Rhapsody in Green
At the conclusion of the 2021 Senior PGA Championship, Alex Cojka stood in the middle of the 18th green hoisting the massive trophy. After four days, he had beat out some of the top former champions in the world at Tulsa’s Southern Hills Country Club.
Standing just a few hundred feet away on the ninth green, watching the celebration, was a man who was just as proud of the work he had put in. Wearing a baseball cap, oversized sweatshirt and black waders, Russ Myers stood at the top of the hill overlooking the trophy presentation, but also the golf course itself—and he felt pretty satisfied.
Myers is the golf course superintendent at Southern Hills Country Club, which means he and his team were responsible for making sure the course was in pristine condition to hold a major championship. As the tournament ended and the spectators began to wander off the course, his first thoughts were to go get a drink and spend some time with his family.
“What we did already, I couldn’t be any more proud of. We’ve done it with a group of guys that were all in on the process,” Myers said. “I hope that we represent the city of Tulsa well, the golf course well, the membership well, and obviously ourselves well, and we get a great championship.”
In the back of his mind, though, Myers knew that preparations for the 2022 PGA Championship at the same course were already being made. He knows it will take up a year of his life, again. “It’s excitement. I’d rather be hosting them than not. I have a lot of fun with it. Again, it gets us the opportunity for people to see what we do,” Myers said. “It’s like battling for an NCAA championship.”
That is why Myers came to Southern Hills. Being responsible for one of the top golf courses in the country, with a history of hosting PGA events, is why the New York native made his home in Oklahoma when he had opportunities to work almost anywhere in the country.
“I love it here in Tulsa, too, for many different reasons; mostly the people and the engagement in the community,” Myers said. “I’ve lived in Los Angeles and down in the Keys. I feel like I know a lot more people here. I’ve got more entrenchment into schools with our family and stuff like that, and we’re near my wife’s family. I met my wife here.”
Growing up in New York, Myers didn’t know that working on golf courses was a career. He just thought it was something he liked to do. It wasn’t until a club pro at a public facility where Myers was working told him he could get a degree in golf maintenance at SUNY Cobleskill. The son of a high school coach wasn’t sure if that was the career path he wanted to take, but it was what he liked to do, so he went and got his degree.
After graduation, Myers applied to become an assistant basketball coach at Cleveland State under legendary Coach Rollie Massimino. “While I was waiting for that yes or no, in case I didn’t have something that summer, I applied to three or four golf courses,” Myers said. “Augusta National, Pebble Beach, three of the biggest name courses on the planet. And I got a call back to come down for a job interview at Augusta.”
That was the point Myers committed fully to the profession. There was no turning back for him.
Myers spent four years at Augusta National Golf Club, before heading to the Card Sound Golf Club in Key Largo. “I spent eight years down there and made a life down there, and then got an opportunity to come here to fulfill a career goal, to get one of these classic championship facilities,” Myers said of coming to Tulsa. “And not that I was necessarily looking to leave Key Largo, I kind of liked the lifestyle down there. But this was something that I was interested in.”
Dating back to 1946, Southern Hills has built a storied resume. It has hosted seven major championships and is the only course to host the PGA Championship four times. It will add No. 5 in 2022. Myers arrived in 2006, and the very next year, the club hosted the 2007 PGA Championship that was won by Tiger Woods. “He was the best golfer in the world, playing the best golf, and he wins,” Myers said. “If that’s what happens here at this level of golfer, it means we did it right.”
Yet two years later, Myers was gone. The prospect of fighting the tough Oklahoma grass and climate for the rest of his career wasn’t appealing to a man in his 30s. Instead, Myers took a job at the Los Angeles Country Club, where he believed he would settle down. Thanks to the work done by Myers and his crew, in 2015 the LACC was awarded the 2023 U.S. Open.
Myers, however, would not be there to see it come to fruition. “It seemed like a better opportunity at the time. It probably was at the time. And then six years later, I didn’t ever envision I’d be back in Tulsa,” Myers said. “Never thought I would have the opportunity to come back here [so] it would still be a progression in my career, both maybe financially and [facing] challenges as a manager and all those things. How could that really happen? I didn’t see that.” But happen it did.
There were other reasons Myers decided to come back to Oklahoma in 2016, too. Much of it had to do with wanting to spend more time with his wife, Lindsey, and kids, R.J. and Grace. But the other areas had to do with his career; where he was at the time and where he saw himself going forward. “I now felt like I was coming back to even a better job. I felt like we were just in a different place,” Myers said. “I was at a different place as a manager. There were a lot of positives. I just said, ‘Bring it back,’ and it’s been a no-brainer.”
Before Myers left Los Angeles for Tulsa, someone with the LACC told him he was making a mistake. “He basically said, ‘What are you going to be doing back at Southern Hills while we’re hosting the 2023 U.S. Open?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’d like to think we’re going to host a couple there at Southern Hills,’” Myers recounted. “And we’re now going to have the senior PGA and the PGA before they have the ‘23 U.S. Open.” And Myers will be working to make sure Southern Hills shines during its moments in the spotlight.