Briar Leaf Golf Club is one of the fastest growing golf clubs in the Region, boasting 18 memorable holes – with water on eight of them – along with top-notch practice facilities, quality food and drink, and affordable fees and rates. Much of that growth was kick started by PGA Golf Professional Jay Williams, who is now in his 30th summer managing general operations at Briar Leaf.
Williams came to Briar Leaf by way of John Leinweber, a La Porte County farmer and businessman who Williams connected with while working at Lincolnshire Country Club in Illinois. The men identified Briar Leaf as a course with the potential to be something great and purchased it in 1995.
“Quite frankly, we took a course that was not in great condition that we found out early on was not very well thought of,” Williams said. “We took that personally and as a challenge, so we have continuously invested in it to make it a place where people love to come and golf.”
The exact details of course’s history are somewhat murky, but Williams knows the basic outline. It was originally a plot of farmland and the farmer, for reasons unknown, decided to transform it into a golf course, one that turned out to be a solid backbone for the Club’s future years down the line.
“As I understand it, he wasn’t even a golfer,” Williams said. “He and another gentleman who owned a landscaping company, Bill Woodruff – who also wasn’t a golfer – laid out the course and constructed the greens. What’s so interesting is that, for a couple of guys without any background in golf, they did a pretty darn good job laying it out. It’s a fun, interesting golf course.”
Attentive maintenance, regular upgrades, quality staffing, and a focus on service have all played key roles in revitalizing Briar Leaf, building on the course’s strong foundation.
“We want to make sure that anyone coming out here has a good day on the golf course,” he said. “Whether they’re in the Portofino Grill, out on the driving range, or just playing with their buddies, we want them to have a good time and come back.”
Williams also called attention to a number of the course’s unique traits that have proven to be strong draws, such as an island green on one of its holes.
“That’s very unique for the area; nobody else has one,” he said. “We’ll have people who have never been here before saying that they heard about the island green.”
Other amenities include the aforementioned Portofino Grill, which is an independent full-service restaurant, as well as an on-course grill house for golfers to grab a quick hotdog, brat, or burger during a round. Briar Leaf also did a full upgrade on their fleet of golf carts recently.
“We touch all the bases as far as amenities at a public golf course,” Williams said. “That’s a big factor in what makes us unique.”
Williams himself is proud to have made a career out of golf. He grew up around the sport, and first picked up a club at just 5 years of age. He was drawn in by the individuality of golf and the objectivity of the game.
“The thing about golf is that, if you shoot a lower score than your opponents, you win,” he said. “I liked the chase and the competition. I played through college, and the natural next move was to get into the golf business.”
He was very good, and like most young golfers, he dreamed about playing professionally.
“Probably 95% or more of golf professionals like myself thought we were going to play on the PGA Tour as a kid,” he said. “At some point, reality steps in and you just aren’t good enough. Most people just don’t have a full understanding of how good the guys who play golf on TV for a living are. It’s a whole other world. They’re big fish in a big pond. People like myself are top players in a smaller pond – good, but not at that same level.”
Williams uses all of that learned experience to manage Briar Leaf in a way he knows golfers will appreciate. While his responsibilities leave him little time to golf for himself, he still offers coaching.
“I love working with someone and seeing the moment – the shot – where they ‘get it,’ after they’ve been struggling,” he said. “You can see it in their face. As they watch that shot fly, you see a little smile creeping onto their face because they haven’t had that sensation before, or maybe they’ve gotten so far off in their golf game that they haven’t had it in a while. When I’m finished coaching for the day, that’s the moment that always sticks in my mind.”
To learn more about Briar Leaf Golf Club, visit briarleaf.com.
