After three decades of out-and-out competition, golf and gaming have forged a prosperous and mutually beneficial relationship. The newfound alliance reaches a whole new level this month with the Battle of the Casinos at Mays Landing Country Club on Wednesday, September 24. The three-member scramble, pitting property against property, begins at high noon. Cash prizes and bragging rights accompany the winning team in what could become a cherished industry tradition.
     
This event enhances a valuable partnership. The Greater Atlantic City Golf Association brings golfers to gaming properties, and Harrah’s owns the Atlantic City Country Club. It’s a stark contrast to the days when casinos avoided making tee times for fear of reduced action from their players. Furthermore, a growing number of casino employees golf.
    
Battle of the Casinos blends several interesting concepts: money, a convenient start time for shift workers, and significant backing. It was devised by a casino executive, linked to a legendary golf family and sponsored by Casino Connection, the nation’s pre-eminent gaming employee magazine.
     
The event also prompts a look at two interconnected industries. Golf and gaming have prospered together and become important to each other’s business plans. From instructional schools to family specials and new equipment, their partnership cuts across several businesses.

Casino Tournament

Battle of the Casinos was suggested to Don Siok, one of Mays Landing’s three owners, and its director of golf, by Phil Juliano, senior vice president of marketing at the Atlantic City Hilton. Juliano has often used the game to further business.
   
“When I was in player development, it was always great to use country clubs as a resource for customers,” Juliano says. “A lot of casino players enjoy golf, so it would be sensible to travel to places where they lived, play in their tournaments and recruit them to Atlantic City. A lot of business got done that way.”
   
Juliano recalls that golf represented a double-edged coin to gaming.
   
“On the one hand, casinos go way back in providing successful events that ignited the soul of the golfer,” he says. “They brought legends like Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino to area courses to help entertain customers. It’s a natural, because the golfer has a lot of gambler in him—there may even be gambling on the golf course.
   
“On the other hand, with the short stay of gamblers in this market, it’s not easy for casinos to put up money and provide golf for their players, then expect them to gamble too.
What you’ll see in the future is that it will be provided.”
    
Juliano is a good golfer who once captured a celebrity tournament with the late actor Jerry Orbach of Law and Order fame as his teammate. He also played with Orbach’s rival, Hal Linden, from the TV show Barney Miller.
     
When Juliano suggested Battle of the Casinos, Siok created a unique format. Each casino can enter a set of three-man teams. They are paired against opponents in an unusual six-some for a scramble tournament with a shotgun start.
   
This is a true scramble. Players advance to the site of the best drive, the best approach shot and the best position to putt. There are no rules mandating that teams use a certain number of every player’s drives.
   
The team aspect keeps players in the game. Regardless of how individuals perform, they can always step up and help their team with a timely shot.
   
Scramble tournaments create nuances of teamwork. The first shooter might take the safe route, hitting an approach to the center of the green to ensure his team is putting. Second and third shots can be gambles designed to get closer to the pin.
    
Putting emphasizes the same form of community. The first player can give teammates a read on the speed and break of the shot, letting them “go to school” on his efforts.
      
Siok added another dimension to the scoring.  The top 10 finishers are placed into different “flights,” with the winner of each taking a prize. That means players finishing first, 11th, 21st etc. take some money home.  The format enables golfers of varied skill levels to compete, and replaces the need for a handicap system.

Mays Landing Mystique

In 1962 Leo Fraser, owner of the Atlantic City Country Club, built the Mays Landing Country Club as an affordable alternative to other country club prices. This challenging yet forgiving layout had greens fees under $10 as late as the early 1980s.
     
“This course was ahead of its time,” Siok says. “It gives the community a good test of golf, it’s in excellent condition and it’s reasonably priced, so it can be affordable. The feeling has always been that it’s one of the best bangs for the buck around.”
     
The Fraser golf name is legendary. He was a president of the nationwide Professional Golfers Association, the sport’s ruling body. He had elite connections throughout the golf world and became enshrined in its Hall of Fame. He ran the fabled “Sonny Fraser” amateur tournament at ACCC, won by future stars like Julius Boros. He even had PGA greats Sam Snead and Tony Lema kick off the Mays Landing course with an exhibition match.
   
Deal-making was Fraser’s legacy. As president, he kept the PGA from splintering when unhappy blue-chip golfers like Jack Nicklaus, Boros and Arnold Palmer tried to start their own tour. They actually announced a network contract and a new schedule. Fraser stepped in and established a tournament players division within the PGA, which satisfied them. The compromise gave the golfers a bigger slice of booming network profits and a larger voice in PGA matters. It also kept the organization from losing them. As a unified, rather than fractured body, the PGA benefited.
  
Leo Fraser also had a zest for innovation. In 1980, he brought a group of aging players together at Atlantic City Country Club for an experimental tournament, won by Don January. It led directly to the multimillion-dollar Seniors Tour.
     
Leo’s sons Doug and Jimmy, who own Mays Landing along with Siok, have maintained the family reputation. Like Siok, they belong to distinguished golf organizations and have captured awards. Jimmy helped create the Atlantic City Golf Association.

Direct Link

You can’t talk about Atlantic City golf without a nod to the famous Atlantic City Country Club, a favorite of legends including Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Bob Hope.
   
Founded in 1897, the rolling 170-acre, par-70 course has a bayfront locale that recalls the legendary courses of Ireland and Scotland, and its history is just as impressive.
   
