Ex-pro is happy with a change

Long days that include working weekends and holidays are part of the job description for a head golf pro. Prospective pros know that going in.

After 12 years of it - the past seven as head pro at Midland Valley Country Club in Graniteville - Steve Foss has had enough of that lifestyle.

He resigned in December to become a project manager at Keystone Homes in Augusta.

He now works a normal schedule and is able to see more of his wife, Jennifer, and their two daughters, 10-year-old Caroline and 7-year-old Katie.

"The golf business was good to me, but I believe it had run its course," said the 37-year-old Foss, who also resigned as executive director of the Regions Cup golf series, which is a volunteer position.

In the dozen years he was in the business, as an assistant at Goshen Plantation, Midland Valley and head pro at Jones Creek Golf Club and then Midland Valley, Foss estimated he worked 95 percent of the weekends and holidays.

"The golf business was sometimes unpredictable; there's nothing you can really set a long term schedule with," he said. "Now, if we schedule a weekend out of town, we can stick to it."

"It takes it's toll," said Brooks Blackburn, the Midland Valley assistant pro under Foss who has been promoted to head pro. "What had Steve been in it, 12 years? That's a lot of time. He's now in a position where he has weekends and holidays off. I know from talking to him that he's happy."

Blackburn, 35, started in the golf business nearly five years ago at Midland.

At the time he was hired, Blackburn was working for Coca-Cola, driving a truck. "One of the guys at Coke let me know the job was open," Blackburn recalled. "I stopped in on my way home from work."

He was hired by Foss, who had known Blackburn, a former USC Aiken All-American golfer, since the 1980s.

"I learned a lot from Steve; everything I know about the business is from him," Blackburn said.

Blackburn knew Foss wanted to spend more time with his family, "but it kind of surprised me that he would be leaving."

Blackburn is six months away from earning his PGA of America Class A card, which is a requirement to be a head pro at most country clubs.

Blackburn planned to start looking for a head pro job once he got his Class A card. He never thought that job would be at Midland Valley, he said.

Rusty Flanders, one of the Midland Valley owners, offered Blackburn the head pro job the day Foss resigned.

"You've got to have the right personality to do that kind of job, and Brooks has it," Foss said.

The new job as head pro might cut into Blackburn's socializing, he joked.

"The basic difference now," he said, "is that I used to tell the members that Steve does all the work so I can sit around and talk. Now, I've got a lot more paperwork and a few more hours, but not much more."

Foss, who has been a Class A pro since 1997, said he would "probably" keep his Class A status active through continuing education.

"I worked hard in the schools and the PGA program to get that so I'm going to hold on to it for a while at least," he said.

Foss doubts, though, that he will go back into the golf business.

"With the opportunity I have where I'm at, I think that's in the past," he said.

Reach David Westin at (706) 724-0851 or david.westin@augustachronicle.com.