Turning Stone Resort and PGA staff a winning team
Turning Stone Resort team joins PGA staff and hundreds of volunteers to prepare for the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship. The renamed PPNC will feature 312 PGA Professionals playing over two courses -- Atunyote and Shenendoah.
By Roger Graves, PGA Magazine
It takes a cast of thousands to coordinate and execute a national golf tournament the magnitude of the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship (PPNC). And the management team and staff at Turning Stone Resort & Casino, in concert with PGA of America staff members and 1,200 volunteers, have combined to make the 2006 PPNC a special affair for the 312 PGA members competing in the 72-hole event.
"Turning Stone Resort & Casino has been planning and preparing for the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship since the day after we hosted the 2004 PGA Regional CPC, and to a large extent we have been looking forward to the National Tournament even before that," says Bob O'Brian, PGA director of golf at Turning Stone Resort. "It takes a tremendous amount of planning and hard work by all of the committees, staff members and volunteers to make something of this scope successful.
"The 3,000 employees of all facilities at Turning Stone Resort & Casino, all of the Oneida Indian Nation team, 1,200 volunteers and The PGA of America staff have worked together to plan a great week for everyone involved. We have a checklist of more than 1,000 items to consider in the planning and preparation stage, and we've dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's. Now, we're ready for a great week of golf."
PGA Director of Member Tournaments Mark Tschetschot and his staff have made periodic site visits to Turning Stone Resort in Verona, N.Y., throughout the past two years to coordinate course conditioning and maintenance with Turning Stone Director of Golf Courses and Grounds Andy Knappenberger. Tschetschot and Knappenberger have jointly addressed issues such as height of the rough, speed of the greens, possible hole locations on greens and tee placements. Now, both have declared the par-72 Shenendoah and Atunyote Golf Club courses fully groomed and ready for the field of 312 players in the 39th PGA Professional National Championship.
"I think the players will be impressed by the conditioning of the golf courses, and by the challenges each golf course provides for the PGA Professional National Championship," says Tschetschot, who noted that 12 members of the PGA Rules Committee and two full-time PGA staff members will work Rules at the Atunyote and Shenendoah courses during the competition.
Tschetschot has been impressed by the professionalism and cooperation displayed by O'Brian, Knappenberger and their staffs during each of his site visits. "They know how to run a signi.cant event," says Tschetschot. "Enthusiasm for the event has been extremely high among everyone we have come in contact with at Turning Stone. That is evident by the large number of volunteers who have signed up to help with the competition. Bob (O'Brian) mentioned that they actually have more volunteers signed up now than they need. Everyone is excited about it, and the staffs at Turning Stone have done a nice job with preparations."
Ray Halbritter, nation representative of the Oneida Indian Nation since 1975 and chief executive officer of its enterprises since 1990, is the visionary behind Turning Stone Resort & Casino and its emphasis on golf. He has captained the leadership team of O'Brian and Knappenberger in recruiting prominent PGA tournaments to Turning Stone, culminating with the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship.
Halbritter, a Harvard Law School graduate, negotiated a gaming compact with the State of New York that resulted in the development of Turning Stone Resort & Casino, the first legal casino in the state. Today, the resort houses a worldclass casino with a variety of table games and Instant Multi-Game machines, the cashless slotmachine technology developed and patented by the Oneida Nation. The resort also boasts three hotels, eight restaurants, nearly 100,000 square feet of meeting space, two world-class entertainment venues, and three championship-level golf facilities.
In 2003, the Oneida Nation under Halbritter's leadership began a two-year, $308 million expansion at Turning Stone that added The Lodge, a 98-suite luxury hotel; The Tower, a 287-room high-end hotel; the Event Center, a multi-purpose indoor entertainment and meeting facility; and the dramatic two-story Garden, the main entry to Turning Stone, to the resort's amenities.
The Rick Smith-designed Shenendoah Golf Club was the first of three blue-ribbon golf clubs to open at Turning Stone in 2000. Kaluhyat, a championship-quality golf course by designer in 2000. Kaluhyat, a championship-quality golf course by designer Robert Trent Jones Jr., opened in August 2003, and Atunyote, designed by Tom Fazio, opened in 2004, making Turning Stone the premier golf destination for the Northeast.
PGA Director of Golf O'Brian and Golf Course Superintendents Association of America certified superintendent Knappenberger are Halbritter's golf "point men" at Turning Stone, who have worked tirelessly to prepare the Shenendoah and Atunyote courses for the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship.
O'Brian, a PGA member since 1985, handles administrative duties and oversees staff, merchandising, tournaments and scheduling of programs at Turning Stone Resort. He came to Turning Stone from Samoset Resort in Rockport, Maine, where he was PGA director of golf for 14 years. Originally from Buffalo, N.Y., O'Brian has been a competitive golfer most of his life. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in education from East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas, where he played on the golf team.
His golf coach persuaded O'Brian to consider a career in golf, and he took a position at the Webb Hill Country Club in Wolf City, Texas. He then served as an PGA assistant professional at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., where he was responsible for the golf shop operations, tournament coordination and teaching. He later worked at the Portland Country Club in Maine as the PGA teaching professional.
O'Brian is a three-time recipient of the Central New York PGA Merchandiser of the Year Award for Resort Facilities. With his involvement, golf at Turning Stone has gained widespread acclaim. Its courses have been honored by numerous national publications, including Robb Report, Travel & Leisure Golf, Golf Magazine, Golfweek and Golf Digest.
O'Brian is assisted by PGA Professional Steve Campanaro at Atunyote Golf Club and Shenendoah Atunyote Golf Club and Shenendoah Golf Club Operations Manager David Bacon.
Knappenberger, who has been involved in the golf industry for more than 15 years, oversees maintenance of all the resort's golf properties -- the 18-hole Shenendoah, Atunyote and Kaluhyat courses, and the nine-hole Sandstone Hollow and Pleasant Knolls layouts.
Prior to joining Turning Stone, Knappenberger was director of golf course maintenance at Quail Hollow Country Club in Painesville, Ohio, where he managed all maintenance aspects of the 36-hole country club. During his tenure, the facility was named one of the top 10 conditioned courses on the Nationwide Tour two years in a row, and was also named the top-conditioned course by ClubCorp.
In 2000, Knappenberger was named ClubCorp Superintendent of the Year.
In addition, he served as superintendent of The Homestead in Hot Springs, Va. Knappenberger began his career as assistant superintendent, and then superintendent, at the famed Pinehurst Resort and Country Club in Pinehurst, N.C., which has hosted several major championships, including the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Opens.
Knappenberger earned an Associates Degree in golf course maintenance at Horry-Georgetown Technical College and served in the United States Air Force as an aircraft maintenance technician.
"It truly takes a team of everyone working together to stage an event like the PGA Professional National Championship, and hundreds of people have a hand in making it happen," emphasizes O'Brian.
"Our standards are high, and we believe everyone will recognize what a great collection of golf facilities we have at Turning Stone after they experience it during National Championship week. Thanks to a lot of hard work by so many individuals, it's going to be a great week.