Katherine Jemsek grew up in a golf family, and liked the game, but stopped playing after high school and planned to be an elementary school teacher.
“My mom used to say they didn’t know who would run the business but they knew it wasn’t going to be Katherine,” she said recently at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in the southwest Chicago suburb of Palos Park. “I didn’t have as big an interest in golf. When I was a kid, I played golf for ice cream. We’d go to Apple Orchard (a course in suburban Bartlett), but only if my dad bribed us with ice cream. So we went to Baskin-Robbins afterwards. If we weren’t, I didn’t go.”
So who’s the president of Jemsek Golf, overseeing Cog Hill as well as Pine Meadow in north suburban Mundelein and Summer Grove in suburban Atlanta? Yep. Katherine Jemsek.
An education major who switched to business while at the University of Central Florida, she decided the retail side of the business would be her forte.
“I worked in the pro shop when I was in college,” Jemsek said. “When I graduated in 1995, I was going to be a merchandiser, a buyer. My dad (Frank Jemsek, the second-generation owner) said I needed to know all aspects of the business. I worked two days on the tee, two days at the driving range, answering the phones, and one day in the pro shop.
“I was like, ‘This is not fun!’ ”
It instead was a de facto master’s degree in golf business. Eventually, she helped in the accounting department at Cog Hill and Pine Meadow and then took over one of the two pro shops at Cog Hill. By 2005, she volunteered to go to Summer Grove, which was struggling, to be its general manager.
In ascending to president of Jemsek Golf, the now 48-year-old took a position largely still occupied by men. She sees things slowly changing.
“There are not as many women in the golf business as in other sectors of industry,” Jemsek said. “When I go to a convention, I’m not the only woman in a room any more. It’s changed in the last five to 10 years. Ten years ago, I might be the only woman in the room unless there was a guest speaker.”
Jemsek is both diplomatic and pragmatic. She said she’s dealt with male salesmen who are difficult to negotiate with when women are the buyer.
“I’ve had (resistance) from some people, and if necessary, I send a man,” she said. “I want what’s best for Cog Hill.”
“Exposing people, especially children, to golf at a young age is where your success long-term is.” – Katherine Jemsek
The golf business has changed as well. Cog Hill has recently gone to dynamic pricing. The top end of $188 is for Dubsdread, 20-time host of the Western Open/BMW Championship, in prime summer weekend hours. But you can play weekday twilight golf on two of Cog’s four courses for $14.
“The huge thing is adapting what was successful for grandpa (Joe Jemsek) and successful for dad into the current culture,” Jemsek said.
The mammoth practice center recently added TopTracer, lights, music and a bar, turning a dawn-to-dusk spot for beating balls into one that’s populated late into the evening with families and couples on golf dates. If any of the newcomers become regular golfers it will be a bonus.
“For the younger generation, the score isn’t as important as the experience they have,” Jemsek said.
PGA Jr. League, where Cog Hill has about 130 players enrolled annually, is seen as another breeding ground for the weekend regulars of the future.
“You don’t have to be an old man, you don’t have to be white or male,” Jemsek said. “Exposing people, especially children, to golf at a young age is where your success long-term is. If you learn something as a kid, you’re never scared to come back.”
Older sister Marla, who transitioned from basketball to golf in college, became an eminent amateur and eventually played on a Curtis Cup team, oversees accounts payable. Katherine calls her “the family psychologist and peacemaker.”
“I thought about turning pro, but my dad talked me out of it,” Marla Jemsek-Weeks said. “He said I wasn’t ready and he was right. And when I was good enough, I found I didn’t like to travel all the time. It was too much.”
After a brief time coaching Rollins College’s women’s team, she and husband Kevin Weeks moved back to Chicago. Kevin is one of America’s top instructors and a specialist in putting. He also coaches the PGA Jr. Leaguers.
“It’s an introduction to golf in a more relaxed way,” Jemsek-Weeks added. “We’ve made golf more fun.”
Brother Joe Jemsek, who has his own architecture business, is the course consultant. Frank Jemsek, the second-generation owner, is still the chairman, and has an important voice in big decisions, but it’s Katherine Jemsek who leads the operation.
Jemsek oversees a staff of 350 in season, and knows everybody. While a large number of employees have been on duty for decades, she has hired most of the key personnel in recent years. In that regard, she follows Frank Jemsek’s formula.
“My father always wanted to hire the best person for the job,” she said. “It didn’t matter what the ethnicity, the race or the gender was. I know (former teaching professional) DeDe Owens was passed over by some clubs because she was a woman. We hired her.”
Owens had a full lesson book until her untimely death at 53 in 1999.
“We are a large corporation but we are still a small, close-knit group,” Jemsek said. “The hardest thing to do is managing all the different personalities. I guess that’s the hardest thing to do in life. As I grew up, I realized I had to adapt my style to the people I needed to work with … stepping back, letting them do their jobs and giving them the resources that allow them to do the job.
“That was the focus the last 10 years, trying to find the correct team that works together and excels together. I like my team right now. I’ve been lucky enough to find people in the generation coming up that excel at ‘team’. They feed ideas off each other. And it’s better quality of life when you work as a team.”
And have a good leader. Katherine Jemsek is that leader.