New director of golf maintenance on the job
The Bella Vista Property Owners Association has a new director of golf maintenance. Graham Kornmeyer has been working alongside outgoing director Keith Ihms to get familiar with the association’s seven golf courses and their various operations.
Kornmeyer officially introduced himself to the Golf Joint Advisory Committee on April 10. He had already been working with Ihms for a couple of weeks.
Ihms officially retires the first week of May after 10 years with the POA.
Kornmeyer said he comes to Bella Vista from Shreveport, La., where he held a similar position with Southern Trace Country Club. Before that he worked in Florida for five years.
“I’ve kind of worked throughout the southeast,” he said. “I’m a University of Georgia graduate.”
Kornmeyer said he’s been a certified golf course superintendent since 2018, and has been in the business for about 22 years. He said he enjoys golf course maintenance — “it’s my passion,” he said — adding he’s thankful to be able to work with Ihms prior to his retirement.
“It’s really good to have this transition period with him and I’m excited to get going out here,” Kornmeyer said.
A native Texan from the Austin area, Ihms came to Bella Vista in 2014 and worked as the director of golf maintenance the last five years. Previously, he was a golf course superintendent. During his career, Ihms worked three U.S. opens, two PGA championships, a U.S. amateur championship, a Master’s tournament and other PGA events.
Ihms plans to remain in Bella Vista. He said he has enjoyed his time working with the POA and thanked the committee and everyone for their support.
“I’ve met a lot of great people here, and worked with a lot of great people who’ve been supportive overall,” he said. “Thank everyone. Management, all the staff I’ve worked with. Board members — all of you for being so supportive. It’s been a great run.”
He spoke favorably of Kornmeyer and asked for patience as he gets started.
“I’ve ridden around now with Graham for almost two weeks. He’s met with all of the superintendents and I’ve talked to all of them. I think he’s going to be a great fit here. I think he’s going to do great things,” Ihms said.
“And I would ask that you give him some time to get his feet on the ground because, I might be speaking out of turn, but it’s a little overwhelming finding your way around this place,” he said.
“It is, it is,” Kornmeyer responded.
Golf Committee Chairperson Ruth Hatcher told Ihms, “You’ve made it a better golfing experience for everybody in Bella Vista and the surrounding community, and done it with pride within your team and worked your team to do it, so it’s a joint effort and we all know that as well as you do. But it takes great leadership to make it work, and we thank you very much and we appreciate all your help.”
In other matters during the meeting, Darryl Muldoon, director of golf operations, reported a significant increase in golf rounds during the month of March.
“I’ve never seen a March with 17,000 rounds of golf,” he said. “That is a bunch of rounds. That’s up 8,038 rounds.”
Members rounds ended at 11,010, up by 4,646 over last March, he said. Guest rounds ended at 6,011, up by 3,392 rounds.