or $3 per hour, Brown said when the private country club closed on Mondays, the caddies went out to play. Brown went on to play golf during high school and while he considered himself a “baseball player by trade or definition” and went to Central Michigan University as a walk-on for the baseball team, golfing was still a part of his life. “It’s a great game, because whether you are 18-, 12-, 75-, or 80-years-old, you can still play,” said Brown. Upon graduating CMU with a financial degree, Brown spent time working as a banker in Detroit before deciding to pursue a master’s degree in sports management and help open a large sports facility in the Detroit area, which housed
basketball, volleyball, roller hockey, and bar and grill facilities. “I watched how that grew—raised money and got it off the ground—so I said why not try the same thing in the golf business?” said Brown. With their sights set on a different golf course in Mt. Pleasant, both Lavely and Brown had to change course when one of the three owners decided to stay on at the course rather than move out-of-state. With a vision and business proposal already completed and nothing to buy, the two entrepreneurs set out in search of another opportunity. “Luckily we heard about A-Ga-Ming,” said Brown. “In any business, it is all about location, location, location. When
you pull into the parking lot and see Torch Lake with three different shades of Caribbean blue—it’s gorgeous. It is also in close proximity to Traverse City and Charlevoix.” At the time, A-Ga-Ming Golf Resort had a sole 18-hole course with accommodations for less than 20 visitors and was owned by Bill Siebenthaller and 1954 PGA Champion Chick Harbert. Siebenthaller and Harbert had operated the resort since 1986, and transformed the original early-70s nine-hole facility into a re-routed, challenging golf course with a clubhouse. “They looked at us—a couple of 27-year-old young kids—and basically put the deal together for us where we couldn’t refuse it,” said Brown. “We had to put the
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michiganGOLFexplorer.com
courtesy A-Ga-ming