POPPY RIDGE
Free Lessons and Clinics
As a benefi t to its members, the NCGA will once again sponsor a free lesson and clinic program at Poppy Ridge. The lessons and clinics cover everything from putting to driving, and vary in times and days to accommodate fl exible schedules.
Poppy Ridge Free Lesson Schedule:
> > > >
Wed. 12:00 p.m. Fri. 2:00 p.m. Sat. 1:00 p.m. Sun. 1:00 p.m.
Call (925) 447-6779 for more information. POPPY HILLS
TaylorMade Fitting Studio
P
oppy Hills remains one of just a handful of facilities in
the country to host one of Taylor- Made’s unique Tuned Perfor- mance Studios. Appointments are available
seven days a week. Call (831) 622-8239 to reserve your appointment. NCGA members will have the $100 custom fi tting expe- rience fee waived, while also enjoying their 20% discount on equipment purchases.
POPPY HILLS AND POPPY RIDGE NEWS
Superintendent Manny Sousa Retires L
POPPY HILLS
ongtime Poppy Hills Golf Course superintendent Manny Sousa
still recalls the fi rst time he saw what would become his offi ce in the Del Monte Forest. “I remember it was 1990, and the
AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro- Am was going on at Cypress Point,” Sousa said. “It was a dry year and the sun was shining. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.” Twenty-fi ve years later, Sousa is
preparing for his next chapter. The 65-year-old native of the Azores (off the coast of Portugal), who was at Wildwood Golf Course in the Sierra Nevada prior to arriving at Poppy Hills, will offi cially retire on May 30. “I just really want to put my feet
up a bit,” said Sousa, who for the last year has been working with new superintendent Matt Muhlenbruch. “I want to travel, spend more time with my grandkids, a whole menagerie of things, really.”
Sousa’s tenure at Poppy Hills has
certainly never been mundane. In 1991, after just his fi rst year, the course replaced Cypress Point in the AT&T Pro-Am rotation. But there was criticism. Poppy Hills had poor drainage. The
greens were bumpy. There were too many dogleg holes. And most impor- tantly, it wasn’t Cypress Point. As a result, 13 of the 18 greens at
Poppy Hills were renovated during its time as a Pro-Am venue (1991-2009). A massive drainage system was also installed that covered every 15 feet of fairway. Still, it wasn’t always enough. “Once the harping started, mainly
from the pros, we kept getting better and better. We did some incredible stuff. We drained the whole place,” Sousa said. “It was the guys in the TV tower that always kept bringing stuff from the past back up. As superintendent, you want to say, ‘Hey, let that go.’ But it’s controversy that drives things.” There was also the time that Sousa
nearly didn’t see the next day. In 2003, on the Saturday before AT&T Pro-Am week, he began to feel the symptoms of a heart attack while working on the course. He was able to drive himself back to the Poppy Hills maintenance area, where a co-worker who happened to forget his safety goggles found a disoriented Sousa and called 911. “When I got to the hospital the
heart attack really hit,” Sousa said. “I don’t know what would have happened had I had not been found. I probably wouldn’t have made it.” Similar to his own return after the harrowing experience, Sousa would go
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NCGA.ORG / SPRING 2015
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