“I’m a people person and I love dealing with members, both of our club and of our chapter.”
— Tim Spangler
Tim Spangler admits it: “I’ve been awfully lucky in the golf business.”
How lucky? He became a head pro just two months after he got his first job in the business. He once needed a job and found one a few blocks away. And he now has the chance to open a course in the fastest-growing community in Northeast Florida.
All that for a guy from Iowa whose only scholarship offer came from the predominately-black Florida A&M “because I guess they needed a minority person.”
Spangler is the head pro at Eagle Landing, which quietly opened last month. It’s in the middle OakLeaf Plantation and the Eagle Landing part of the development will have 1,800 homes.
Clyde Johnston designed the course and Spangler says it’s unlike the architect’s other three courses here: Jacksonville G&CC, St. Johns G&CC and Eagle Harbor.
“It’s very open and forgiving,” said Spangler. “There’s a lot more undulations than you usually see around here.
“There are a lot of fairway bunkers and a fair amount of water that really doesn’t often come into play.”
Spangler was hired over a big group of applicants and brings over a dozen years of experience to the job.
He grew up in Iowa and, on one cold day, was in a Sioux Falls mall where he saw a Florida Gator tee shirt.
“I have no idea why they thought people would buy a Gator shirt in Sioux Falls, but it got me thinking about going to college in Florida,” he said.
Even though baseball was his first sport (“I kind of played golf,” he said,) he decided to make a career on the agronomy side of golf and applied to agricultural schools in Florida. A&M offered a scholarship but he chose the state university in Gainesville and enrolled in 1991.
“School really wasn’t going all that well,” said Spangler, “and I ran into a guy who was an assistant pro at what used to be called Heritage Links, now Plantation Oaks. They needed a guy to work outside with the carts.
“I soon moved up to assistant pro and then the head pro left and they made me the head guy. I wasn’t even a PGA member!”
In 1999, his wife was promoted to a job in Jacksonville — she’s with Stein Mart — and they moved here, Spangler without a job.
“I was talking with a salesman and he told me that there were a lot of apartments on a road named Hodges Boulevard,” he said. ‘We drove up and the first place we looked was just outside a club named Glen Kernan.
“I looked in the PGA newsletter and there was a notice that Glen Kernan was looking for an assistant pro, so I drove to the club to apply. I got to the gate and they wouldn’t let me in!
“I went back to a phone and called, and the clubhouse called the gate.”
He got the job and worked for two years under John Upton, who Spangler describes as “an awesome pro.”
Upton parted ways with Glen Kernan in 2001; Spangler and John Randolph were named co-head pros.
Last May, it was Spangler who parted ways and he was back in the job market.
“It worked out OK because we have a young son and it was a chance for me to be with him,” said Spangler. “No problem with the people at Glen Kernan. I really believe that if you aren’t a fit, you aren’t a fit and it’s best to move on.”
Spangler is active in the Northern Chapter of the North Florida PGA and should move up — perhaps to president — when the leadership changes later this year.
He says he likes activity and he’ll be an active leader.
“I like to have things going on,” he said. “I’m a people person and I love dealing with members, both of our club and of our chapter.”