By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – The story about Jimmy Headrick sounds like a pretty good one when you understand the 60-year-old Slidell man has spent the majority of his life playing golf.
But Headrick’s story is about much more than an enjoyable afternoon on the course trying to make birdies and pars.
Hired earlier this year by Oak Harbor Golf Club owner George Cascino to join the staff as a PGA Golf Professional Instructor, Headrick brings a lifetime of experience here to take on a much bigger challenge than building the junior and women’s programs in the St. Tammany region.
The game of golf nationally has seen a decline in the last 10 years, with participation going from 30 million to 26 million since 2005. According to a study from Kari Haug, a graduate of the European Institute of Golf Course professionals, the decline is being targeted now by building junior programs, women’s programs and reaching the soon to retire 9 million baby boomers who will have more time to play golf.
Headrick is at the forefront of that effort to “grow the game” and brings a passion for golf like few others display.
“I firmly believe Jimmy is going to improve this situation for Oak Harbor and the area,” Cascino, a PGA Hall of Fame member who purchased the Slidell course five years ago. “Jimmy knows everyone in the New Orleans area and it would have been foolish of me not to hire him.”
Headrick was one of those junior golfers growing up in Jackson, Miss. who started playing at the age of 10. He fell in love with the sport and went on to win his city championship before playing collegiate golf on scholarship for Delta State University.
From his early days as a junior golfer, Headrick has been involved with the game from virtually every aspect possible; including seven years as women’s golf coach for UNO, head pro positions at several premier New Orleans area courses, and various roles for PGA golf organizations that firmly aimed at growing the game.
“I had a wonderful experience as a junior golfer and that’s what I want to teach kids today as one way to grow the game,” Headrick said. “Golf parallels life in so many ways—it teaches respect for the course and fellow golfer, how to handle adversity, and shows a kid that you won’t always win at everything. But then it teaches you how to grow from defeat.
“It’s why I love the game so much,” he added. “It teaches life skills to kids—how you can’t be afraid to lose, but how to walk away from an experience and want to get better from it.”
Since coming on board at Oak Harbor, Headrick headed the traditional club junior clinics this summer and packed four camps to the max, while he will start the Jimmy Headrick Junior Golf Academy here within the month. The academy will offer a session for new players and a separate session for competitive players.
Headrick brings a wealth of experience to his new job, which all started right out of college in 1976 with assistant pro positions at Audubon and Lakewood Country Club in New Orleans, before being named the youngest head PGA pro in Louisiana at the age of 25 when he was hired to lead Colonial Country Club in N.O.
When Beau Chene was ready to open in Mandeville with 18 holes, later to grow to 36 holes, Headrick was the man hired to lead them in 1980. He stayed there for eight years until he was again sought to open another new course, the prestigious layout at Eastover in eastern New Orleans. Nominated as the Best New Golf Course in the U.S. by Golf Digest, Headrick used the course to build the recognition for the sport by raising more money for charity through local tournaments than any course in the state.
But like so many other south Louisiana residents, Hurricane Katrina hit Headrick hard when Eastover was destroyed by the storm, ending his 18-year job there when the course was never able to rebound.
“I was not just the pro, but a limited partner at Eastover so that was a hard time to get through,” he said. “I had to re-evaluate my life since I saw Eastover destroyed, they stopped the women’s golf program at UNO costing me that job as well, and I was living in a FEMA trailer like so many others.”
Headrick’s dedication to growing the game through junior golf brought the start of his comeback, hired in 2007 as the Executive Director for the First Tee of Greater New Orleans, a local chapter to a national program that taught nine core life values to golfers and was a program on the move, now with 274 chapters across the U.S.
A year later he was hired by Lakewood Golf Club as Director of Player Development to assist in its comeback. Headrick brought back the dormant New Orleans City Championship—The Mackel—that offered the top amateur players in the state a highly-recognized tournament. Now at Oak Harbor, Headrick recently concluded The Mackel tournament being held in Slidell, where it will continue on an annual basis.
As the years have gone by for Headrick, each new opportunity has become about building the game that he grew up loving.
“I started out as a caddy in my hometown where we got $3 for carrying the clubs for 18 holes,” he recalled. “But when I learned how to read greens I could get $5. That was back in the days when you picked up your own range balls after practicing with them.”
He has received more honors and recognition than one story could relate, but among them have been the National PGA Junior Golf Leader of the Year (selected out of 27,000 members nationwide), U.S. Kids Golf Top 50 Best Junior Teachers, Louisiana Golf Association Distinguished Service Award, named to the Gulf States PGA Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, Allstate Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame Humanitarian Award, and several honors as the Louisiana PGA Professional of the Year.
After Lakewood’s new board decided in January to drop the Director of Player Development position at the club, Headrick was looking for his next opportunity and there was an old friend in George Cascino.
“George was the pro who sponsored me in 1976 as an apprentice,” Headrick said. “So it’s kind of fitting for me to come to Oak Harbor to work with him again so many years later. Yes, golf play has been in decline, but Oak Harbor has kept its numbers steady and now I want to be someone to help do something about the numbers of golf overall.
“For me, it’s a blessing to be able to work with a family like George has here,” he said. “We’re just getting started with a lot of good things that will be happening.”