It’s likely you’ve heard of the Seminole Pro-Member, the one-day event held each March at the regal Donald Ross course on the Atlantic Ocean in South Florida. It has drawn, through the years, Nick Price, Ernie Els, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Nelly Korda, among other touring luminaries, Jimmy Dunne, the longtime Seminole Golf Club president, presiding. The so-called fifth major.
This week a group of elite club pros get their turn to be spoiled in style, at an event that has bubbled under the surface of national attention for decades, the Smith Cole pro-am at the Cherry Hills Country Club, outside Denver, a three-day tourney hosted by Peyton Manning, a Cherry Hills member and Denver resident. The event is named for the late Warren Smith and Clayton Cole, very much alive, both longtime head pros at Cherry Hills. The Smith Cole is a club-pro major. This year’s edition is No. 34.
Jimmy Dunne is playing with the head pro from Deepdale Golf Club. Augusta National will have a pro and a member at the event. So will the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, the Inverness Club, the San Francisco Golf Club, among nearly two dozen other clubs you know or wish you did. All three Manning brothers — your Cooper, your Peyton, your Eli — are playing. Kevin Hammer, the USGA president, is playing with Martyn Huish, the pro from North Berwick, in Scotland, and Mike Whan, the USGA CEO, is playing with Andy North, the two-time U.S. Open winner and a Cherry Hills member. Wyndham Clark, another two-time U.S. Open winner and Cherry Hills member, is playing with Michael Meldman, the golf-course developer. There are club pros from The Olde Farm in Virginia, Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia, Shooting Star in Wyoming. Yes, new kids on the block…