Greg Brooking, CGCS, has operated The Natchez Golf Club at Duncan Park in Natchez, Miss., the past 17 years. Photo by J. Philip Larson
It’s hard to imagine that Greg Brooking, CGCS, can find time for himself.
He’s a golf course superintendent. Runs the pro shop. Oversees concessions. Meets with the comptroller three times weekly. Does the hiring and firing. The mayor is his direct boss, but the boss only brings welcome news. “All I hear is compliments about the golf course,” Brooking says.
That golf course — The Natchez Golf Club at Duncan Park — is host of the marquee happening this month in Natchez, Miss., with the annual Natchez Open scheduled Oct. 25-27. Brooking is a 40-year GCSAA member who, if he were signed up to play in the money event, probably could give contestants a run. A former U.S. Senior Amateur qualifier, Brooking is a former Mississippi Golf Association Super Senior Player of the Year in 2018. He has spent time at the club since 1995 and has operated it for the last 17 years. His interest in the industry can be traced to his youth, watching his father be a chemical agriculture distributor who had business relationships with farmers and retailers. The family lived on a plantation in Louisiana. That’s where he got hooked on golf. “I’d tear up the ground hitting balls after school,” Brooking says.
Brooking received a degree in botany at what now is University of Louisiana at Lafayette before finding something to do on the golf course that would lead to a career. He was hired by superintendent Jack Lawrence 45 years ago at Oakbourne Country Club in Lafayette. Brooking’s hunger for the industry intensified, including the achievement of Certified Golf Course Superintendent.
He wasn’t done there with aspirations. Landing high-profile events has been on Brooking’s radar for a while. He has one of them, the Norman Puckett Jr. Championship, held each June for the past 14 years. Visibility for Brooking and Natchez GC escalated with the Natchez Open five years ago. It is a World Golf Amateur Rankings event, which makes Brooking so proud to have that on his watch. He’d been hoping for a breakthrough like that for some time, and it materialized. “You have dreams. I wanted to have a professional tournament,” he says.
A combination of city support and a couple of businessmen who pledged $5,000 apiece got things rolling. Originally, the winner received $4,000 of the purse. That figure has doubled to $8,000 for the winner of the $32,000 prize money. Drain a hole-in-one and you get $1,000. Brooking limits the field to 100. He’s serious about making it a professional atmosphere. “It’s about playing golf and not joking around; no slow play,” he says. “The tournament helps our city and is an economic tool for Natchez.”
The Natchez GC at Duncan Park will host the Natchez Open on Oct. 25-27. Photo courtesy of The Natchez GC at Duncan Park
The Natchez GC at Duncan Park is more than 100 years old and features flowering dogwoods, long leaf pines and towering oaks draped in Spanish moss. Famous golfers who played there include Walter Hagen, Sam Snead and Babe Zaharias.
Maintenance is in a good place for Brooking and his team on the roughly 6,500-yard layout. “Bermudagrass — hearty grass, very drought resistant,” he says. “We sit on the Mississippi River. We have a wonderful watershed that goes into our lakes. And we have beautiful scenery. You can look out on our bluffs to the Mississippi.”
Tom Bryant is thrilled that Brooking looks after the course. “The man can grow grass. He’s good at what he does,” says Bryant, who’s been a golf pro and standout player in the region. “He’s a hard worker and good with people. He doesn’t have a hard time getting people to do what he wants done. He’s an asset to the city of Natchez.”
Brooking and his wife, Gail Guido, are firmly entrenched in Natchez, where they reside in an upper flat that provides quite a view of the Mississippi River and is in the shadow of where Mark Twain frequented. Known as “The Poppy Guy” in those parts for the work he has done helping to nurture thousands upon thousands of poppies in the area called Natchez-Under-the-Hill for a stellar public garden, Brooking is in his element there and certainly at The Natchez GC at Duncan Park, where during the tournament this month he will invite anyone who plays an instrument (he plays the guitar) to come over to his place and jam to tunes from the Beatles, Bob Dylan and others.
Now 68, Brooking has no intent of slowing down. He mentioned that his contract with the city, which operates The Natchez GC at Duncan Park, has four years remaining on it. It sounds as if he just may work beyond that contract.
“I can’t imagine not working,” Brooking says. “I can’t see myself waking up and not going in. I don’t know what I would do. I enjoy it and I enjoy when we get accolades for what we do.”
Those kudos perfectly fit Brooking, says Casey Ham, Mississippi Golf Association men’s senior division player of the year in 2023. Ham says, “He does things right because he cares.”
Howard Richman is GCM's associate editor