As the story goes, this is where the term “birdie” was coined, when a golfer named Ab Smith landed the second shot of a par-4 inches from the cup and exclaimed, “That was a bird of a shot!” “Bird” soon became synonymous with “excellent;” golf lingo was further expanded when a two under par (or “big bird”) became known as an “eagle.”
   
Once a members-only establishment, the Atlantic City Country Club has been open to the public since 2005, when it was acquired by Harrah’s Entertainment. Now everyone can play these velvety greens and confront a particularly daunting 15th hole, where winds and deep traps conspire to make even capable players feel like duffers.
    
Former Eagles QB Ron Jaworski’s annual Celebrity Golf Challenge is held at the country club, attracting sports greats like Joe Theismann, Mike Ditka and Jeremiah Trotter to the Northfield course.
    
Golf Week Magazine has named Atlantic City Country Club the No. 1 public daily-fee golf course in New Jersey. Along with a worldclass pro shop, the country club offers PGA instruction at all levels.

Class, Pay Attention        

Some casino employees use the Twisted Dune Golf Club driving range as their classroom. Welcome to MC’s Golf Academy, run by Matt Callaghan. Callaghan has operated a golf instructional school for 10 years, the last few at Twisted Dune.
     
“It’s great to work with people. I really enjoy watching them progress,” Callaghan says. “We pick up a topic each week and emphasize that. We have a good student-treacher ratio (about 6-1). There are all kinds of age groups. We have young kids here, some who are 5 years old. We have a lot of kids in the 6-to-8-year-old range and we work our way up.”
    
All levels benefit. In one of its pure forms, the academy becomes the foundation for a beginner’s swing. The basics are easier for beginners to grasp than for veterans saddled with years of bad habits.
   
Any player can learn to escape the sand, finish the swing, or improve their chip or putt. Want to talk about nuance? A swing spans everything from club speed, weight distribution and hand positions to feet placement, swing plane and follow-through. A split-second timing difference can turn a potential drive into a 20-yard dribbler.
   
Regardless of whether players can drive for show, the academy can help them putt for dough.
   
“People don’t generally ask for help in the biggest part of the game: chipping and putting,” Callaghan says. “That accounts for about 65 percent of your score. We do several drills with speed and the pace of putts.”
   
Like anything else, students must study between classes. Repetition makes the drills become part of muscle memory and forges one’s ability to avoid worrying about each shot he’s about to hit.
   
“I really like people to hit balls and work on what we taught them in between the meetings,” Callaghan says. “It’s nice for us to see the improvement. I also want to receive the feedback. It makes you feel good to see something working for someone.”
   
Many students play for area high school teams.   

Getting Outfitted
  
George Dennis will supply some of the prizes for the Battle of the Casinos. The Linwood native opened New Jersey’s only Golf USA in Egg Harbor Township on July 10.
    
The store features clubs, shoes and apparel along with innovations like the Swing Analyzer (someone seeking to buy clubs can hit golf balls into a net, then study a computerized reading).
    
“It gives you the reading, carry distance, total distance, club head speed, ball speed and the spin rate,” Dennis says. “It can tell you whether you have the right club or the correct shaft.”
    
Dennis calls his establishment a complete golf shop and a unique area attraction. He plans to open a second Golf USA franchise in central New Jersey within a couple of years.
   
Casino tournaments naturally coax his support. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he spent 1995-2000 in the casino industry, managing Breadsticks restaurant at Resorts.

A Different Way to Play

Tilton Fitness and Blue Heron Pines Golf Club have hooked up for a unique health-wealth combination.
     
Membership in Tilton provides reduced greens fees, advanced bookings and golf shop and restaurant discounts along with some invitations to exclusive events at Blue Heron Pines. For many casino employees who patronize both establishments, it’s a solid play.
   
General Manager Will Arabea reports a brisk increase in business due to the partnership. Blue Heron was the area’s original high-end daily-fee club, built by people who had been part of Pine Valley, the nation’s top-ranked golf course. It now has new owners, a dynamic layout and smooth, fast greens. Blue Heron launches its own full-blown golf academy in September, offering private lessons, clinics and high-tech swing analysis. In the fall, it will have parent and child specials after 4:30 p.m., starting at three holes for $4, total, including cart.

Storied Seaview
   
Always worth the trip, Seaview Marriott sports two courses and a strong brand of history. The Bay Course was built in 1914. Golf legend Sam Snead won his first Major championship there in 1942. This layout also had two long stints as host of the ShopRite LPGA Classic. The finest female golfers in the world, including Juli Inkster, Annika Sorenstam and Betsy King, held their tournament here.
   
Wind conditions dramatically affect this course. When winds are tame, players have a good chance to score. When the breeze picks up, watch out. Nothing is routine anymore. The Pines is a traditional course, carved out of the Pinelands.
   
    This area’s golf menu, among the finest in the nation, continually evolves, improves and entices the lovers of sports, gambling and recreation. A little digging, online or on the telephone, can help players locate excellent specials at almost any time. Always ask for casino discounts, because rules vary.

By Dave Bontempo

Dave Bontempo is an award-winning sports writer and broadcaster who calls boxing matches all over the world. He has covered the Philadelphia Flyers in the playoffs, as well as numerous PGA, LPGA and Seniors Golf Tour events, and co-hosted the Casino Connection television program with Publisher Roger Gros.

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