Members of the USAF and the people working at Ramstein AFB’s Woodlawn Golf Course enjoy a military tradition as old as the game itself

A member of the U.S. Army’s 333rd in Iraq tees one up at TPC Sandbox (Editor’s note: not a real course)

Members of the military have been playing golf since the earliest days of the game. At any time, the sport provides a chance for fighting men and women to meet up with friends, establish and maintain relationships, spend some quality time in the sun and temporarily escape the high stress of their phenomenal obligations.

In times of war, the importance of the game’s benefits increases substantially, with golf offering a relaxing bit of home away from home and even a way to cope with the potential consequences of conflict. Groups like Bunkers in Baghdad, Wounded Warriors and a recent PGA of America program with Disabled Sports USA and the Department of Defense use the sport as a way to rehabilitate our injured men and women and help them return to life at home.

The importance of the game to active duty personnel is evident by the resourcefulness golfers have displayed in the field. In WWII, prisoners of war in German camps fashioned golf balls from the leather and rubber of their boots, then made clubs from whatever was at hand. More recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan the media has been quick to cover the “homebuilt” courses set up by soldiers, sending back pictures of the humorously named “TPC Mosul”—just a few holes in the sand built around tires and other obstacles—and other similar examples. Such “courses” were built by the Air Force’s TSgt Mark Greene and Spc. Agent James Blair and their friends while they were deployed “down range” in desert conflict regions. Those two and the other men featured on the following pages are all stationed at or work at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and are all bravely committed to supporting our country and their fellow soldiers and airmen and women abroad and at home. Additionally, they’re all part of the larger community of golfers worldwide. Here’s hoping the game gives them as much as they give us.

Woodlawn Golf Course

DEREK TURNER
Golf Course Manager
Woodlawn Golf Course
Ramstein AFB, Germany

Since January of 2008, Derek Turner has been managing the golf course at Ramstein, and from what golfers are saying he and the people he works with are doing an incredible job, most recently by addressing a couple of important priorities:

“Our active duty folks here are really involved with what’s going on in the Middle East and places like that, and we really owe it to them to give them the best customer service we can; that’s been No.1,” says Turner. “Secondly, course conditions; we’re getting them as good as we can with what we have.”

Built in 1955, the course itself is beautiful. It’s no surprise that it spent nearly eight years as a stop on the European Tour, Turner says. Only 6,044 yards from the blues, he explains, “it’s narrow—extremely narrow. You hear this when you’re at other bases: People that have been stationed here at Ramstein, they fondly remember playing here. Oftentimes you see them coming back years later. People have fond memories of this course.”

In times of conflict with budgets already stretched, a golf course might not command as much care as it could, but that hasn’t stopped Turner and his team from staying true to Woodlawn’s roots and maintaining it as a quality place for active duty folks and authorized NATO forces to meet for a little recreation, camaraderie and chance to de-stress. From the numbers, it appears his work is well appreciated.

“For those folks looking for a place to recreate, that enjoy golf and all, [the course] is tremendously important. We’ve had over 36,000 rounds per year, and for a secure installation—as secure as this one is—that’s showing that we have a restricted market doing that many rounds, that’s kind of telling.”

TSgt MARK GREENE
Command Postal Manager
Age: 35
Home: Marion, MA
Years in USAF: 16 years

“Mail is extremely important; it’s the vital link between personnel and home,” says TSgt Mark Greene, whose job inspecting military postal operations is part of making sure that neither rain, nor sleet nor snow—and not even active combat—prevents the mail from getting through. Communication with loved ones has long been a key point of morale for both the personnel in the field and their families back home, making military postal operations an absolutely crucial service. In times of conflict, Greene says, those operations face a substantial increase in mail traffic. “It gets pretty complicated,” he says, “but it’s pretty neat. Wherever there’s a base folks will get their mail.”

It was at a base in Japan that Greene discovered golf. And as many of us can sympathize, his first outing wasn’t exactly a championship experience.

“It was about 12 or 13 years ago,” he remembers. “A bunch of buddies took me out golfing. I was already in the Air Force, stationed at Yokota where there’s a great golf course [Tama Hills]. They took me out and I saw how hard golf really was. The first experience was humbling. I was using rental clubs, but they could’ve given me anything. I wouldn’t have known the difference.”

Greene says that though the game didn’t exactly come easily, he stuck with it because of the relationships he’s built with friends and because of the good times the game provides.

