The typical PGA professional remains in one region of the country for his or her entire career, and oftentimes that club pro will stay at one facility far longer than any other.
That’s part of what makes Eric Dietz’s five-decade path through the industry so intriguing. He’s won the Bill Strausbaugh Award for mentorship of fellow PGA professionals in four different sections – Philadelphia, Northern California, Minnesota and North Florida – and he’s been tasked with taking on the general manager, CEO or COO position of several respected facilities across the country.
It’s a role that the 63-year-old Dietz, currently the COO of the Seth Raynor-designed Mountain Lake in Lake Wales, Florida, has embraced as his own unique identity.
“If I sum it up, I have always believed that businesses are built on three different things,” Dietz told Global Golf Post. “It comes down to people, place and process. I’ve focused on all three of those, but obviously people have been the most important part.”
Management has been in Dietz’s blood since the beginning of his golf journey. Growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., he started working at the now-defunct Washingtonian Country Club at age 11. He hung around the pro shop so much that the local pro joked that Dietz knew the shop’s inventory better than anyone. For the next seven years, Dietz worked in outside services as a cart kid, forming the foundation of what would come in his PGA professional career.
“I was around the game that I loved and got to be around golf professionals and watch golf at a decent level and continue to learn,” Dietz said. “It was really a formative experience.”
By 1981, a 22-year-old Dietz started work toward his PGA certification while serving as an apprentice at Poolesville (Maryland) Golf Course. It was at that public facility where Dietz cut his teeth as a teacher and player while gaining a better appreciation for some of the nuances of the business.
“There’s lots of shop time, lots of teaching, learning to take care of golf cars, and, you know, all of those romantic things that we all forget,” Dietz said. “But it started me out. It was really a great way to enter the business.”
The next two stops would, in many ways, set him forward on the path he is on now. Dietz went to work for Frank Laber, a recent Middle Atlantic Section Hall of Fame selection, at Longview Golf Course in Timonium, Maryland (now Fox Hollow Golf Course), before moving on to Baltimore Country Club where he worked under Dennis Satyshur, who would go on to be a noted club pro at Caves Valley.
“They asked me to take over as the chief operating officer, and I’ve stayed on that side of the business ever since.” – Eric Dietz
Both Laber and Satyshur stressed continued education and mentorship. Dietz also considered himself fortunate to be in the circle of several influential pros who were nationally recognized for their leadership skills. Legendary head pros such as Max Elbin, Bill Clarke and Bill Strausbaugh – the namesake of the PGA’s mentorship award – were vital in Dietz’s decision to become heavily involved in “paying it forward” to younger pros as his career progressed.
“They helped me understand the value of ensuring that you surround yourself with really great people,” Dietz said. “You try your absolute best to do right by them and help them achieve their goals and help get them in the right places to flourish. Because ultimately, that’s what it’s about.”
There was a brief spell when Dietz questioned his lifelong love affair with the club pro business. At the age of 28, he maintained his PGA certification but left the industry to see what it would be like to have his weekends free for actually playing golf – something PGA pros often start out thinking they will do often until they realize the reality of the business. For two years, he went into the private sector where he sold commodity food and had more free time.
“It was great, but I missed the business,” Dietz said. “I missed the people, and I missed the clubs.”
Dietz got back into the industry in 1991 by becoming a director of instruction at Hunt Valley Country Club in Phoenix, Maryland, and he eventually worked his way inside the shop to become an assistant and then head pro at that 27-hole private facility. He then left Maryland to become the director of golf for all of the golf properties run by Hershey, Pennsylvania, which included four different types of facilities. Dietz was twice a PGA Merchandiser of the Year in the Philadelphia Section during his tenure at Hershey, which he parlayed into a role at the historic Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club. Dietz helped to secure a women’s major championship at the venue, but the club ultimately declined it at the time. It was a sign that Lancaster was not quite the right culture fit at that stage. Lancaster would go on to reconsider its stance. The club hosted the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open and is scheduled to host the 2024 edition of the tournament.
By 2003, it was time for something new. Dietz and his wife, Leigh, decided to move across the country as both took jobs at Ridgemark Golf and Country Club in Hollister, California, about a 45-minute drive east of Monterey. Dietz was named director of golf, and Leigh took the head food-and-beverage position at the club.
Dietz’s position would change almost immediately.
“We relocated across the country and a couple of months into it, they parted ways with the general manager that was there,” Dietz said. “And so that was ultimately my foray into the club-management side. They asked me to take over as the chief operating officer, and I’ve stayed on that side of the business ever since.”
It became evident early on that Dietz belonged in this type of role. He guided Ridgemark through a full transformation of its brand and image, including a new mission-values-belief statement and logo.
After four years at Ridgemark, Dietz took on new challenges. He left California and went to Rochester (Minnesota) Golf & Country Club where he guided that club through a staff culture change. A few years later, he returned home to Maryland for five years at Lakewood Country Club, where he made significant changes to its operations, as well. In 2014, he went back to Minnesota to start a three-year stint at the prestigious Interlachen Country Club, his last stop before reaching Mountain Lake in 2017.
“Every club, every facility, each one’s got its own unique heartbeat. It has its own unique culture. How do you determine that? You listen. You use your eyes a lot.” – Eric Dietz
Mountain Lake is one of the most interesting private facilities in the country, given that it is a seasonal club with 110 residential members and 150 non-residential members, the latter coming from all over the world. Beyond a hidden-gem Raynor course, the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted has a significant design influence over other elements of the property. One part of Dietz’s job was coordinating a $6.5 million renovation of the first floor of the Olmsted-designed Colony House, the Park’s main building which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Dietz calls Mountain Lake “one of those fascinating places that no one has ever heard of.”
“I’m surrounded by this incredible group of people that I get to work with, and I get to work for an incredible spot,” Dietz said. “You wake up and you go to work, and you’ve got to pinch yourself a little bit each and every day. Because even though it’s not an easy business at times, it’s a very special way to make a living.”
A major part of Dietz’s mentorship over the years has been by example. He is just finishing a six-year stint on the Club Management Association of America national board, and he has been closely involved with that organization since 2004. A past recipient of the “Excellence in Club Management Award” from the CMAA, Dietz has pushed to continue learning over the years by being active in the USGA Green Section, the National Club Association and the First Tee of Montgomery County, where he grew up.
When asked what he has learned about the golf industry and the cultures that make it resonate with people, Dietz talks about how everything comes back to observing and listening.
You can’t manage without it.
“Every club, every facility, each one’s got its own unique heartbeat,” Dietz said. “It has its own unique culture. How do you determine that? You listen. You use your eyes a lot. It’s not about, ‘Here’s culture in a box; we’re going to move it from this place to that place.’ Each one is very, very unique. You want to listen to people, and you want to learn.”
And those two things have been the hallmark of his career.