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Swing in Palm Desert

by Gail Paparian

When Family Golf Center went through insolvency, over 200 properties went on the auction block in a New York bankruptcy court. One of them was the driving range facility at the College of the Desert located in Palm Desert, California.

At the outcome of the proceedings, three partners (Victor LoBue, Jr., Tony Manzoni and Russell Maw) emerged victorious. Like many entities and people in the Coachella Valley, the facility has had a facelift and is now doing business as the College Golf Center.

In the early 1980’s, College of the Desert, a two-year community college opened the Institute of Golf Management. The hugely successful program offers graduates the Associate of Arts degree.

Tony Manzoni, a former club pro was part of the program from the beginning. He is pleased and proud that the Golf Management Program has been such a success and keeps expanding. "Golf is a service industry," he says, "and we’re here to teach everything from computer literacy to putting a pro shop together to playing the game of golf."

Ray Kaiser served on the Executive Committee in the early 1980’s and readily admits "what Tony Manzoni did at the time was phenomenal. This whole program never would have happened if Tony had not been involved."

Manzoni has been with the College of the Desert for 17 years. He runs the Golf Management program and successfully coaches the golf team. He is proud of the people who have come through the program including all of Al Geiberger’s youngsters.

Graduates of the program are situated around the world. For instance David Roy is a recent UCLA graduate. Roy speaks fluent Mandarin and has been through the management program. His goal is to bring his knowledge back to China to teach.

While Manzoni plays scratch golf, he readily admits he wouldn’t bet on his own game right now as he doesn’t spend much time on the course. He’s spending his days at the college (he’ll coach the fall team) and his evenings at the College Golf Center.

All three partners are taking hands on approach to their new venture. Along with Manzoni, there is Englishman Russell Maw, a European golf pro and teacher-- and Victor LoBue, Jr. a successful businessman who excelled as an amateur golfer.

Two statues greet you upon entry to the facility. The building is named for Victor J. LoBue (Senior) who donated the funds to College of the Desert in order to make the program and the building a reality. The other inscription denotes the Jude E. Poynter Museum.

While not a museum in the classic sense, Poynter, former chairman of the Seniors Masters Golf Association has donated photographs and other golf memorabilia including Ryder Cup photos, and clubs and other equipment dating back to the 1800s. Now, while you shop the fully stocked pro shop for state-of-the-art equipment, you area able to look as clubs used by the great Bobby Jones and others.

As a teaching professional and coach, Manzoni is excited about the new facility and what it has to offer. "We’re providing a place to practice and enjoy the game." Manzoni is very excited about the new fitting center. "We’ve brought in top pros and new technology to guarantee the proper fit for clubs."

While Manzoni feels "that Tiger Woods is the best player to every play the game of golf," most people can’t even dream of swinging like Woods." The Center’s goal is to offer personalized equipment at competitive prices. "We want to fit the equipment to the swing versus the golf swing to the equipment."

"Mitch Moncrief, PGA member is one of the best fitters around and he’s joined our team," Manzoni said. Some of the technology employed in fit analysis includes launch angle, spin rate, ball speed and club head speed. The optimum is to achieve a 13-degree angle and Manzoni says this just cannot be determined without the technology.

The new practice facility, originally designed by famous golf course architect Ted Robinson has been improved. It’s been cosmetically altered and flattened out for better visibility as well as cleaner and clearer targets.

The College Golf Center has 150 practice stalls, with 30 providing overhead protection. For those who appreciate statistics, Manzoni noted they had just purchased 80,000 new golf balls and they get reused two to three times per day. Now that’s practice!

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