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Owners called to action during General
Meeting and Plenary Session
Dan Thurmon knows how to make a point.
From backflips to juggling pins to six-foot
unicycles, no visual aide is too over-the-top for Thurmon, who was the featured
speaker at yesterday's NGCOA General Meeting and Plenary Session. During his
one-hour presentation, Thurmon used his considerable gymnastic and juggling
talents to illustrate his philosophy- success in life is not determined by your
circumstances, but by your actions.
"It's my goal today to enable everyone to take
action-to take action at this conference and to return with excitement and take
action in new and creative ways when you get back to your facilities. It's
about action," Thurmon reiterated time and again before an enthusiastic
audience wowed by his flips and handstand pushups.
"If you really are interested in changing the
shape and scope of your golf course and what you do with your business, and
your skills and your capabilities, and how your team is aligned, and how you
serve your customers, and how you participate in the evolution of golf as an
industry, you have to act," said Thurmon, who suggested attendees commit
themselves to action by telling their colleagues what they're going to do as a
result of the conference and then do it.
Thurmon, who is author of the book Success
in Action - The Direct Path to Your Higher Potential, also encouraged
attendees to take on new challenges even if they think their current challenges
are difficult enough. "When you do, you stretch, and you never go back to where
you once were," he said. "That's how we learn. We never master one level and
then decide to move on. No. We have kids and then we figure them out later. We
buy a golf course and we figure it out later."
Patriot Golf Day
Also during the session, Captain Dan Rooney, a
PGA professional and golf course owner and operator from Grand Haven, Mich.,
updated attendees on his plans for a second Patriot Golf Day.
Rooney, who spends about 10 days a month
flying $45 million F-16 jets for the Oklahoma Air National Guard, created and
organized the inaugural Patriot Golf Day on Sept. 1, 2007. The nationwide event
involved more3,300 golf courses and raised more than $1.1 million for The
Fallen Hero Foundation, which Rooney founded in 2006 to assist spouses and
children of disabled or killed military personnel with money for education,
whether it's college, trade school, medical school or law school.
This year's event will be held over Labor Day
weekend, a short time before Rooney leaves for his third tour of duty in Iraq.
"As Americans, each one of us owes a debt to our families, to our military
members, who are providing that blanket of freedom that we sleep under each
night," Rooney said. "If we unite in 2008 for Patriot Golf Day, we truly can do
something epic and make a difference in these families' lives."
Patriot Golf Day is supported by the NGCOA,
USGA, and PGA of America, among other groups. |
