Hard-working quartet to join OKGCSA Hall of Fame Friday
By Ken MacLeod
One common theme came up repeatedly when friends and family members described this year’s four inductees into the Oklahoma Golf Course Superintendents Hall of Fame.
“Very, very hard working,” was a quote issued over and over to describe the careers of Oakwood Country Club superintendent Philip Gable, Shawnee Elks Country Club superintendent Jimmy Bidack and Cedar Valley superintendent Carl McCroskey. Also very talented and innovative.
The term also applies to the fourth member of the class, Ken Massey, the founder and president of Jesco Products of Oklahoma City, which makes a variety of products used by superintendents.
Gable was the just the second superintendent in the history of Oakwood, the 1947 Perry Maxwell gem in Enid, when he replaced Les Hare in the early 1970s. He oversaw the installation of the club’s first automated sprinkler system in 1981 and a major greens renovation and conversion to SR 10-20 bent grass in 1999.
Gable, born in 1940 in Blackwell, retired in the early 2000s due to health reasons and passed away on Aug. 22, 2013.
“He was a really hard working guy,” said former longtime Oakwood director of golf Tim Mendenhall. “One day after he had just been in to see me to let me know of some heart issues he was having, I found him out scooping the cement out with a shovel as they poured new cart paths. That’s just the way he was. He was a great guy and a great superintendent.”
Bidack also worked on greens designed by Maxwell at Elks Golf & Country Club, which opened in 1927 with sand greens but didn’t have grass put on the greens until the 1950s. Bidack, born in Oklahoma City in 1963, became superintendent there in 1987 and served for 30 years until he suffered early onset dementia. He passed away at age 59 on May 13, 2023.
“He was good at what he did and he really made this golf course,” said Elks manager Greg Cox. “He put in our first watering system. Jimmy was a great guy who had his own way of doing things and the trustees let him do it his way because of how knowledgeable he was.”
That would also apply to McCroskey, who worked in a variety of businesses before settling on golf. Born on an elevator between the third and fourth floors of the hospital in his hometown of Henryetta, he hit the ground running with a triple major at Oklahoma State of business management, accounting and personnel.
After graduating in 1978, he taught classes at OSU-Okmulgee for a year, ran an X-Ray company for two years then taught again at Connors State in Warner and did contract work until getting started in the golf industry when he joined younger brother Kevin as an assistant at Windermere (Fla.) Country Club in 1987. He worked at several clubs in Florida for the next 10 years until moving back to Oklahoma in 1997 to take over at Cedar Valley, Duffy Martin’s original 36 hole public facility in Guthrie.
McCroskey ran that until 2013, then quickly got bored in his retirement and helped his nephew Steve at McAlester Country Club for the next eight years. Now 74, he is retired and has returned to Henryetta where he enjoys a variety of hobbies including some computer gaming.
Massey founded Jesco Products in 1986 and has been a trusted friend of superintendents throughout Oklahoma and southern Kansas ever since. His Pinhigh compound for sharpening reel mowers has been a particular favorite.
“Pinhigh is the best and he has a lot of other products we use as well,” said David Jones, superintendent at Indian Springs Country Club in Broken Arrow.
The awards ceremony will be at 6 p.m. Friday at the new event center at KickingBird Golf Course in Edmond. Cost is $50, those interested should contact Veronica Mills with the OKGCSA at 405-885-1530.