Mike Brooks began golfing about 50 years ago.

While talking about his lifelong passion for golf Friday morning at Quail Ridge Golf Course he manages, Brooks recalled the first putt he ever sank.

He was 3 years old.

“I was just a little guy and I remember being on the (practice) putting green,” he said, “and I rolled one into the hole from about 10 feet away. I dropped my putter and I ran home and told mom.”

That run home probably didn’t take very long. Brooks lived only a half block away from Quail Ridge at the time.

After leaving Eastern Oregon in his early 20s to pursue a career as a teaching golf professional at golf courses across the country, Brooks has come full circle to manage the golf course where he learned the game.

You could almost say golfing is in the PGA golf professional’s blood. Brooks’ grandfather was a golf professional, his parents were always avid golfers and his older brother, Dan, coaches the women’s golf team at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

A 1982 Baker High School graduate, he developed his passion for golf at the Baker City course before he moved to Arizona in 1986 after finishing college at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande.

That was the year he became a golf professional and started working at Palm Brook Country Club in Sun City, Arizona, as an assistant golf professional.

“That’s where I learned most of what I know in the golf business other than teaching,” Brooks said.

His next job took him to San Jose, California, where he worked at the municipal golf course. While he did some teaching as a golf professional, Brooks said his next job was when the real teaching began.

He had met well-known golf teacher Mike Adams (who received the PGA Teacher of the Year award in 2016) at a golf tournament in Tucson, Arizona. The connection with Adams led to Brooks getting a job at the Jack Nicklaus Academy of Golf in Austin, Texas.

After working at the golf academy, Brooks’ career led him to North Carolina in 1991.

“I went to North Carolina because both of my brothers were there,” he said.

Brooks’ first job there was at a driving range and he later worked at several other driving ranges and golf courses over the next 25 years until he moved back to Baker City after being awarded the management contract to run the city-owned Quail Ridge Golf Course last year. He took over operations of the course on Jan. 1.

Getting the contract to run the golf course fit right into plans Brooks had to come back to the place where he was raised and where his passion for golf was sparked.

“This is home,” he said. “I absolutely love it here … I’ve always wanted to run this golf course. I’ve always wanted to have something to do with it and I’ve always wanted to move back to Baker.”

See more in the March 27, 2016 issue of the Baker City Herald.