Course music to his ears

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jul 30, 2008

Once upon a time, Meril Vanderpool had a different course planned out for his life.

He was a musician. A bass player for the Chessmen Trio, to be exact, traveling around with his partners from gig to gig.

But even during that time, another course was pulling at him. And that one has been music to his ears for nearly 40 years.

Vanderpool gave up his life on the road to return home to Ozawkie where he built and still owns Village Greens Golf Course. The course has long been a favorite for many on the local scene and serves somewhat as the model for other "Mom and Pop" courses around the area.

In fact, on The Capital-Journal's summer golf tour this year, I've been amazed at how many times someone has made reference to Meril. He's been, to many, their reference book on how to make things go for an independently owned course.

"Every once in awhile, I'll sit back with a glass of wine and think, 'Yeah, we did it.'" Vanderpool said. "There was an old pro down in Topeka, Max Decker, who said if I had known what I was doing, I'd never made it."

But Vanderpool and Village Greens have made it, though good times and bad.

There were the tough times in the late 1970s and early 1980s where the interest rates were through the roof and the 160 acres on which Village Greens sits was a financial burden.

And how about the time in the late 1980s where the course ran out of water? Uhh, you can't run a golf course without water.

Whatever hurdles came up, the Vanderpools cleared. Shutting down or giving up was never an option.

"I think we were broke and didn't know it, so we just kept going," Vanderpool said. "I guess we never even gave (closing) a thought. It's worked out."

And there were good times, when the golf boom took off in the 1990s and there simply weren't enough courses around to handle it.

That's partly how Village Greens came to be. When the first nine holes opened in 1970, the only other public course in Topeka was Topeka Public (which is now Cypress Ridge Golf Course).

Vanderpool's music ties paid off then, too. While at a gig in Kentucky, he met with C.R. (Buck) Blankenship, who wound up coming to Ozawkie and designing the front nine.

The back nine came shortly thereafter with former Topeka pro Dutch McClellan doing the design work and Meril and his father, Martin, doing the construction.

"We built three holes a year," Vanderpool said of the back nine, which opened in 1979.

"We didn't have a heck of a lot of knowledge about it, but we learned it over the years."

At 67 years old, Vanderpool isn't sure how much longer he'll stay in the golf business. But right now, he can't picture himself doing anything else.

"Sometime in the next few years, we'll probably have to do something," he said. "But I still enjoy getting up and going to work. I'd get bored with nothing to do."