When and why did you come to the USA?
I came to the USA for the first time in the early 1980’s.
Originally, I came to visit my older brother David as he was
living here at that time in the San Francisco Bay area. With my
parents permission, I decided to stay permanently. I started
school here and began working in restaurants in my spare
time.
What was your first restaurant position?
It was in a French restaurant named La Tour in Palo Alto,
California, where my brother was working at the time. He
told the owner that I needed a job. Initially, they hired me to
paint the restaurant. When I finished painting it, they liked my
work ethic, and they put me to work in the kitchen helping
with the restaurant prep. That’s how I got started, and I have
worked in restaurants ever since.
When did Golf become a part of your life?
Golf happened to me by accident, like most great things,
when I came to visit my brother. I told him I wanted to stay
in America. He said I could stay, but the first thing I had to do
was enroll in school and secondly I had to get a job.
I enrolled in a junior college nearby named Foothill College
in Los Altos California. I studied Business Administration and
turf grass management and then I had to sign up for Physical
Education classes. I chose archery, weightlifting, and golf. I had
no idea what golf was. We showed up at a baseball practice
facility because the college did not have a golf facility. At that
time, they gave us one club. It was a sand wedge club, which
is the one that hits the shortest distance. The reason they
gave us the sand wedge club is that they didn’t want us to hit
the ball too far! So, for the longest time, I thought that was
golf. I didn’t even know that there was a golf course. I thought
that was it. You had one club and one ball, and you hit it over
and over again. [Laughs] There wasn’t even a hole. However,
we did have a target.
While I was working at Fresco’s Restaurant in Palo Alto, I was
talking to one of my co-workers about golf. I told him I was
taking golf classes, and how much I loved it. My co-worker
Henry Corlin said we should go and play golf sometime, but
I still didn’t know there was anything else. I was thinking we
were going to the little baseball field and I was going to show
him how good I was! When I said I didn’t own a club, the
owner of the restaurant overheard our conversation and said,
“Hey, when you guys are ready to play, you can borrow mine.”
When the day came for us to play golf, I went to his office,
and he had this huge bag. I was looking through the bag, and
I found the one club I could recognize. He said, “What are
you doing? You have to take the whole bag...” That was my
introduction to the game, and that was when I found out that
there was a golf course. Once I got the experience, it was a
whole new game. I loved it.
I made this arrangement where I would show up for work at
11 a.m. to cover lunch, and I would stay through dinner service
to make sure I had my morning free to play golf. I would tee
off at 6 a.m., play 18 holes, and be ready to go to work. I did
that at least five days a week. I was hooked and I wanted to
improve. It would take me months to improve one stroke, but
I kept doing it. Within three years, I became a scratch golfer.
How did you transition from the public restaurant
industry to the private golf club industry?
Once I became interested in golf, I quickly realized it was a
very expensive sport. I thought to myself that I needed to
find a place that would allow me to grow in both the culinary
world and the golf world. I had a love for both. At that point,
I got an interview at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in
Pebble Beach California. They hired me first as Sous Chef and
later promoted me to Executive Chef.
Tell us about the transition.
Coming from the public sector to the private sector is like
night and day. It’s a completely different environment, but
I immediately fell in love with it. I could enjoy both of my
passions and I also loved interacting and playing golf with the
members.
When you work in the kitchen in the public sector, nobody
knows who you are. But in the private sector, you get to know
the members and