The Pursuit Of Happiness

The response was exactly what you’d expect from those who know you and care about you; what you, yourself, would say if a friend told you he’d quit his job to buy a public golf course.

When Brooks West told his buddies he’d walked away from a career that had him on the fast track to the CEO’s office in order to buy an 18-hole facility on the Harpeth River in Franklin, Tenn., they all said, “You did what?” with no small sense of alarm.

“There were a lot of people, a lot of friends, and people I’ve known and trusted for a long time, who said, ‘What are you thinking?’ ” West said.

Those friends were not admonishing West for getting into a business he didn’t know. They were chastising him for getting into a business he knew all too well. “They were all like, ‘You of all people, given your background, should know better than to buy a golf course,’ ” West said.

That background, one steeped in years of upward mobility and success, is what makes West’s recent purchase of The Crossing Golf Club, a course he rebranded as Franklin Br...