getting addicted to the game.’ And that’s what keeps you going.”

One challenge in teaching a student of any age is getting the pupil to ask questions. “The hardest part is getting the student to engage you—getting the students to ask questions. They don’t really know what to ask,” admits Applegate. “Eventually, if I can get them to engage and get them one on one, [then] they understand that I am never going to embarrass them.”

There was one time in a beginners’ class at Lansing Community College when a group who had never before been on a golf course found themselves playing together. The result? “Whenever they would play, I would say to them, ‘When you get on the par 3 holes, I want you to get behind the green, and I want you to wave the group up behind you because that gets the pace of play going better,” chuckles Ron. “And I said, ‘The safest place to stand is right behind the flagstick, because nobody ever hits it at the flagstick.’ Sure enough, I’m out there one day, and they’re in single file, right behind the flagstick. They wave the person up, and the first person rips it right at the flagstick. Like a line drive. They’re bailing—left and right—and I’m thinking, ‘Oh boy, that was some great advice’.”

In addition to teaching at LCC, Ron coached the college’s golf team for five years and led the team to compete at nationals for three of those years. He has also coached the Haslett, Michigan, varsity team that has finished third, fifth, and ninth in the state. He credits the community’s junior golf program for the high school’s success. “But really, the measurement there is that we’ve had a lot of kids that have gone on to play college golf, and to me that means a lot more than winning a state championship. That means we’re doing something in our program that we can get the kids college golf scholarships.”

And before you get the idea that it’s all pars and putts for the teenagers, think again. “For my high school kids, when I make the final cut, the kids have to bring me in a list of all their teachers,” explains Applegate. “I then send an email to all their teachers and I tell them, ‘If any of these golfers miss any assignments, please send me an email telling me they’ve missed an assignment.’ If they miss an assignment, they miss the next match. Of course, you can imagine the cooperation I get from the teachers, and the parents absolutely love it. That’s what we do, and I’ve only had to do that three times in all the years that I’ve coached. Twice it was my son. But you know what? The second time it happened, he was a sophomore, the second time it happened it never happened again,” Ron dryly admits.

Golf runs in the Applegate family. In addition to Dad being a PGA member, Ron’s brother Jim is a PGA member and also past president of the Michigan section. And Jim had some good advice for Ron. “I was teaching school and running the golf course Pine Lake, a 9-hole Country Club—I was doing both,” admits Ron. “After two years, I just couldn’t do both anymore; I was stealing time away from both of them. My brother said, ‘Look, if you’re going to be in the golf business, you need to be a golf professional.’ So I did. I filled out all the paperwork. It took me three years to accumulate everything. Back then in order to get your Class A standing, you had to pass an oral exam in front of your sectional officers. Well, my brother was the president, so he’s on that board for the interview process. So I go for the oral exams. Now, my brother knows that I’m not very good with club repair because I had never done any club repair. I can re-grip golf clubs, but I’ve always jobbed that other out because I thought everything else took up so much time. So the oral exam goes really well, the guy who’s the chairman says, ‘You’ve done really well; we’re pleased to have you as a member.’ And my brother Jim says, ‘Well, I have a couple of questions.’ So he asked me a couple of questions about club repair work, which I did not know the answer to. Only a brother would do that.” With a gleam in his eye, Ron smiles and repeats, “Only a brother would do that.”

In Ron’s long and productive career, he has learned quite a bit as a member of the PGA. “The knowledge that I have gained over the years through the PGA of America—going to all of these seminars and listening to people—it’s nice to share that information. As I tell all of my students, it doesn’t matter how much information I have—I have to be able to convey that message to them in a manner so that they’re going to understand it, so that’s a challenge. I used to get a charge out of these guys that would say, ‘Well, what’s the PGA going to teach me?’ I’ve never been to a seminar where I haven’t learned one new thing. And I think when you quit learning, that’s the time to quit.”

When you meet Ron Applegate, one of the first things you notice is his smile and easy-going manner. Sit down for a conversation over breakfast, and you’ll quickly discover his love of golf and teaching. And the fact that this dude can play. “I’ve never been a great player, but I’ve played great at times,” offers Applegate. “I played at a Pro celebrity tournament one time over in the Flint area, and that day we had four golf professionals that played on the Tour that had just finished playing at the Buick Open. This was on a Monday. We had Dave Eichelberger, Dan Pohl, Frank Connor, and Lon Hinkle—those were the four Tour professionals, and I beat every one of them. I shot 65 that day, which is my lowest competitive round ever. I have had some great rounds, but I was never a great player. I was just a player that played great at times.”

As for playing a few rounds with his friends now? “My actual golfing has changed a lot; I’m not as competitive as I used to be. But the guys that I play with now—it’s more about companionship. And we have a great time in the group that we play with. It’s nice when you hit good golf shots, and when we get done we usually have lunch together and we talk about almost everything but golf. So now it’s recreational with me, whereas it used to be competition. And I play in very little competition. I do play in some of the events at the club, and I’ll play in a few scrambles and some fundraisers. But like everybody else, when you start to lose your skill level, it’s not as much fun to compete. I still enjoy playing the game.”

What changes in golf has Ron noticed over the years? “I’ve seen the game change drastically in the last five years. The influx of golfers coming in, it just isn’t there the way it used to be—for many reasons. You can slice it up any way you want to, but primarily the cost factor. It’s just too expensive for most people to play golf. And time wise—I think families are trying to get back to being more family-committed now. And it’s a very difficult game. There’s not a lot of immediate gratification in golf if you’re a competitor. Most people look at it the wrong way. They should look at it as a recreational sport that they do once a week with their buddies, you know, and get out and forget about everything else that’s going on in the world—it’s a great escape. But they don’t look at it that way.”

Ron turns 70 in December of 2015. After all these years associated with the great game of golf, what puts a smile on his face when he comes to class? “What I want to have happen in my class is when somebody comes for three hours, I want them to want to be there. And I want to engage the student. I found teaching over the years that if I can get them to like me as an individual, whether it’s through my sense of humor, my personality or whatever, they’re going to want to come to class. Then you make the class fun for them. You try not to make it difficult—any more difficult than it is—and that’s why I try to chop the class up a little bit. We do pitching, we do chipping, we do sand shots, because people get bored; they get bored easily. And if they’re not being successful in one area, maybe they’ll be successful in the other area.”

As a golf instructor, Ron has his own definition of success. “If I know when my student leaves me that they’ve gained the knowledge that they have to have to improve, then I’ve done my job. I can always get somebody hitting the ball better in a session. But when they leave, if two weeks down the road, if they’ve forgotten that knowledge on why they’re hitting the ball better, then I haven’t been very successful. So I think it’s that knowledge that you get because when they go to practice, you want to make sure they are practicing the correct things. So you try to give them two or three things that are going to help them the best.”

Ron Applegate has been involved in the game of golf for 58 years. My family’s golf game is connected to the Applegates; the lessons and knowledge passed down from Ron’s dad to Ron has also been passed on to my son and me as we both have taken Ron’s class at LCC. Although neither Ryan nor I are going to be PGA members anytime soon, a love affair with the sport has been developed—all thanks to the Applegates.