No. 1 at Raleigh Country Club, the last course designed by Donald Ross and the first track acquired by John McConnell. Photo: Billy Richards, Courtesy McConnell Golf
John McConnell dropped one course in his college career at Virginia Tech – computer programming.
So, of course, he went on to earn millions as the chief executive of a medical software company, changing the trajectory of his life and, along the way, changing the golf business in the Carolinas and beyond.
“I only wrote one program in my life. It was tax billing for the town of Christiansburg (Virginia). I said to myself, ‘Thank God I’m in sales, because this stuff would kill me,’” McConnell said recently, sitting in the dining room of the Old North State Club, one of 14 clubs his McConnell Golf company now owns and operates.
Funny how life works.
John McConnell
McConnell learned the computer business working for Burroughs Corporation and used his background in finance and sales to turn a later job at a small software company into a multimillion-dollar emp...