Golf devotee promotes sport for 50 years

Steve Kottsick's association with Souris Valley Golf Course goes back a long way.

As director of golf operations at Minot Park District's 18-hole course and clubhouse, Kottsick is a familiar face to area golfers after having devoted 50 years to Souris Valley golf. But his connection to the golf course goes back even further.

"When I was a really young kid, I was a night waterman out here," he said. "I actually moved the sprinklers around at night. It was a scary job back then because there were no radio stations to listen to. It was pretty dark out here. Of course, there wasn’t all this development around here."

He went on in adulthood to serve as the pro at a Mandan course for four years. He was recruited back to Minot in 1976 to become the pro at Souris Valley, a course he knew well from having played golf at Minot High School and Minot State University.

Minot Parks honored Kottsick Aug. 3 at an event celebrating his 75th birthday and 50th anniversary with Souris Valley Golf Course.

"It’s been a lot of fun," Kottsick said. "I never once felt like I'm going to work. So, how lucky am I?"

He considers himself lucky to have staff members whose dedication makes it all work. When he shows up at 4:30 a.m. to prepare for an early-morning tournament tee-off, his staff are already there to set up. The golf operation has about 20 part-time employees, along with a full-time greens superintendent who has a staff of three maintenance workers.

The job can have its challenges, though, and the flood of 2011 was the worst.

"That was a tough one to go through," Kottsick said. Seeing the flooding of the Jack Hoeven Wee Links course was especially difficult because that had been a project Kottsick had worked hard to make happen.

"The park board had this land and they weren't doing anything with it, so I thought maybe we could put a golf course up there for kids," he recalled. "I’ll never forget. I called Jack up. He was in California. I said, 'Jack, how would you like to have a golf course named after you? Jack was a smart man. He said, 'How much?'"

In the end, a $50,000 gift from Hoeven kickstarted the project, which had been the dream of the Minot Junior Golf Association and became the initiative of Rudy Zupetz, Wes Plummer and Kottsick.

The association manages the kid-sized course, and Kottsick noted it costs taxpayers nothing, due to the self-supporting success of the organization. Wee Links will celebrate its 25th anniversary at an event being planned for Sept. 19.

Along with more youth getting involved, Kottsick said, more women are taking an interest in golf.

"It's always was kind of a man's world, and now it's kind of gone the other way. We are having a lot more ladies playing golf, which is good," he said.

He smiles recalling a group of male golfers who bemoaned having to follow a group of women, thinking they would be slowed down by the level of play.

"Those women would leave those guys in the dust. I always got a kick out of that," he said.

With the merger of Minot Parks and the Minot Recreation Department in 2019, Kottsick said the golf course gained an asset in recreation director Ann Nesheim, who helped entice even more women to try the game.

Beyond the broadened interest in the sport, Kottsick credits technology for the biggest changes he's seen in his years in the business. Tee times now are booked online and golfers have launch monitors that show their swing speeds, angles of attack and other metrics to help improve their games.

Another change has been the shift to year-round work at golf courses. Kottsick said when he was in Mandan, he spent winters working as an assistant at Palm Springs. Now, although the pace slows down considerably in the winter, there's still work and planning to do in the off-season.

He admits he plays few rounds of golf anymore because of the demands on his time. However, he isn't thinking about retirement yet because he still loves the game and the people.

"I have some friends that have been coming from Canada for 30 years," he said. "I've got a lot of friends, and I love kids playing the game. It's a game for a lifetime. I do wish that there was more of a caddy presence. I caddied when I was a kid, and that’s where you learn a lot about life."

He regrets not being more dedicated to his game as a young golfer competing in mini-tours in Arizona, but he certainly made his mark in introducing numerous youngsters and other new golfers to the sport, including teaching many classes over the years. Having moved away from teaching classes, he still offers helpful hints at times to golfers on the course.

Kottsick said he's seen some very good golfers develop at Souris Valley but stresses that golf is a game for anyone.

"There's no secret to the game. You've just got to play and practice, as long as you have basic fundamentals down," he said. "The nice thing is, you can be as good as you want to be, or just enjoy the game."