Miles and Miles

When I first got wind a course in Florida was going against the grain (pun intended) to install bentgrass greens, I responded pretty much the same way most of you did – Idiots.

There was some kerfluffle about it on Twitter for a day, then I forgot about it. A few weeks later the phone rang in my office and it was a voice from the past. It was Tim Miles, whom I’d met in Chicago years earlier. He was the “idiot” who approved seeding T-1 bentgrass onto a Donald Ross course just south of Orlando. He wanted us to help tell his story.

Tim has worn lots of hats in his golf career: super, pro, owner, management company operator, jack of all trades. That alone was enough to make me take him seriously.

But, what really made me take him seriously was his bloodline. His older brother is a fellow named Oscar Miles.

Oscar was the first superintendent I ever met. It was 1987, Ronald Reagan was the president, I had just started work at GCSAA and, back then, I was the idiot.

My job on the GCSAA staff was to crunch press releases for the magazine (there was no Internet as we know it now), organize the massive photo and slide file that filled about 12 cabinets at the old Lawrence HQ and do grunt work. I was told I wouldn’t even travel much except for the national show.

That changed about five days after I started when we learned that Butler National GC up in Chicago, host course of the Western Open (now the BMW Championship) was completely flooded. It was a disaster and they needed me to fly to Chicago and cover it. The superintendent there – the aforementioned Oscar Miles – was the chairman of the publications committee and it was the politically correct thing to do to send a writer.

I arrived in Chicago clueless. I knew zero about turf, I’d never been to a tournament and I only had the vaguest idea of what was happening. I walked into Oscar’s office expecting chaos. Instead, I found a calm, smallish fellow with a huge smile who was more concerned about my well-being than he was about the bazillion gallons of creek water covering his front nine the day before one of the year’s biggest Tour events was supposed to start. That was my welcome to the business. Pretty neat, eh?

I’ll save the rest of that story for another time. The bottom line is that I quickly learned why Oscar is a legend: he was a brilliant superintendent and a consummate gentleman.

And Tim Miles has carved out his own legend, as well. His GolfVisions ownership group specializes in defying the odds. Read our cover story to find out how he plans to do it this time…and never, ever underestimate one of the Miles boys.