Richard Hyatt: Honoring the late Nelson Ross
Nelson Ross couldn’t fix a golf swing or help a player line up a putt.
But as an innovative coach, he laid the foundation for a championship golf program at Columbus State University and gave birth to an award that honors the nation's top collegiate golfer. The campus looked more like a dairy farm than an institution of higher learning when he joined CSU's administration in 1968.
Three years later, his golf team was a national contender and Sammy Rachels, his star performer, won the NAIA individual championship. "We knew how to play when we got there. He taught us to win," says Gene Matthews, the head pro at Maple Ridge Golf Club and a member of Ross' final team at CSU.
Ross plucked Rachels out of a Florida junior college with a farfetched plan to turn a brand new team into a relevant player on the national scene. With Rachels as the team leader, the Cougars finished second in the NAIA Golf Tournament in 1971 and 1972.
His early success set the stage for a program that has won six NCAA Division II championships and finished second seven times. "He had a vision that we could go somewhere," Matthews says. "He saw potential in all the talent around Columbus."
In 1977, Ross returned to Carson-Newman College, his alma mater. He was Director of Major Gifts when he retired in 2000.
He died April 30 after spending 15 years as an environmental activist.
Ross helped put a new four-year school known as Columbus College on the map and helped instill pride in a campus laughingly referred to as Cody Road High. Hoping to spread the news about his team, Ross founded the All-Dixie Golf Tournament.
He somehow induced the top teams in the country to come to Callaway Gardens. It put his golfers on the course with standouts such as Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite, Lanny Wadkins and Andy North.
Wadkins was dominating college golf in 1971 and watching the Wake Forest star coast around the course Ross wondered why college golf did not have a Player of the Year award.
"Those young guys were out there killing the ball and there was nothing to show for it. It was like kissing your sister at the end of the year," Ross said in a 2012 interview.
Ross introduced his idea to the local golf community and from that grew the Haskins Award, named for Fred Haskins, longtime pro at the Country Club of Columbus. Today it is the most prestigious award in college golf. "Coach Ross was a great Christian guy who made us walk the line. If you crossed that line, you knew it," Matthews says.
"At the same time, he was your best friend in the whole world."
This story was originally published May 5, 2015 at 9:06 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Honoring the late Nelson Ross."