Course Design Legend Jerry Matthews Passes: The Rest of the Story
By Tom Lang
Often times in life, and even in death, people will say, ‘they couldn’t have scripted it better if they tried.’
That could be the case for Michigan golf course design legend Jerry Matthews, who passed away at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, September 15, at the age of 88.
There have been many tributes, all well-deserved, posted the past several weeks noting his career and all the courses he designed or remodeled – more than 200 – making Matthews by far the most prolific of any Michigan golf course designer in history. But this is a story you won’t hear that often, about how ironically beautiful Matthews left this earth. It’s truly a full circle, somewhat romantic story to be honest.
For some background: Matthews was at Grand Hotel for an annual event hosted by Michigan Golf Live’s Bill Hobson. He attended with his lovely wife, Carol, and Paul Albanese, another award-winning architect that came out of Matthews’ stable of designers in East Lansing. Albanese started his career with Matthews in 1992, then eventually went out on his own for two decades and designed such courses as Sweetgrass and Sage Run at Island Resort in the U.P. A few years ago, in retirement Matthews called on Albanese to do a joint venture at Saskatoon near Caledonia.
Hobson explained that for the first time in 16 years of hosting the Grand Golf Getaway, the hotel wanted to add another special touch to the gathering by inviting Jerry to return to The Jewel (the Grand Hotel course designed by Matthews)and having he and Paul sit for a panel discussion about course architecture through the years. It was one of the few times in his career the stage ever belonged to Matthews. There were 100 or so people gathered together that first night for a Front Porch reception in Matthews’ honor and a Q-and-A session.
“We had a wonderful reception with your group,” Albanese told Hobson on the Fore Golfers Network Podcast, “and they gave him the accolades that Jerry doesn’t always get, and that he always shied away from frankly, in his career. He never looked for the spotlight, he just did his job. Yet here he got the spotlight shone on him and he was very proud of it and he gave a curtain call. His wife, Carol, mentioned how proud of it he was.”
About 90 minute later, at dinner, Matthews was gone.
“It became a very unusual, very unforgettable Thursday night, at Grand Hotel, September 15th,” Hobson said on the podcast, recorded the following day with Albanese sharing the mic. “It will always rate in my mind as a day I wish I could forget, but I never will.”
Part of the weekend’s plan was to have both Matthews and Albanese stationed on the 12th hole on the back nine Woods Course. The idea was as golfers went through they could talk to Matthews one on one. Instead, that day, an empty rocking chair was at the 12th hole.
Hobson assured Albanese there would be no expectation at all for him to maintain that plan in light of still mourning his friend.
“I might have been lifted from that expectation, but not Jerry,” Albanese said. “He expected me to be on that 12th hole, without question. It was hard, but it was also good. It was very peaceful out there between groups and as I looked at the empty rocking chair, I could reminisce about all the great times I had with Jerry.
“If Jerry hadn’t given me that chance in 1992, I don’t know if I’d be in this business. I am blessed to have been able to have a career that has gone from start to finish (with Jerry) like it has.”
Minutes after receiving the alarming dinner time phone call about Jerry’s passing, Hobson and Albanese, along with Grand Hotel Director of Golf Grant DeMoss, made their way to the Mackinac Island Medical Center to comfort Jerry’s wife, Carol. From that visit, Hobson told the following story:
“As Carol came out, she sat down, and she had her wits about her. She was stunned of course, yet she started talking about specific holes on this golf course (here on Mackinac Island), so I said to her, ‘you have a very specific recall of hole numbers.’ And that’s when I learned she was his irrigation specialist, which is how they met.
“And then she blows my mind even further when she said, ‘yes, we were working here on the Woods 9 a quarter of a century or so ago, and Jerry said to me, ‘we ought to get married.’ And she replied to him, ‘only if we do it here.’ So, in this mind-blowing turn of events, here’s Jerry Matthews getting a rousing ovation from our guests, waving to them in appreciation, and 90 minutes later at dinner passes away … and his wife tells us at the hospital ‘we were married at Grand Hotel, and now we say goodbye at Grand Hotel.’
Several of the guests that came through the 12th hole the following day said to Albanese that you couldn’t write a script any better of how to go out.
No, you cannot.
God Bless you Jerry.
