Green on the Green
Phil Green reflects on his passion for golf, his time working as Head PGA Pro at Musgrove Country Club, and the community he’s found through both.
Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Images by Ryan McGill
"You know, there's no telling how many times I've taken a golf cart around this course in the last 30 years," Phil Green muses underneath a shady spot between holes 8 and 11 at Musgrove Country Club in Jasper.
Rarely does a day pass when Phil isn't out on the golf course, working on his game and chatting with everyone he encounters. Some are occasional strangers that don't remain strangers for long, but most are regular golfers he considers friends. Indeed, Phil’s presence has become so engrained into the fabric of the course that it would be unnatural not to hear his voice or see him zipping around in his cart between holes.
Phil came to Jasper in 1992 after joining the Musgrove staff as head Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) professional. While his love for Musgrove and the Jasper community spans three decades, Phil’s story begins in the Midwest. A native Kansan, Phil grew up in Prairie Village, a suburb of Kansas City, and lived there until he was 13 years old. Sports-wise, Phil played Little League baseball but was not introduced to the game of golf until his family relocated to Dallas, Texas, when his dad was transferred for work. After settling into their new home, Phil and his older brother began to look for opportunities to make friends.
“We ended up visiting a local driving range and the rest is pretty much history,” Phil says. “We both fell for golf so hard that we ended up running the driving range for the man who owned it. And the balance worked well, because my brother was more interested in the groundskeeping aspect of it all, and I was more interested in the golf shop. We ran it smoothly and laid the paths for our respective futures."
Phil's brother went on to become a course superintendent and Phil joined the PGA as a golf pro in 1974. That career took him to courses like Horseshoe Bay in Austin, Texas, Canyon Creek CC in Richardson, Texas, and Lake Forest Yacht & Country Club in Daphne, Alabama. He joined the PGA Mini Tour in Florida in 1984 but left two years later to resume his golf pro career at The Greens in Oklahoma City—his last stop before Musgrove.
"While I was still working in Daphne, I met my wife,” Phil recalls. “We moved for the mini-tour and then for the Oklahoma City job. She told me she wanted to get back down South, closer to her parents in Birmingham, so I called a pro friend of mine and asked if he knew of any job openings. The Musgrove position was mentioned, and the committee overseeing the decision could only meet the very next day. Before I had time to think, I was on a plane to Alabama!"
From his first look in 1992 to this day, Phil feels charmed by the 18-hole championship golf course with bent grass greens and Bermuda fairways nestled into the rolling terrain of beautiful oaks and pines. He calls the course "his office,” and when he worked full-time, he found himself on the course from early morning to late at night due to the level of demand necessary to run a course efficiently. Now semi-retired and working on what he calls a "call me if you need me" basis, Phil has had to adjust to a slower pace of life—something that didn't come easy to him.
"It was difficult at first, and sometimes it's still hard to sit back and let Cade, the new head pro, do the job, but it has been a seamless transition. I gave him his first lesson when he was young and I’ve seen him grow up on this course, so it is very rewarding to watch him advance in his career and do such a good job at it. Now he just has to put up with me spending time in the shop when I'm not out here swinging a club," he laughs.
Phil believes the club itself, the surrounding community, and the game of golf have given him friendships that he considers unparalleled.
"This is such a special place, and the people are even more special to me,” Phil says. “I couldn't begin to pinpoint a specific moment that stands out to me as the most significant from the last 30 years, because every person I've met has played a role in making those years wonderful. I am so blessed that I get to be a part of this community while also playing a sport that I love. I don't think it gets any better." 78