‘Naked Golfer’ book continues to sell well

Greg Rowley had it made. At 32 he was the director of golf at North Idaho’s Black Rock Country Club, named by Golf Digest “America’s Best New Private Golf Course” in 2003. Things were so good for Rowley that Men’s Journal magazine in November 2004 characterized it as one of the “50 best jobs in America.” He’d taught comedian Bill Murray, played with actors Sean Connery and Sylvester Stallone and football stars John Elway and Jake Plummer. But in 2007 he gave Black Rock a month’s notice, then left to begin an uncertain future as an author at a time, when “All I’d ever written before were Christmas letters.” The Coeur d’Alene resident says his decision to start writing wasn’t to follow a dream. Instead, it was to save his marriage. “Like most golf pros, I was working 80 to 90 hours a week. And, I have to confess, I was pretty full of myself. I’d been neglecting my family, my wife Jillian and our little girls, Taylin and Marin, who were 6 and 3. “I came home one night, late as usual, and my wife said simply, ‘We’re leaving. You love your job more than you love us.’” Golf pros, according to Rowley, have an extremely high divorce rate, only slightly behind physicians and law enforcement personnel. He was determined that his 7-year marriage wouldn’t boost the statistics for his profession so he gave notice. Growing up, Rowley was a gifted athlete. At Post Falls High School he played basketball. At the University of Idaho, he was on the varsity volleyball team and played intramural softball, even excelled at pool and darts. But his first love was volleyball and he was so good that when he graduated from UI with a psychology degree, the Anheuser-Busch Co. offered him a spot on a four-man professional beach volleyball team. But then Budweiser pulled the plug on the tour, so that potential career was out. Next, in 1997, Rowley got a job in the golf show at the private Hayden Lake Country Club through a friend who was a waiter there. There he met his future wife who was working there as a waitress. And it was there he began his golfing career. The pro at the time, Dan Hill, gave him lessons, and he began practicing. Prior to this, his exposure to golf was minimal; as a youngster his grandfather had cut down some clubs so Greg could play during visits to Wilbur, Wash. “Even though I was pretty good as an athlete, it took me a long time to get good at golf. That’s one sport that you can’t get good at fast,” he said. But his natural abilities and practice eventually did the trick: By 1999 he was hired as the assistant pro at the Quarry Golf Club in Palm Springs, a job he held for three winters, returning to Hayden each spring where he was also the assistant pro. The local boy – by this time with a handicap of zero – was selected as golf director when the private Black Rock course opened in 2003. Even though he’s left Black Rock, Rowley is still active in the golf community. He’s a member of the PGA’s Inland Empire Chapter board of directors and teaches private lessons at the Highlands Golf Course. So, how’s he making as an author? Pretty well, and he credits an “angel” who’s helped him get started: Denny Ryerson, a North Idaho developer whom Rowley met on the links. When he decided to shuck his golf career, Ryerson said he’d back him until he got on his feet. Based on Rowley’s recounting, it might not take him too long to square things with his backer. “Golf Naked,” which he wrote between February 2007 and February 2008 continues to sell pretty well too. It was published in soft cover in July 2008 and in hardback in April 2009. About 4,000 copies of each version have been sold to date. It’s proved so popular that his agent and the publisher project it will sell another 50,000 copies. Along with individual golfers learning from it, several college golf coaches use it as a text. Rowley is now rewriting it as a textbook to foster even more sales. He says he’s had “serious interest” from publishers in the United Kingdom, South America and Asia. The latter two markets are very promising, he says. The 2016 Summer Olympics will be in Brazil, and there’s growing interest in the sport in South and Central America. And, he says, 1,400 golf courses are expected to be built in Asian nations within the next decade. In addition to book tours, Rowley is on the college lecture circuit, describing the reality of the golf business to aspiring pros at Walla Walla Community College, the University of Colorado and the University of Idaho. Rowley describes himself as a “house husband” now. He writes and manages his business affairs in an the basement, and has “traded places” with his wife Jillian, who manages a youth ranch. “It’s ironic,” he laughs. “She’s putting in long hours there, just like I used to. But our marriage is steady. It’s great.” Aside from the rework of Golf Naked into a college text, Rowley isn’t sure whether he’ll write another: “Right now I don’t know if I have another original book in me,” he says. “There’s plenty of writing to do with the spin-offs of the original. But that doesn’t bother me. I have what’s most important; my wife and my kids. The rest will take care of itself.”