Tom Dawson brings experience, skill to Cape Girardeau golf club

Sikeston native Tom Dawson was recently hired as the director of golf for the Cape Girardeau Country Club.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

As magnificent of a golf course and club that the Cape Girardeau Country Club is, if you are going to serve as its director of golf, you better bring a wealth of experience to the table.

You can check that box as it relates to Tom Dawson.

Dawson took over in that position earlier this summer and for the club leadership to have found a more experienced candidate, it would have been the golf equivalent of sinking a hole in one. On a par 5.

“I’m sure I was out (on a course) when I was seven (years old),” Dawson said.

That isn’t an exaggeration, for you see, you have to know Dawson’s upbringing.

As the son of Gene “Doak” Dawson, Tom had unlimited access to the Sikeston Country Club.

Gene was an educator who ran the Sikeston course in his summers. However, as the course grew both in acreage and customers, he switched careers and just focused on golf.

As did his son.

“It bit me early,” the younger Dawson said of his love for the sport. “It is such a challenge. It is such a hard game.”

The view from the Cape Girardeau Country Club is a spectacular one overlooking the course as it meanders down to the Mississippi River. Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

The game of golf is a “challenge” for the rest of us, but it certainly has been less of one for a player of Dawson’s ability.

Dawson played golf for Tennessee Tech and has spent his life working – and playing – on courses ranging from Topeka, Kansas (Topeka Country Club) to Reno, Nevada (Hidden Valley Country Club) to North Carolina (Cleghorn Plantation Golf and Country Club in Rutherfordton, North Carolina).

As a player, he competed in the 2007 Senior U.S. Open, as well as the Senior PGA Tournament in 2011.

“It’s easier when you take it up when you are eight or nine,” Dawson said.

As director of golf, Dawson’s day is an all-encompassing one. It is far from walking the course and showing off his skill level.

He oversees a myriad of facets of the club ranging from club repair to tournaments to lessons to the pro shop and much, much more.

“At a lot of places that is a retail sporting goods store,” Dawson said of club’s pro shop. “I do pretty well, anything that is related to golf, except the maintenance of the golf course.”

Dawson spent a few years out of the golf business in the restaurant industry and he realizes just how blessed he is to be back in the game.

“All of your friends end up doing something,” Dawson said, “and a lot of them don’t like what they are doing. I always have, so I do feel blessed.”

Earlier this year, GolfDigest.com published an article stating that the number of rounds played in this country had declined nearly five percent from 2017 to 2018. The article stated that the decline wasn’t as negative news as first thought based on weather patterns throughout the country, which wreaked havoc on many courses. However, based on his experience, Dawson doesn’t necessarily feel that the level of interest in playing has declined, but that the number of courses constructed was mismanaged.

“There was a trend,” Dawson said, “where (real estate) developers started putting in 18-hole golf courses to sell the lots around them. I have been in lots of towns that went from two golf courses to five golf courses.

“When the economy is booming, it was great. But I really think that is the only reason I have seen golf on a downward trend, they just way overbuilt.”

Dawson said he has seen a wide range of players and members at his new employer in his short time in town and noted that the club offers a Junior Golf Academy each Wednesday and he said: “Our swimming pool is busy.”

Not only is the pool “busy,” but the picturesque course is getting used with great regularity, as well.

“We have a lot of working 30-year-olds that play and I’m happy to see that,” Dawson said. “I’ve worked in places where it was more of a retirement area. So this is kind of fun to see.”