Three seats are coming open in 2019. Completing their terms of office are Bill Geisler, Bill Reed, and Richard Schmidt. When you see, or meet these three at your next hickory golf or golf collectors outing, be sure to thank them for their service.
The following four gentlemen are standing for three open board positions. A ballot will be sent via email to all current SoHG members on Nov. 15. Voting will take place from Nov. 15-30. Those elected will be posted to the website and also in the December e-newsletter. They will take office on Jan. 1, 2019.
SoHG 2018 board candidates
Dave Brown
Omaha, Neb.
Dave previously served on the SoHG board from 2014-16 and served as president from 2015-2016. He is running for his second term of office.
Dave is well known for his work with the McIntyre Golf Ball Co., which he purchased from Chris McIntyre in 2013. The company produces replica gutta percha and early 20th century golf balls. He is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine and knee reconstruction. He and his late wife, Nancy, have three grown children and three granddaughters.
Dave, who has been playing hickory golf for 12 years, tries to play in at least six tournaments a year, and is especially fond of playing in events with the Nebraska Hickory Golf Assoc.
“I am very happy to have met so many gentlemen who love this purer form of golf as well. I was introduced to gutta play by Chris McIntyre and am now afflicted with the same virus for that game.”
Dave also serves on the Board of the Cox Classic, a Web.com tournament in Omaha, “now my sole connection to the steel and titanium form of the game.”
Gary Krupkin
Richardson, Texas
Gary is a Dallas-area attorney who once had a burgeoning collection of hickory clubs, antique golf artwork, and antique golf silver, but sold the lot to finance law school education and purchase a home for he and his fiance. After law school, he focused on his career and family and did not immediately return to collecting.
A couple of years ago, he says, he met Texas hickory golfers and collectors Scot Pilgrim (Dallas) and Pete League (Austin). “Both of them encouraged me back into the hickory game and I am now an enthusiastic player. I don’t collect clubs anymore because my wife says we don’t have room in the house and our walls are already covered with artwork. However, there is a “secret closet” in the library that has numerous hickory drivers, wedges, and putters when one or another of my clubs seems to be under-performing for unknown reasons and simply must take a rest.”
Gary’s earlier collection was inspired by Mort Olman, owner of The Old Golf Shop in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Mort was certainly an unforgettable character, and, I’m sure if Damon Runyon was still around, Mort would have a special place in the writer’s literary escapades,” he says.
He confesses that he was a “shotgun” golf collector, finding it hard to pass up just about anything. “Heck, I once bought a stuffed dog that somebody said lived in Old Tom Morris’ golf shop. Looking back on it, I think the guy was pulling my leg because the dog was a miniature Schnauzer and I just don’t think Old Tom would have had a Schnauzer, especially a miniature one.”
After Gary took up hickory golf – “which I took to like a duck takes to the sky when hunters show up” – he’s been an avid player and would like “to offer whatever my small and infertile brain may hold to advance this wonderful aspect of golf.”
“When I learned the board was seeking nominations, I threw my duckbill into the ring and nobody threw it back out. I can’t promise you a chicken in every pot, but I can promise you two things: (1) I’ll work hard with my hickory brethren to advance the game as far and wide as possible, and, (2) I’ll see if anybody might like to purchase a stuffed miniature Schnauzer and then donate the money to the Society.”
Bill Wardwell
Turners Falls, Mass.
Bill, who is one of the founders of the Hickory Golfers of Massachusetts says he believes it’s important for “the northeast to have a voice in the SoHG.” He has played golf since the late 1960s and hickory golf since 2013.
“I have been lucky enough to win the National Hickory Championship and the C.B. McDonald and have had respectable results in other events,” he says. “But these results are secondary to playing on the old and historic courses which is why we are really doing this.
“There are many 19th and early 20th century courses in New England that are awesome for hickory play and I would like to play a part in exposing the Society to some of them,” he says.
Bill says that the older courses are worth exploring and that modern hickory golfers who appreciate them should “be willing to go out of their way every now and then.”
He hopes to work toward that end.”
Jim Wilhelm
Gundy, Woodstock, Ontario, Can.
Jim has been an investment advisor with leading Canadian investment firms for 38 years.
“I enjoy spending time with my family,” he says. “I have been playing hickory golf for 12 years and find it so much more fulfilling than modern golf where you are constantly trying to buy a better game. Over the years I have met the most interesting people through hickory golf, people I would have no chance of ever meeting any other way.”
Jim has been a long-time player and supporter of the National Hickory Championship, the Foxburg Hickory Championship, and the C.B. Macdonald.
