Rich History, Honest Business make Morton Golf the Ultimate Success Story

by Vic Williams

It’s called the "Five-Second Rule."
It has nothing to do with staying too long in the paint, dropping a piece of toast on the floor or timing the golf swing. It’s not the title of some obscure how-to book ... at least as far as we know.

It’s much deeper than that. For Ken Morton Sr., the Five-Second Rule has everything to do with the success he, his family, their customers and employees have built and sustained over the past 50 years at the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, perhaps the West’s best-run and most envied municipal golf operation.

It has to do with first impressions.

“When people come through the door, it’s human instinct to take only five seconds to make an internal decision on what that place is like,” Morton says at his favorite table at MacKenzie’s, Haggin Oaks’ bustling, welcoming, 5-year-old bar and grill, which over any given lunch hour is populated by hardcore golfers settling up after a morning round, suit-and-tied businessmen surfing their laptops or local blue-collar types in search of a good sandwich and even better company. “That’s how it works. You’re sizing up the indirect as much as the direct encounter — is the guy over there cooking busy, is the bartender friendly, is the waitress friendly, and how’s she carrying herself? You’re taking that all in. When employees realize the importance of the indirect side and how easy it is to turn people off, it’s a profound change in them. It only takes one mistake to cause people not to come back.”

This year, Haggin Oaks celebrates 75 years of good impressions, great golf (36 holes, 18 originally designed by Alister MacKenzie in 1930 and brought back up to his standards by Mike Asmundson in 2001), appreciative patrons and loyal clients, all measured out in those all-important five-second increments. Many golfers have made it their home course for years; some show up every day to play, practice, eat, jaw with their buddies or simply hang out in the Super Shop, the biggest golf course-based pro shop in America. Members of local private clubs make a standing Haggin tee time every Monday, when their own courses are closed. In fact, more than a few of them were Haggin Oaks regulars before they shelled out initiation fees — back when Morton’s mentor, the late Tom LoPresti, was running the show.

“I’ll never forget, one day Tony was sitting at a table with some old cronies who were members of our golf club,” Morton says. “They’d joined the local country clubs that opened here in the ’60s — El Macero, Valley Hi, Northridge, Sierra View — and a guy says to Tommy, ‘You know, all your customers are joining country clubs, what are you gonna do?’ Tommy kind of blinked and stepped back and thought about it for a minute, and said, ‘Well, if I did all the right things for my customers through the years, I’ll not only keep them, but I’ll have new customers we’re making room for. I should have new customers now.’ I never forgot that. We are and have always been much of the foundation for building memberships for country clubs. As people get into it and want to be around other golfers, and do better financially, they’re going to want to join. The hub is much bigger than just the game, the tournaments and the people who play here. It’s interconnected to the golfing community.”

This is an inclusive place; the Haggin-Morton family extends into the thousands, from regular Joes and Janes to homegrown pros like Natalie Gulbis, Kevin and David Sutherland and Scott McCarron to such competitive legends from the past as Sam Snead (who played here in 1937 and ’38, then coming back to win in ’41), Ben Hogan (who won his first check here, $350 for third place, in 1935), Ken Venturi (he won the 1950 State Fair Open at Haggin), Gene Sarazen, Horton Smith and George Archer. Annika Sorenstam, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf and long-drive king Jason Zuback hosted clinics for charities and manufacturers, and many other “name” players have helped put this unassuming, straightforward golf operation on the map. Other celebrities left their mark, too. Babe Ruth came through, joining Bing Crosby and Bob Hope for a Red Cross charity exhibition in war-torn 1942.

The course’s amazingly rich story is chronicled on the walls and tables of MacKenzie’s through framed and lacquered newspaper clippings, photos, scorecards, ads — a treasure trove of artifacts that paint a detailed picture of how the golf business should be run. The story deepens on both sides of the tee box, through 7 million rounds and counting, through tournaments large and small (including the 1963 National Amateur Publinks, won by future Tour player Bob Lunn); through millions of dollars in sales through the Super Shop, which opened in 1997 and underwent a major expansion a couple years back under the direction of Morton’s son, Ken Jr.; and through the staff’s carefully cultivated “grow the game” culture, epitomized by Morton’s other son, Tom, the director of player performance, and his team of talented assistant pros — up to 15 of them, each servicing 500 to 2,000 customers.

But the story is ultimately told through the elder Morton’s own five-decade career, which has earned him respect across the board and an unmatched five national PGA awards, including Professional of the Year in 1998. Through it all he’s remained humble, harking back to his roots as a caddie and his apprenticeship under LoPresti for clues to the recognition he calls “ridiculous, beyond anything I ever thought I’d receive.”

“One thing I gained from LoPresti and my initial orientation with the PGA was doing things for the good for the game and for the good of people. Then I had this opportunity for all those years to connect the business and structural sides of our company, and marry them to the game and its traditions. I could never repay the PGA for what they’ve done for me.”

Morton has been around the world on behalf of the PGA to establish and strengthen those connections between golf and business. It’s an ongoing journey that began in earnest 30 years ago. “There’s a hidden part of my background that’s hardly ever talked about, that’s rather profound, in how we evolved as a company,” he says. “In the late 1970s I was invited to put on some education programs for the national PGA, as a volunteer. The first one was here in Sacramento, an apprentice training. So I did that for a couple of years. Then I was asked to be part of the faculty for head pro training. Thirty years later, I’m still doing head pro training for the PGA of America. I do five or six presentations with two of the other most successful pros in the United States. They would also include experts from other fields — Disney, MGM, Neiman-Marcus — in the programs. So I’m not only gaining the knowledge of the best pros, but I’m gaining it from guests the PGA hires, having meals and seminars for 25 years with these people.

