Hefner’s golf pro has been on the job since 1968 and still is going strong

April 06-- Apr. 6--Alsie Hyden seemed old to Mick Cornett even back in the 1970s. To a 13-year-old, most everyone north of 30 seems old. And Hyden had white hair, even back then.

Hyden was the Lake Hefner golf pro when the 13-year-old Cornett joined Hyden's junior program. Work for a day, get to play golf for free. Made all the difference in the world to Cornett, since green fees were $2 and his family had plenty of priorities other than golf.

When Cornett and his pals would return to Hefner in the 1980s, they would spot the pro and ask, "Alsie's still here?"

Yes, was the answer then and now. Alsie's still here.

More than 50 years after Hyden became Lake Hefner's pro, he's still on the job, as director of golf at the northwest Oklahoma City public course, encouraging careers and lifting spirits and promoting a game that's long been his life.

Norman Neaves, the retired pastor of Church of the Servant, calls Hyden a "personal ambassador for the game of golf and Lake Hefner. He's thrown his whole life into it."

Kyle Flinton, now the head pro at Quail Creek Golf and Country Club, was a hot-tempered teen-ager when he joined Hyden's Wonder program 40 years ago. Hyden saw Flinton sling his club one day. Hyden had a talk with Flinton.

"He picked me up off the mat a couple of times when I was making stupid decisions at the age of 13, 14, 15," Flinton said. "He is a true father figure to me. I couldn't have asked for a better PGA pro to work for as a kid."

Work half a century at a place, and you tend to get attached. On a cold winter's day recently, Hyden sat in the Hefner grill and talked about his grip on Hefner and Hefner's grip on him. He repeatedly grew emotional -- "haven't cried in I don't know when," he said -- when talking about the people he's met.

From pros like Flinton and Mark Hayes, to dignitaries like Sam Bradford and Cornett, to workers like the Hispanics who keeps the grounds humming and the restauranteurs who stop by to show pictures of their kids, Hyden has impacted lives.

"Hefner has been a big part of my life," Hyden said. "What you love is the people."

Hyden grew up in Berryhill, just west of Tulsa, where his parents were educators. In sixth grade, the Hydens moved into town, and Alsie spotted a neighbor chipping golf balls in the backyard. Soon enough, he tagged along for a round and was hooked.

At age 13, Hyden made the Tulsa junior amateur finals. When a couple of pros from city courses told him they'd be glad to help him, he thanked them and didn't even know what they meant. Hyden went to OSU in 1954 without so much as having had a golf lesson.

Hyden tried out for Henry Iba's basketball team and Labron Harris' golf team -- he made the golf team, when Harris invited him to play nine rounds at Stillwater's Lakeside Municipal and Hyden beat two of Harris' varsity players.

After four years at OSU, Hyden pursued his ROTC training and became an Army aviator. He spent a year in an OSU program teaching in Ethiopia, then returned to Stillwater and finished his degree on the GI bill.

The golf bug bit him again. Hyden became an assistant pro at LaFortune Park in Tulsa and in 1965 was hired to run the Adams Municipal Course in Bartlesville. In 1966, Hyden's former OSU teammate, Joe Walser, then the pro at Hefner, talked him into becoming the pro at Oklahoma City's Trosper Park.

Hyden took over Trosper with three employees, $150 in petty cash and no lawn equipment. But Hyden found a way to make it work, and when Walser moved to Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club in 1968, Hyden replaced him at Hefner.

More than 50 years later, Hyden's an Oklahoma City institution.

"I don't think people around here have any idea how well-respected he is in the region and probably nationally," said Cornett, who served on the Oklahoma City Golf Commission and eventually became the city's 13-year mayor. "If you talk to other pros in the South Central (region), he's a legend about running a pro shop, selling merchandise at public courses and he probably more than anybody else is the reason our courses are such quality. Lake Hefner always kind of set the standard for the condition of the public course."

A golf pro has to run a restaurant, be an agronomist, have a mind for business and teach a very difficult game.

Since the retirement of the legendary U.C. Ferguson as the Lincoln Park golf pro in the early 1980s, Hyden has been the dean of OKC golf. And that's 35 years.

Hyden didn't plan on staying at Hefner for half a century. He had opportunities at country clubs. Once had the chance to get in on the ground floor at Silverhorn and own his own club. But personal reasons kept him at Hefner. An adopted son had severe health issues; Hyden couldn't afford to switch his insurance. Hyden's first wife, Yvonne, fought cancer for almost 20 years; she died in 1996. And all those people who came through the doors of the pro shop and walked the fairways of both Hefner courses served as a bind.

Neaves tells stories of Hyden's nurturing. Of driving his golf cart over to a starter, sitting alone on a summer day, and passing time with a conversation. Of finding ways to honor long-time employees who never see the spotlight.

"He's not just a golf instructor, he's a people person, and he relates to people caringly and kindly," Neaves said. "Does an awful lot of things behind the scenes that many people wouldn't be aware of."

Hyden is 86. He'd like to stick around long enough to see the new Hefner clubhouse open, which is about 18 months out. Or maybe he'll just stay forever at Hefner.

"I kid him all the time, I think they're just going to bury him out there on the south course," said Flinton. "I don't know if he'll retire. I think he absolutely loves what he does , and he's just going to keep going."

Hyden wants to keep going because he wants to figure out why fewer people are playing golf. Why the game doesn't grip the masses the way it gripped him.

It pains Hyden to hear people say, "I tried it once and I wasn't any good."

He thinks about the newcomers to golf. That's why Hefner has a three-hole par-3 course, and why he's advocated women's clinics since he first got to Trosper, and why he'll take a 13-year-old boy to the side and explain why you really shouldn't sling the clubs.

"I've still got things that need to be done," Hyden said.

So the next time you venture to Hefner for 18 holes of golf, take a look around the pro shop or maybe out on the practice range or maybe sitting in a cart, talking to a starter. You'll know him by the white hair. Alsie's still here.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at [email protected]. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok.com/berrytramel.

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