Men's Golf | May 17

DeKALB, IL – Throughout his life, Brian King has found success in golf.
 
At Guilford High School in Rockford, King was a member of the Vikings' 1983 and 1985 IHSA Class AA state championships. That caught the eye of NIU head men's golf coach Jack Pheanis who recruited King to come to DeKalb.
 
While at NIU, King was a member of the Huskies' 1990 and 1991 Mid-Continent Conference championship teams. He finished in the top-10 individually in both title wins, placing seventh at the 1990 tournament. In 1991, King carded a second round 69 to vault NIU into first place past Northern Iowa. The Huskies went on to win the tournament by two strokes over Akron with a team score of 910. King earned All-Mid-Con honors after tying for fifth place.
 
While playing golf at NIU, King got his start into a business that he still works in to this day.
 
"The Oak Club of Genoa was our home course while I was in school," King said. "An alumnus, Greg Dick, had actually been a part owner of that golf course. I approached him for a job in 1988 and he hired me to work in the pro shop. I had the golf industry in me from about age 19 because I was basically working and managing a golf course as a college student."
 
"I guess I didn't really know how far golf would take me. I knew that I was going to turn pro and be an assistant pro, probably be a head pro at a golf course as my ultimate vision. I graduated and turned pro and went to work at a private club in Rockford."
 
It wasn't long before King was lured back to the once home of NIU golf.
 
"I went back to The Oak Club as the head pro. A year later I was made the general manager of the entire business. So I was 24 and the GM of a multi-million dollar golf course, which I had no other training for other than working 80 to 90 hours a week to figure it out."
 
King still played competitively while working at the Oak Club, finding an unlikely sponsor.
 
"I was always a competitive player in the Illinois section tournaments. In 1995 I played the Western Open and finished top-five in the Illinois Open. The next year I sought out a sponsor who actually owned the pig farm next to the golf course. He was an amazing gentleman who said 'I'll give you some money and you can play golf for a living'. I went out and played full time for almost three years."
 
Since 2004, King has been a golf instructor at Prairie Landing Golf Club in West Chicago. Over the last 20 years he has built a solid golf coaching business, moving into a 3,000 square foot facility in St. Charles to provide year-round instruction.
 
"Around 2002 at Cantigny we reconstructed an indoor area in the basement of the clubhouse. When I got to Prairie Landing I did the same thing there for about seven or eight winters in the cart barn, and then realized I needed to expand. I had moved to a new facility some friends of mine had and was there for three years and needed a bigger place again, so this is the fourth or fifth revision of what I have now."
 
With this new facility, King is coaching up the next generation of golfers including the great-granddaughter of his former college coach.
 
"NIU is a really good golf fraternity of people. Had it not been for Coach Pheanis I don't know if I'd even been at Northern. He was a big part of not only getting me in golf but keeping me in golf and now I'm teaching his great-granddaughter. I worked for Dr. Jim Suttie, an NIU alum and one of the best golf teachers in the country. He taught me while I was playing full time. There were a lot of us while I was in school that all gravitated to the golf business. There's a lot of golf alumni that have supported me along the way."
 
--NIU--