“After doing this for five years, I told myself I’d take three to five concepts I’d heard that year and implement them at Haggin Oaks. If you take 25 and multiply them by an average of two, we’ve had 50 concepts introduced by the best businesspeople in the world. I didn’t realize until about 15 years ago, but I was beginning to develop a business culture for our company. So I started trying to build it with all the pieces in place — who we are, what we stand for, what we want to do — so when we hire people, that’s their first learning experience. Kind of like Disney. Treating people nice doesn’t cost you anything, but it costs you a lot not to do it.”

Morton personally trains new hires every month, stressing that they are now members of the Haggin Oaks family and empowering them to make decisions on the spot if a supervisor isn’t available. He also reiterates the Five-Second Rule, reminding them that customer encounters, both direct and indirect, add up quick — 45 to 75 per customer, per day. “If you have 100 customers in a day, that’s at least 4,500 encounters,” he says.

No matter where at Haggin Oaks these encounters take place — at check-in, in MacKenzie’s, on the range or in the stateof- the-art Player Performance Studio, a simple love for the game of golf is always at the center of the operation, and a conscious application of that love, from front-line employees to the owners themselves, is what keeps the Morton business plan solid in even in perilous economic times.

“Golf is under siege right now,” Morton is quick to admit. “Private clubs are closing and more courses have closed than opened for two years in a row. Longtime pros are losing their jobs. We were under siege to grow the game, now we’re under siege that we’ve never understood in our lifetimes. The dollars are so profound. These are scary times.”

Couple monetary woes with tightening time constraints — most people, especially those lucky enough to have a job and family responsibilities, don’t have the luxury of spending six or seven hours on one activity — and the game of golf is struggling to pick up converts these days, especially with so many other recreational options available; in Sacramento, Haggin’s range is empty when the NBA’s Kings are playing a home game, and the Triple A baseball Rivercats are a big draw, too. With 50 years of experience behind him, what does Morton see as potential way forward for the game?

“We only have really two things that we can count on,” he says. “One, golf is a great stress-reducer. That leads to the second thing, which is, we have to make it more fun than we even make it now. We have to market the game in new ways, open the game to people who didn’t have access before. We play one of our courses [Arcade Creek] as two nines, so you can get in nine in two hours, for the price of a movie. Golf will need to be sold in a different way. And as a game, it’s kind of hard. So how do we make it friendlier and easier to play? We are constantly working with our playerdevelopment trends to make that so. We’re in the top three player-development centers in the country, working with all kinds of 501c(3) groups and other markets to open up the game. Saving Strokes, part of the American Stroke Association, had 200 people playing here. That’s 200 we never had. If half of them come out here six times, buy a Pepsi and a bucket of balls, that’s how you have to think of it on the business side. And you have to have that model to front the other side, the ‘good of the game’ side. We also have to promote the character of the game. Nothing mirrors life more than golf. If you’re not a pretty good person, you can’t get a game. It’s not complicated. Shape up or ship out.”

Once Tom Morton’s army of teachers turns a player from dabbler to serious convert — fitting him or her with the proper equipment along the way — Haggin Oaks’ Super Shop often becomes the center of that regular customer’s attention. The demand for product became so strong a decade ago that Morton decided to turn an “average” space into something resembling a big-box store, with a two-sided range just steps away. “I have to take my hat off to Kenny Jr. and our team. It’s not fancy, but when you walk in there, you feel like it’s a real nice retail environment. That took some genius on his part, and some great design people. I’m really proud of it.”

He’s also wondering why more greengrass retailers haven’t gone the same route. “In the 1950s, the average golf shop size would have been 1,000 square feet,” he says. “In 50 years, the average size has grown to only 1,500 square feet. Why are they keeping them so small, driving business to shops like ours? The golf industry has matured in food and beverage and other ways, but not in player development or retail. Can you believe the opportunity to buy things today compared to 50 or 60 years ago, and 1,500 square feet is still the average golf shop in America? It’s beyond comprehension.”

It’s not beyond belief that as its diamond anniversary year approaches the final green, Haggin Oaks is well-positioned to remain at the center of all things golf not only in Sacramento but all of Northern California and beyond. It’s a charge Ken Morton Sr. takes seriously.

“First of all, it’s a responsibility. That landed on me when I was a young man. It’s a responsibility to continue what had been created here, and expand on it to represent new eras. Every 10 years is a new era, and no matter how smart you are or how much history you have, you’re never fully prepared. You’ve got to continue changing. So in one respect we’re trying to remain the same, to remain the hub of golf; on the other, you’ve got to keep changing to remain the hub. It would be a disservice to the game and community if we didn’t try to play that role. Tom LoPresti created that. He and I were partners for 25 years, and I worked for him for longer than that. That’s always our mission: For the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex to remain the hub of public golf.”

And that’s just what it’ll be, five seconds at a time.

Published in FG Magazine, Winter 2008

AMERICA'S MOST HONORED MAGAZINE AT ING AWARDS
It’s getting to be a habit, and we can’t seem to help ourselves. For the fourth straight year, FG racked up an impressive load of hardware at the International Network of Golf Media Awards announced at January’s PGA Merchandise Show. We scored six awards in all, besting writers and photographers from such national publications as GolfWeek and Sports Illustrated. First-place honors went to Vic Williams in Competition Writing for his piece on Tiger’s historic U.S. Open victory (July-August 2008), Joann Dost for her epic shot of Tiger’s 72nd hole putt on Open Sunday; and Calder Chism for his “Weekend Wisdom” drawing of Vic in the May-June 2008 issue. Outstanding Achievement awards went to Williams and Darin Bunch for Travel Writing. Other FG contributors who took home awards included Tony Dear and Bob Seligman. Next year, look for the clean sweep.