EFTA00603147.pdf

PUBLISHER'S LETTER ON REMOVING YOUR SOCKS This August Kiawah's Ocean Course will host The PGA Championship. Owner Bill Goodwin has been an extraordinary and caring steward of his very special links by the sea. He's brought the incomparable Pete Dye back often to enhance this amazing two and one-half miles of Carolina's shore. Then he convinced the PGA to pit the world's best players against the planet's toughest collection of holes. This, however, is the Landmark built PGA West in 1987 seeking the PGA back story of a man and Championship. But it was too hot in August in Palm Springs, island converging in 1989 to so it got The 1991 Ryder Cup Matches as consolation. undertake an urgent mission. Somehow, the PGA allowed Landmark to move the Matches east The Ocean Course needed to to Kiawah for European TV on a promise that the course would be "born Miss America" as it be great. had been named site of the Our company, KRA, wanted to sell homesites, design 1991 Ryder Cup Matches well neighborhoods, provide elegant private club amenities. So we before it was built. offered Jerry Kiawah's public "resort assets" for a hefty price. Gerald Gaylord Barton Jerry answered enthusiastically: "Leonard, I sure hope you was a Depression-era child get that fantastic price! Cause while you won't own a five-star born in 1931 in Stroud, Oklahoma, pop. 800. His mother, resort anymore you'll definitely be able to go stay in one." Dolly, a school teacher, ran the family movie theaters; his The price went south; Landmark came east and built The father, Lewis, was the town's mayor, high school principal, Ocean Course. football coach. (To Jerry he was simply "the most honest man After the '91 Ryder Cup matches, Landmark was a in the world.") His paternal grandfather made the Oklahoma public company, had 52.5 billion in assets, $825 million Land Rush on a rented horse, age sixteen, marrying a girl he'd in stockholder's equity, 5,000 employees, 20 courses (five met the night before. Lasted seventy-five years. Jerry would in the Top 100). Then it was over, thanks to our Federal often exhibit such staying power. government's illegal taking." Jerry never expressed Jerry worked the popcorn machine for money to buy bitterness, forging ahead with ten new courses like the recent property. He'd acquire a corner house, move it, then sell the Apes Hill Club in Barbados. He just celebrated Landmark's corner to a gas station. The blue collar side of town was a fortieth and his eightieth birthday. long way from his elite universities: Chicago, UCLA Law, and Jerry's son, Doug, remembers, "When we were kids, dad Oxford. Having a profound love for the classics, he became a would always ask us, 'What did you do for the good of the top debater. Still, Jerry's ace has long been his wife, Jo, brilliant country today?' He feels each day is a gift, so leave it better lawyer, vivacious mom to three kids, loving "Nana" to ten lucky than you found it." grandchildren. For Kiawah that would be the situation. And for Jerry After law school Jerry worked in the Pentagon JAG then, Bill now, we dedicate Volume 23 to them both. Each is office, then he began an odyssey constructing all sorts of a preeminent businessman for whom our superb course has commercial buildings and projects. A friend introduced him been a jewel cherished and shared. to the opportunity with Landmark in 1970; soon he merged his Oklahoma assets into it, becoming CEO. With golf pros I'll be pushing on now, leaving this magazine I started Joe Walser, Ernie Vossler, and the one and only Chris Cole, twenty-three years back to chase a few rainbows. We tried Landmark was all of a sudden America's Golf Resort Developer to create a little poetry, and maybe did at times. from Carmel to Kiawah. LEONARD L. LONG, JR. Editor In Chief Jerry presents contract proposals that end up pretty much the way he wants ... by (of course) doing you a significant Hulk %•-,}ts (`• b.f.,: r• X On rer.er tf,itt n 1p .r, • —4. h --aver ' And' .:.: favor. I visited him in California in 1988 to negotiate becoming partners at Kiawah. Formidable, amusing, folksy, unflappably generous, the Oklahoma homilies doing little to mask a steel ht ethers( eon refit —. .1: n to•cesarnm wr.on P. then trap mind. "So covert." says a colleague, "that he can remove Nur 3 ,r -r `t, .. ‘.' an adversary's socks without untying his shoes."' EFTA00603147