PRIDE: Winston Lake's Kimel leaves legacy at course

After 36 years as the course superintendent at Winston Lake, Rick Kimel altered his routine on his final day of work last week.

"I brought in two dozen donuts for the guys," he said with a smile.

Kimel, 59, retired with a sense of pride after meeting the challenge of keeping city-owned Winston Lake serviceable through the years. It wasn't always easy, dealing with slashed budgets, drought conditions and other problems, but he never wavered in what he believed.

"The greens were pretty bad over here," Kimel said of his early days on the job, "and if you hit it out of the fairway, you pretty much lost your ball. But we got the greens in a lot better shape."

The Ellis Maples course has gone through many changes, and Kimel has seen most of them.

The course got a much-needed underground watering system about eight years ago, and that has helped the tree-lined course remain lush even during drought conditions.

"The city spent some money on the golf course, and we've done a lot of good things for it," Kimel said. "It's completely different than it used to be."

Kimel, a Winston-Salem native, graduated from East Carolina in 1972 with a degree in parks and recreation. He started working at Reynolds Park on the grounds crew and discovered that he liked the intricacies of getting a golf course in shape.

He earned a turf-management degree from Catawba Valley Community College in the mid-1970s, then moved over to Winston Lake and stayed put.

Assistant pro Reed Blackburn, who has been at the course almost seven years, said that Kimel wasn't in the best of moods every day. But when something wasn't going right, Kimel did whatever was necessary to fix the problem.

"He's been very good for the golf course, and he takes great pride in this place," said Blackburn, adding that many of Winston Lake's regulars might not know how hard it was for Kimel to keep the course in shape.

"He's been very loyal to the golf course," Blackburn said.

"I hear from a lot of people that when Rick first got here, there wasn't hardly any grass on the course, and we had no water system."

One of Kimel's wishes in recent years was to get approval to rebuild the greens, which many courses do every 15 years or so. He never did but said he understands the expense involved and that the city can't afford it right now.

Kimel said that Winston Lake, which opened its first nine holes in 1957 and its second nine in 1962, has had no extensive renovation of its greens.

"The greens are pretty good now, but they just need to be rebuilt," he said. "They've never been rebuilt, and they were originally Bermuda grass or whatever else would grow on them. It would be nice to have seen them rebuilt."

Kimel's staff, which was never large, gave him a surprise lunch and a plaque for his years of service a few days before his final day. He said it was a nice send-off and that he isn't going away entirely.

"Oh, I'll be back out here to play some," he said. "I guess I'll kind of check on things.

"I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'll miss coming out here. I've enjoyed my work so it's going to be different."

Golfing rarity

Larry Addington and grandson Trevor Blevins had holes-in-one on the same day late last month.

Addington was playing at Pilot Knob when he got a cell-phone call telling him that Blevins, 12, got his first career ace at Wilshire. Addington told his playing partners that he needed a hole-in-one to match.

"My ball hit in front of the hole and came to rest against the pin," Addington said. ‘‘When we got to the green, my ball was at the bottom of the cup."

It was Addington's seventh career ace and came at No. 6, which was playing 180 yards. He used a 5-iron. Blevins, playing with his father, Phillip, aced his hole from 142 yards with a 3-wood.

"I hated to call Trevor and steal his thunder, but what are the odds?" Addington said. "It was pretty cool the way it all happened in a span of a few minutes."

Around the green

Winston-Salem's Eric Mitchell, 14, qualified for the Calloway World Junior Golf Championship in San Diego, scheduled July 13-17, with a win last month at The Preserve in Chapel Hill. He also won an AAU tournament last month by shooting 66-74 at The Challenge in Mebane. Mitchell will be in the eighth grade at Forsyth Country Day. His instructor is Mike Childress, an assistant pro at Tanglewood….

Although Pine Needles lost out to Pinehurst No. 2 for the 2014 U.S. Women's Open, Kelly Miller -- the Pine Needles CEO -- said he hopes that his course can some day land another major. "We've had three successful Opens here, and we are still hoping to get another USGA event in the future," Miller said. "There's nothing specific coming up, but they know we'd love to be considered."…

Hale Irwin has been named the 2009 Ambassador of Golf by the Northern Ohio Golf Charities. The award is presented to a person who fosters the ideals of the game and whose concern for others extends beyond the course. Irwin has used his stature as a pro golfer to help support the Hale Irwin Center for Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and the St. Louis Children's Hospital. He will be honored at a reception Aug. 5 at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.

■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or jdell@wsjournal.com.