WHEN THEY'RE NOT playing golf, most professional golfers dream of one day leaving a lasting legacy in the form of their own monument, a la Bobby Jones with Augusta National or Jack Nicklaus with Muirfield Village.
Jimmy Blair, arguably the most successful native golfer the state of Utah has produced this side of George Von Elm and Jay Don Blake, is no exception. His monument, at least in the beginning stages, is taking more of a blue-collar approach, however, which may not be surprising for a pro whose specialty during his playing career was winning the majority of the State Opens west of the Mississippi. (You name it - Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota - Blair's name is on their trophy. He is the Butch Cassidy of Western golf. There was a period of time during the '80s, sandwiched around a fling with the PGA Tour in 1984, that Blair won more tournaments and made more money off the tour than a lot of guys made on the tour).Now, at 37 and mostly retired from competition - at least until he can find more than 24 hours in a day - Blair is turning himself into the baron of people's golf in Utah. Along with partners that include his uncle, Frank Blair, and father, James Blair, he has just opened his second "Mulligan's" in South Jordan as an encore to his "Mulligan's I" in Ogden.
Mulligan's is to golf what Minit-Lube is to automobile service. The new South Jordan Mulligan's, located just west of the SouthTowne Mall on 106th South off the I-15
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freeway, features a night-lighted driving range wider than two football fields, an almost-completed 9-hole par-3 course that wraps around the range, a chipping area and putting green (also nearly completed), 36 holes of miniature golf, and, in case someone wants to take a crack at a ball that's bigger, a baseball/softball hitting cage.
St. Andrews it isn't. Not that it was ever supposed to be. Mulligan's is a brainchild that dates back to the Colorado Open of 1988 when Blair, the defending champion that year, was driving around Denver after an early round at Hiwan Country Club and happened upon a golfing complex owned and operated by the suburb city of Westminster. The complex had two 18-hole golf courses and also two 18-hole miniature golf courses.
"You wouldn't believe the number of people lined up to play miniature golf," says Blair. "It was amazing."
He drove to a nearby 7-11, bought a notepad and a pencil, and drove back. Before and after his tournament rounds the next two days he studied the Westminster operation and made notes. To the driving range he'd opened in Ogden the year before - funded partly by the $18,000 he got for winning the '87 Colorado Open - plans were already well under way in his mind to expand and add mini-golf as well as a nine-hole executive course.
In the years since, the Ogden operation has been successful enough to inspire Blair to franchise himself into South Jordan, where his new state-of-the-art miniature golf course - featuring a castle, two Sphinxes, a lighthouse, caves, and a haunted house, all designed by the same man who designed the Matterhorn for Disneyland - is completely his own creation. He first set out to buy an architect's drawing for the mini-course, but balked at the price tags of $30,000 and up.
While at the Wyoming Open last year - where he, again, was the defending champ - Blair spent most of his energy in the coffee shop of the Little America Hotel, jotting down the plans for his mini-golf course on a place mat.
"I am the Pete Dye of miniature golf," he says.
He is as proud of what he and his partners have built on swamp land next to the Jordan River as any of the hundred or more tournaments he's won. The South Jordan Mulligan's reflects dozens of ideas Blair picked up while traveling and playing golf. "Ernie Schneiter told me to take pictures of everything I saw that I liked," says Blair. "I've got a cardboard box full of pictures. Basically, I've done what Nicklaus and Dye and all those guys do - just copy somebody's else's ideas."
It's why his new Mulligan's has features such as a covered canopy with infrared heaters that will allow for a 12-month-a-year driving range; and colored flags with exact distances from each driving range hitting pad.
"I wish I'd had a place like this to practice when I was growing up," says Blair.
He is quick to add, however, that while serious golfers can find a practice paradise at Mulligan's, they wouldn't want to spend their days playing the par-3 course, or trying to avoid the moat around the castle on the mini-course. "This is a recreation place, the kind of place where a family can come on Saturdays and not get glared at," he says. "The last player I want on the golf course is a good player."
Blair, as good and avid a player as there ever was, smiles at the irony of what he has wrought. "I guess I'm a capitalist at heart," he says.
To satisfy the purist in him, he also assumed management this summer of the Jeremy Ranch Golf Course near Park City. Blair calls the Arnold Palmer-designed Jeremy Ranch course "The Sistine Chapel of Utah golf," and says he hopes to return it to pristine condition. There will defenitely not be any miniature golf courses at Jeremy Ranch.
It isn't Mulligan's and never will be. And vice versa.