Taking Ownership

As Linfield National’s Owner, Kleckner Constantly Trying To Make Improvements

By Tom McNichol, Contributing Writer

It’s been 20 years since Robert Kleckner came on board as the head pro at Linfield National Golf Club, a relative newcomer to the golf scene in western Montgomery County at the time. But in those 20 years, Linfield National has changed from a golf course where Kleckner works to a golf course he owns. That’s right, Kleckner is fully invested in Linfield National in every possible way. Kleckner took over as the owner in 2012 and by 2016 he had garnered enough notice for the job he’s doing at Linfield National that the Philadelphia Section PGA named him its Golf Professional of the Year. The Philadelphia Section gives out a lot of awards for performance on the golf course, but Golf Professional of the Year is the highest award it hands out for performance off the golf course, in taking care of the business of promoting the game, for making it better. “This game has given me so much, my family, my place of business, it’s all part of it,” Kleckner said on a rare slow August Monday when Linfield National’s greens are being aerated, one of two aerations the course undergoes each year. “All of us who work in golf owe the game so much.” Kleckner has emerged as a leader among his fellow golf professionals and his fellow owners and operators of public courses in the region. When the state of Pennsylvania shut down golf courses when the coronavirus first appeared on the scene in March of 2020, it was the president of the Pennsylvania Golf Course Owners Association that club pros and public course owners called for answers. That would be Robert Kleckner. “We shut down March 15 and on March 16 we were figuring out what our next move was,” Kleckner said. With advocates like Kleckner working hard, golf courses opened for play again by May 1. The story had a happy ending with golf becoming one of the few recreational activities that could be pursued safely in the midst of the pandemic. The game exploded at every level in 2020, a boom that has carried over into 2021. Kleckner, though, never thought the game was dying before that. He has that much faith that the game will always be strong enough to survive. “I thought there were signs before the pandemic in January and February of 2020 that things were picking up,” Kleckner said. The one thing that never really did come back was indoor simulators, an aspect of the game that has grown exponentially as the technology has continued to improve in the last decade. Kleckner was typically ahead of the curve in raising Linfield National’s game in the area of simulators. He was, however, leasing space to other simulator operators at Linfield National. Not anymore. Linfield National and Kleckner now own the simulator operation and Kleckner’s simulators have the

Robert Kleckner

latest technology available. “We have Foresight simulators with laser projectors and launch monitors,” Kleckner said. “It really is state of the art.” Unlike the golf course outdoors, the indoor simulators have been shut down since March of 2020. Kleckner is looking forward to getting his simulator game back up to speed. It is an overlooked aspect of the game in an area of the country in which weather often makes the golf course outside unplayable during the winter. “We don’t have an outdoor driving range, Daylight Savings (time) to Daylight Savings (time) people use the simulators for practice,” Kleckner said. “We have leagues and people have golf-themed parties around the simulators. And you have people just using them as normal recreation. We’re looking forward to getting all that going again.” Kleckner also does a lot of club fittings and works with all the big names in the world of golf equipment. “Ping, Titleist, TaylorMade, Callaway,” Kleckner said. There is still plenty of golf to be played outside at Linfield National in 2021 and Kleckner remains just as focused on his golf course, a Robert Sterritt design that measures 6,315 yards from the tips and plays to a par of 70. Sterritt’s work was completed and Linfield National opened in 1997. George Hoopes is Kleckner’s superintendent and the care and upkeep of the golf course has always been a priority for Kleckner, even more so after he took over as owner. “We’re a public facility, we’re presenting our product every day,” Kleckner said. Golfers old and new came out to play in 2020 when the realization hit that there just wasn’t a whole lot else to do. People who had maybe put the sticks away for a while came back to the game. Many others, young, old and in between, took up golf for the first time. The job for Kleckner is to keep them coming back and course condition is one very important part of that equation. “A lot of people came out after we reopened in 2020,” Kleckner said. “There was a lot of interest.” Linfield National is located smack in the middle of as competitive an area for publiccourse golf as you can find, but Kleckner is quick to point out that some golf courses have closed in recent years. He’s the kind of guy who is so focused on the general health of the game that he hates to see any golf facility close, even if it benefits his bottom line. “Center Square, Limekiln, Locust Valley, Island Green, even Woody’s,” Kleckner said, ticking off facilities in the region that have closed their doors in recent years. Woody’s, a legendary par-3 course, was just outside of Norristown, but Kleckner said its closing brought an increase in traffic many miles to the west in Limerick Township. Kleckner has always been a big supporter of junior golf. Devon Prep has used Linfield National as its home base as long as Kleckner has been there. The SpringFord girls team (“watch out for these girls,” Kleckner said, “they are very talented!”) also uses Linfield National to play and practice. Summer golf camps have always been a part of Kleckner’s program and he was able to expand that this summer. Linfield National put together a PGA Junior League team this summer. Kleckner knows that the future of the game can be found in the many youngsters who are taking up golf. It is a future that Kleckner will tell you looks bright and hopeful.

Like many golf courses, public and private, Kleckner has not seen some of the corporate and fund-raising golf outings come back to Linfield National in 2021, although the uptick in regular play has certainly softened that blow.

“There are still certain restrictions, particularly when it comes to travel, that are holding companies back from having their outings again,” Kleckner said. The culmination of the fall at Linfield National is a traditional event it stages on the day before Thanksgiving. Mother Nature will let us know if we can continue playing outside for a few more weeks after that. Between now and then, there will be a lot of days to tee it up outside at Linfield National and Kleckner is looking forward to seeing his indoor simulators fill the golf void when the weather turns bad. “We’re excited to reopen the indoor simulators,” Kleckner said. “I think our new technology will have people coming back.” Whatever goes on at Linfield National has Kleckner’s fingerprints on it. The guy acts like he owns the place because, well, he does own it. TSG

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