Oklahoma loses a true golf icon in passing of Alsie Hyden

By Ken MacLeod

Alsie Hyden, a visionary who relentlessly promoted public golf and helped elevate the Oklahoma City municipal course system into the envy of the country, passed away Tuesday.

Alsie celebrated at his retirement party.

Hyden, 93, had been in an Oklahoma City memory care unit suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years. However he worked as the director of golf at Lake Hefner right up until his retirement at age 88 in September of 2021. A memorial service will be held Dec. 18 at 2 p.m. at Church of the Servant, 14343 N. MacArthur Blvd. in Oklahoma City. Visitation is on Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Hahn Cook Funeral Home, 6600 Broadway Ext.

Hyden learned his devotion to customer service first from Charlie Wiesner at LaFortune Park in Tulsa where his career began in 1961 and notably from Joe Walser, who brought him from Adams Golf Course in Bartlesville into the Oklahoma City golf course system in 1966 to become the head professional at Trosper Park. Two years later he became the head pro at Lake Hefner when Walser left for Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club.

Click cover to read.Just as Walser, with whom he played collegiate golfat Oklahoma State, had the vision to found Oak Tree Golf Club and then Landmark and all that ensured, Hyden saw not only Lake Hefner but the entire system including Lincoln Park, Earlywine and Trosper and later the James E. Stewart Course as a virtual public resort where golfers could play challenging and well-conditioned public courses, practice, receive lessons or shop in well-stocked pro shops and relax, eat and drink in beautiful clubhouses.

Much of that has come to pass with the opening of magnificent clubhouses at Lincoln Park and Earlywine and the scheduled opening of a new clubhouse next spring at Lake Hefner.

“Alsie didn’t see things the way everybody else does in a public course environment,” said Dan Langford Jr., long-time director of golf at Earlywine who worked for Hyden at Lake Hefner from 1983-1990. “He always looked at it as what it could be. He drove towards excellence in customer service and his leadership role was beyond any of his contemporaries.

Click cover to read.“There was a reason that other municipalities would come to Oklahoma City to find out how we were so successful. He drove the vision of what it should be. He would see what they were doing at resorts, or what Joe Walser and Ernie (Vossler) were doing with Landmark. He wanted to create something where people would really enjoy themselves and go away happy.”

Hyden was also a huge supporter of women’s golf and was inducted into the Oklahoma Women’s Golf Hall of Fame in 2008. He often employed two women’s golf professionals in a time when that was rare. He never met a man or women he didn’t think he could convert into a golfer if he just had a few minutes to bend their ear on the wonders of the game.

“It’s a sad day for Oklahoma,” said LeeAnn Fairlie, also a member of now the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame and who has been on the board of the Oklahoma City Golf Commission for 26 years working to help Hyden’s visions a reality.

“Alsie was the best. He always encouraged me from the first day I stared playing there in 1974. And he just did a lot of things for women’s golf that other pros didn’t do.”

Louise Johnson, president of the Oklahoma Women’s Golf Association, said his support for their organization and women golfers in general was crucial. He would annually host one of the girls high school championships and other events.

“He was just an icon to us,” Johnson said. “He was just a strong, strong advocate for women’s golf in Oklahoma.”

Steve Carson, who was Hyden’s counterpart at Lincoln Park and an equally staunch promoter of public golf until his retirement in 2021, said promoting the game was Hyden’s life mission.

“You couldn’t have a person be more of an advocate for golf than Alsie,” he said. “He would meet a complete stranger and start asking him whey they don’t play golf. That was his total reason for being a pro was to promote the game. And you couldn’t find a finer gentleman. He always made everyone feel welcome.”

Former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett started working at Lake Hefner as a 13-year-old in 1971 and has been playing and supporting the game ever since. He is also on the golf commission and regrets that Hyden did not get to walk through the completed clubhouse at Lake Hefner.

“Alsie was the consummate golf professional,” Cornett said. “He ran a really good pro shop, wore all hats, his courses were among the best and always exceeded expectations. He had one of the largest driving ranges in the state and that’s because Alsie understood that was part of growing the game. And he was one of the first to try and generate a lot of enthusiasm for women’s golf in the state of Oklahoma. He went to great lengths to make sure they felt welcome and honored.”

Golf architect Randy Heckenkemper of Tulsa worked closely with Hyden when he redesigned Lake Hefner North in the early 1990s.

“One of the things that was most impressive about Alsie, if we were having a conversation about the design and a golfer stopped him, he would stop and spend whatever time was needed to make that golfer feel that he was Alsie’s top priority,” Heckenkemper said. “It was not that he diminished my value, it was that he elevated the value of his loyal, paying customers above all else.”

Hyden was born Sept. 8, 1932 and grew up in Berryhill outside of Tulsa. He became enamored with golf when he saw a neighbor hitting wedges in his yard. He tried out for both basketball and golf at Oklahoma State, making the golf team.

One of the great stories is that when Wiesner hired both he and Jones as young assistants in 1961 at LaFortune, he split the salary he had originally intended to pay Hyden. They each got $200 a week,

Jones stayed at LaFortune Park and enjoyed a long and successful career, while Hyden left for a more lucrative position in Bartlesville. That led to meeting Walser, his move to OKC and the decades of success that followed. He was inducted into the PGA South Central Section Hall of Fame in 2000.

“The South Central PGA Section is heartbroken to learn of the passing of Alsie Hyden,” said section president Jarod Lundy, also director of golf at Belmar Golf Club in Norman. “Alsie was not just a Hall of Fame professional; he was the very definition of a ‘Pro’s Pro.’ For over half a century at Lake Hefner, he served as a pillar of public golf in Oklahoma City, championing the game for everyone long before it was the standard. His legacy isn’t just in the rounds played at his courses, but in the countless PGA Professionals he mentored and the community he built. We extend our deepest sympathies to the entire Hyden family. The game of golf has lost a true lion.”