Cypress Lakes manager recognized for clinic aimed at veterans

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif – Though Travis Air Force Base, California’s Cypress Lakes Golf Course has a built-in military audience by nature, its general manager, Jessie Walker, is working to broaden it.

 

While active-duty, Reservists, veterans and retirees are among the 18-hole course’s most frequent guests, Walker helped launch the Professional Golfers’ Association of America Helping Our Patriots Everywhere clinic in Northern California, a PGA military initiative that helps bring veterans back to the links.

 

Although golf is the driver, Walker said that’s not the clinic’s primary goal.

 

“It’s not about golf. It really isn’t. We just use golf as a vehicle,” said Walker. “We’re more than anything getting them socialized, getting them back into society.”

 

For his efforts, the Northern California section of the PGA recognized Walker with the 2016 Patriot of the Year Award, an honor bestowed on PGA Professionals whose actions support the military through participation in the game of golf. He now competes for the award against other regional winners across the PGA.

 

Walker was instrumental in bringing the clinic to Cypress Lakes, launching in 2015. He saw a friend, Doug Carlton, golf course manager at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, post about the clinic on social media, inspiring Walker to inquire further.

 

In addition to managing Cypress Lakes, Walker is a PGA Professional, a certification that comes from the PGA. Walker described it as “basically a bachelor’s in golf course administration and operation.” Because of his affiliation with the organization, Walker answered the call when the nearby Northern California PGA headquarters in Vacaville, California, asked about hosting the first PGA HOPE clinic at Cypress Lakes.

 

The free, eight-week course welcomes veterans regardless of their experience level with the game.

 

Walker said, because some veterans have physical challenges that present obstacles to golfing, part of his training for the clinic included learning how to golf through “adaptive” training to help teachers understand the limitations some may face, including missing limbs or difficulty hearing.

 

“We have a gentleman in this class who just put on his prosthetic leg six months ago,” said Walker. “He’s learning to move in general in addition to golf.”

 

Stan Lykins, assistant manager at Cypress Lakes, said that in addition to the adaptive training, the course also offers carts that allow golfers to swing a club while seated in a swiveling chair.

 

Though the PGA HOPE began small, it has exponentially increased in size, growing to twice a year at Cypress Lakes and expanding to five other courses throughout Northern California: Presidio Golf Course in San Francisco, Metropolitan Golf Links and Sequoyah Country Club in Oakland and Haggin Oaks Golf Complex, as well as Cherry Island Golf Course in Sacramento.

 

“Jessie told other PGA Pros, ‘This is what we do. This is how ours is working’ and they said, ‘Wow, we should try it here,’ ” said Lykins. “Now they know every Thursday, ‘I’m going to meet all my buddies.’ ”

 

Additionally, Walker’s work has landed him on the small screen. In 2016, he was featured in a segment airing on the Golf Channel. Also, a production crew from CBS met with him for three days for a piece set to air in July.

 

Though Walker enjoys sharing his golf knowledge with veterans in the PGA HOPE clinic, he emphasized the therapeutic importance of their participation, especially at a time when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said in July 2016 an average of 20 veterans died each day from suicide in 2014.

 

“If we can get that one veteran who is thinking his or her life is not worth living anymore because he or she has got all of these demons going off in their head, if we get that one person up out of that seat, around other veterans that have gone through or (been) around the same things that they’ve gone through and we get them back that next week, now they have a purpose,” said Walker. “They need somebody who cares about them.”

 

Walker said family members are welcome in addition to military veterans at PGA HOPE clinic events. For more information about PGA HOPE, visit http://bit.ly/2pzrONu. For more information about Cypress Lakes Golf Course, visit http://www.travisfss.com/golf/.