“They were a good bunch of guys [in Japan], and it’s the same here at Ramstein,” he says. “With golf, it’s not so much the sport itself but the camaraderie you have with friends that makes it enjoyable. All golfers go through the same challenges together.”

That camaraderie is even more important in times of conflict, a point which is underlined when troops and airmen are “down range,” deployed in one of our currently active desert combat zones, Greene says.

“I’ve been Iraq, Qatar, up in Baghdad… Quite a few places. When we’re down range in the desert we can’t wait to get back and see our buddies.”

Even here, golf has its place.

“We would find an old sand wedge and just go whacking around out there; sometimes it’s possible to go out in the sand, in other locations not so much,” Greene says. “Most of the time it was just a bunch of guys in a tent with a golf club telling stories. We’d have an old 1960s sand wedge that was worn out, just having fun.”

Whether in the desert or at a base like Ramstein, Green says that for soldiers and airmen, “Golf is huge, and the military does a great job with the courses, making morale good for the soldiers. It’s good bonding with a bunch of friends, to come back to a taste of home. I’m pretty much out there whenever the sun is shining.”

From L-R: Mark Greene, Derek Turner and Tanner Spani

SPECIAL AGENT JAMES BLAIR
USAF Office of Special Investigations
Age: 40
Home: Duluth, MN
Years in USAF: 22

“My father was in the Air Force from the day I was born until I joined; he was a golf fanatic.”

Blair was near five years old when he first picked up a golf club. He hit golf balls around the back yard, and later joined the youth golf program at Wichita’s McConnell AFB near eight years of age.

“I was on the golf course every day that summer,” he says. “I loved it. I can’t remember a moment I haven’t loved it.”

Because of his job, it’s no surprise that Blair has golfed in some interesting locations. Among them, Curaçao, the Philippines, the UAE, and even on an improvised course in Qatar.

“Last time I deployed, I brought a couple of clubs with me and left them there for the guys. We built a little pitch ’n’ putt in the sand, just went down with a couple of clubs and laid it out. Who knows the condition of it now…”

Blair’s responsibilities are heavy: he runs our European tech services office, providing specialized surveillance support for law enforcement and counter intelligence operations. Golf, he says, “is something to keep my mind off of work, really. The stress from the office. And the camaraderie on the golf course and from the guys is phenomenal. Wherever you go—and I’ve been a lot of places—you go to a golf course and you meet phenomenal people there.”

One such meeting happened in Orlando. During his time at Tyndall AFB and Patrick AFB in Florida, Blair made it to the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 1999—“When Tim Heron beat Tom Lehman, and I’m a huge Tom Lehman fan”—and again in 2007, when Blair met a phenomenal person indeed: Mr. Palmer himself.

“We came through the gate on the 8th and he shook my hand. It was a great moment,” Blair says, adding that “I am on active duty in Arnie’s Army.”

At the end of the day, Blair says golf provides great camaraderie and an often necessary escape from the stress that comes with the incredible responsibilities our fighting men and women face.

“During my time in the military it’s always been great having these military courses to play on,” he says. “Especially here at Ramstein, with Mr. Turner and the program they have here; it’s absolutely the best.”

SrA TANNER SPANI
Airfield Systems Technician
Age: 26
Home: Panama City, FL
Years in USAF: 4

As an airfield systems technician, Tanner Spani maintains the equipment on the airfield at Ramstein. This includes the instrument landing systems and all of the technical bits and pieces on the ground that ensure our planes can take off—and more importantly, land—in a safe and secure manner. Though it’s a huge responsibility, “this is my first base, and because I’m kind of young… there hasn’t been much stress,” he says. Spani has spent time with the USAF in Hungary, Iceland and “places like that,” he says, great deployments for a relatively fresh face. Through it all, there’s been golf.

“My father is the superintendent at a golf course in Panama City; I grew up playing,” he says, adding that he first started near age 5. “I played throughout high school… worked at golf courses, anything from cart boy to snack food vendor.”

Now, with his responsibilities at Ramstein, you’d think it would be difficult for Spani to keep his game in shape. However, he points out that in the summer months it doesn’t get dark until near 10pm and so, with the added benefit of his wife working at the golf course, maybe it’s not so surprising that “Right after work, I get in 18 almost every day.”

Still, we think he’s being modest—or at least understated—when he refers to his 3.6 handicap as “decent.”

“Golf has always been more than a sport to me,” he says. “It’s the greatest game on Earth. A chance to get away from reality, great camaraderie and the chance to meet a bunch of great people. Besides the game itself, it’s about the relationships and friendships.”