James Contreras...Serial Wrong Ball Hitter

        Hitting a wrong ball, particularly in competitive golf, is worse than a missed Boise State field goal in football. It is worse than a Shaquille O’Neal free throw. It is even worse than whiffing the ball. You have to add two shots, go retrieve the wrong ball, apologize to whoever the wrong ball belonged to, go find your own ball and then regain your composure and try to hit a quality golf shot. During this time your self talk (one of the 3 to 5 voices in your head) is not very positive. “You are an Idiot. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking was I? I was two under par. Crap, my ball is in a divot.”  If you have never hit a wrong ball I congratulate you. If you have, I think you will enjoy this story about James Contreras. James was one of my best players at Arizona Western Junior College where I coached golf for a few years in the early 1980’s. He was smart, articulate, a very good player and….a serial wrong ball hitter. A serial wrong ball hitter is a person who continually hits wrong balls even when they are very aware that they have a propensity for doing so. I currently play golf with a serial wrong ball hitter and I actually write NOT LINDA on my ball which has at least cut the wrong ball hitting in half but that is a whole nother story. James Contreras became a SWBH in the third event of the season in the spring of 1984. He was playing excellent golf and I remember him posting a 73 or 74. “Nice round James”. Contreras shook his head, “Coach, I was one under with three to play and I hit the wrong ball on 16.” “Was it in the rough where you couldn’t see it?” James shook his head again, “Nope, right in the middle of the fairway.” We discussed what he had learned and how important it would be in the future for him to pay attention to hitting the correct ball. The next week, same thing, posted a 72 or 73 and started shaking his head as he walked toward me. “James, you didn’t?” “Coach, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Middle of the fairway on 15 and I hit the wrong ball again!”  James was such a good kid I couldn’t be upset with him so I just patted him on the back and commented that I bet he would never do that again. Now remember that by definition a SWBH is someone who continues to hit the wrong ball even though they are very aware of their propensity. At the next event I had the answer. Wilson Golf had recently introduced the orange and yellow Pro Staff balls. They were not a big hit and there were no Junior College kids playing these odd colored balls…except for James Contreras. I gave James two sleeves of Yellow Pro Staff balls and said, “James, the wrong ball issue stops here. Play these today and I guarantee you will not hit a wrong ball.” James was pretty self conscious about teeing up a yellow ball but he did so even though he assured me he could go without hitting a wrong ball on his own. James posted another good score in the low seventies and as he walked away from the scorer’s table he was again shaking his head. “James, what’s up. I know you didn’t hit a wrong ball…did you?” Contreras said, “Coach, I don’t know how it happened but on 14…” I stopped him mid-sentence, “James, what color was the ball you hit?” “White”, he replied. “What color ball were you playing?” “Yellow”, he replied. At which point we both burst out laughing. What are you gonna do.

         James continued on in golf and made the team as a walk-on at ASU. That process involved about 100 guys teeing it up and the coach taking only the single best player after a set number of rounds. Here are a few of his accomplishments.

James Contreras PGA

Currently Teaching Professional, Las Sendas

2002 U.S. Open Sectional qualifier


2000 Third place in Hawaiian State Open

2000 Played in Phoenix Open


1991 Played in Hogan and Nike Tour events


1991 Southwest Section PGA Assistant’s Player of the Year


1991 Southwest Section PGA Assistant’s Champion


1984-1986 ASU golf team

1984 Invented the term “Serial Wrong Ball Hitter”

From "Weed" Puller to Golf Course GM in One Year

“Do you realize that you just spent two hours totally destroying a bed of desert wildflowers?”  Richard Bermudez was the Vice President of American Golf Corporation and oversaw golf course maintenance of the company’s entire portfolio. I had noticed him watching me intently over the past hour so I really made sure that I did the most thorough job ever of clearing the area of “weeds”.  “I thought they were weeds.” I replied. The year was 1991 and I was working on the golf course maintenance crew at Painted Desert Golf Club in Las Vegas. As the above conversation indicates I was not very good at what I was doing. Bermudez said, “I don’t think we can afford to have you on our maintenance crew. There is an opening over at Sahara Country Club for a Head Golf Professional/Tournament Director. Take the day off tomorrow and go interview… and please leave the flowers alone.”

Bermudez must have put in a good word for me as I was hired immediately at the Sahara Country Club. For some reason, Painted Desert did not want any notice and allowed me to leave their employ the next day. I think that if I had stayed much longer at Painted Desert that they would have had to change the name to just Desert. The Sahara CC, now Las Vegas National was one of the original courses in Las Vegas and being located just two miles from the Las Vegas Strip it was very popular with both tourists and locals. It is a true Championship Course having hosted both PGA and LPGA tournaments. As I started to work, the sheer volume of golf outings that the course hosted almost overwhelmed me. My predecessor had not kept up with the job so I had over 100 contracts to send out that required an old fashioned typewriter and triplicate copies.  I dug in with exuberance, as I was better at this than I was working on a maintenance crew. Over the next year we were a very successful operation that was becoming more successful as the Dunes Golf Club and Tropicana Country Club were bulldozed to make room for the Bellagio and the MGM Grand resorts.  I had been at the Sahara CC for less than a year when the GM of the property, Gary Klein, dropped a bombshell that would change my professional career. “Bruce, the company is moving me to Phoenix where we have several new properties coming on board. This place needs a full time General Manager and I choose you.”  This was September of 1992 and the course was starting to get inquiries several years in advance from many of the events that had played at the Tropicana and the Dunes. We had already taken our Green Fees from $65 to $75 and still we seemed to be turning people away. As I assumed the duties of GM the natural market pressures of decreased supply of golf courses and increased supply of rooms continued to drive fees upward every three months. In less than a year we were a $100 golf course. At this time, I was blessed to have a Regional Manager and true leader named Steve Harker (currently President & CEO of Touchstone Golf). He became very involved in the Las Vegas market but really let me take the reins and fly. He suggested that we needed to find a way to keep our local clientele to fill times in the summer and to fill early morning tee times that tourists in Las Vegas typically shied away from.  I don’t generally like to take credit for good ideas but since I received the kudos I will on this one. We created a club for Las Vegas residents with a newspaper ad that screamed “Free Golf”. For $100 a local resident could purchase a card that allowed them to make tee times 3 days in advance and pay a much-reduced rate. When purchasing the card they received a “Free” round of golf. We made it a true club and partnered with Las Vegas Golf Magazine to mail their magazine to our members with a monthly newsletter and special offers just for our members.  Since we sold 1,000 of these cards in July and August ($100,000 in sales) Steve Harker was very happy. As a reward he sent my wife and I on a trip to Pebble Beach with a room at the lodge overlooking the 18^th green. The golf portion of that trip will have to wait for another story.  While working under the guidance of Harker the property flourished. The course changed its name to Las Vegas Hilton Country Club, hosted the Re/Max Long Drive Championship and the PGA Tour Las Vegas Invitational and boosted green fees to $145. This was a fun, almost giddy time of working 70 hour weeks and loving it because success occurred daily and trips to Pebble Beach aside Steve Harker knew the value of simply saying, “Thank you. Nice job team.”  By 1996, Harker was reassigned and the magic, at least for me, ended. For four years I had been given goals and it had been up to me and my team to figure out how to achieve those goals.  The new regional manager gave me similar goals and told me how he wanted them achieved. I might have missed out on another good mentor but at the time it felt like the difference between driving a team of horses 70 hours a week and pulling a wagon 70 hours a week. I like to drive.