By Maggie FitzRoy
mail@floridanewsline.com
When visitors from Missouri and Massachusetts visited Ponte Vedra Beach one recent day, volunteer storyteller Tobey Jones gave them a free tour of the TPC Clubhouse, followed by a golf cart ride out to holes 16, 17, and 18 of the Stadium Course.
Excited to see iconic portions of a course they’d only seen on T.V. during coverage of THE PLAYERS Championship, they peppered Jones with questions, posed for pictures, and by the end of the hour-long tour had obtained a fun education about the history of the course, the clubhouse, and the championship.
“It’s a privilege for us to be able to show it all off,” says Jones. “Interesting people come here from all over the world, and they want to see holes 16, 17, and 18. I’ve been doing this for 12 years. I love it because of the people I meet.”
Storyteller Captain Fred DiBiase says there are currently 46 active Storytellers and on average each works three four-hour-long shifts a month. Tours are open to anyone, beginning at the top of every hour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., seven days a week year-round.
The Storytellers were created in 2007, after dedication of the 77,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style clubhouse that replaced the course’s original much smaller and modest one, DiBiase says. “Billy Dettlaff, with the PGA TOUR, came up with the idea. He wanted to add to the magic of the Stadium Course by giving tours of the magnificent clubhouse.”
The history that the storytellers bring to life is displayed in photographs along the walls of the clubhouse’s first floor hallways.
Jones started his tour for Massachusetts visitors Michael and Carmen Zappala, and Missouri visitors Mary and Craig Sengel, in front of a 1980 photo of golf course architect Pete Dye and then-PGA TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman exploring the area where the Stadium Course was to be. Jones then pointed to photos depicting the 415 acres that the local Fletcher family sold to The TOUR in February 1979 for one dollar, with the understanding that The PGA TOUR would be headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach.
“That one dollar check was never cashed because it’s hanging on the wall,” he said, pointing to the framed artifact.
Other photos on the tour included pictures of the 17th hole under construction. Jones explained that Pete Dye’s wife, Alice — also a golf course architect — came up with the idea for the famed island hole, pointing out pictures of Alice, Pete, and their German Shepherd, Sixty.
Some photographs, and a large painting based on one of them, illustrate the excitement of the first Players Championship held on the Stadium Course in 1982. Jerry Pate won, and by prior arrangement with some of the other players, pushed Pete Dye and Deane Beman into the lake at the 18th hole during the award ceremony.
“The course was very challenging, and a lot of the big-name pros didn’t make the cut on Friday,” DiBiase says. “They complained and made a pact to make the architect pay for it.”
All in good fun, obviously, because a laughing Jerry Pate ended up in the water, too.
All the storytellers have different stories, DiBiase says, but all also follow the history laid out in a manual created by Dettlaff.
There is a waiting list for people interested in becoming storytellers. Volunteers are interviewed, go through training, then shadow experienced storytellers until they are ready to go out on their own. Storytellers often receive tips, which go to local charities.
“The Storyteller Annual Awards Committee selects four to five charities a year, which are presented annually in early December,” DiBiase says. “Last year we gave a record $38,000.”
Photo courtesy Maggie FitzRoy
TPC volunteer storyteller Tobey Jones gives recent visitors a golf cart tour of the Stadium Course.
