News
Check out what has been happening in Utah Golf.
Tom Costello Takes Head Pro Job at Stansbury, Reconnects With Old Friend Jeff Green
Jeff Green, lease-holder of the Stansbury Golf Course, has announced that Tom Costello has been hired as the head professional at the course. He replaces Ryan Holt who decided he wanted to spend full time as an instructor and has moved to Golf in the Round.
“I’m pleased to have Coz (as he is called by his friends) take over the professional job. This is a reconnection of an old friendship,” Green said.
Green and Costello have been friends and work associates ever since being roommates when they were on the BYU golf team back in the early 80s. Since then their paths have continued to cross.
Green played on two Skyline High School state champion golf teams that included such prominent Utah golfers as Eric Hogg, Clark Garso, Mike Richards, and Brad Hansen. He was awarded a Utah Golf Association scholarship to a Utah college of his choice, and he chose to attend BYU where he first met Costello. Green later transferred to the University of Utah where he joined many of his Skyline teammates on the team coached by Ron Branca.
In 1984 Green became an assistant pro to Lanny Nielsen at Jeremy Ranch. Shortly after that Jeremy went bankrupt and Green landed on his feet at Stansbury Park and became the head pro in 1988, 25 years ago. The course was then under the management of Dave and Barbara Bingaman.
After college Costello spent three years as an assistant to Chip Garriss at Riverside Country Club, and then three years as an assistant to Joey Bonsignore at Alpine Country Club. When Green was hired as the head pro at Stansbury he invited Costello to be his assistant.
Soon after that initial Stansbury connection Costello left Stansbury to become the assistant pro at the financially troubled Jeremy Ranch. He survived three years of financial turmoil at the club and then was named the head professional, a position he held for 17 years. The last three years he has been the head pro at The Ledges near St. George.
Now, twenty years later, as the lease-operator of the course, Green has invited Costello back to Stansbury, this time as the head pro.
Green is nearly half-way through a 15-year lease agreement with the Stansbury Park Service Agency. Green’s lease agreement was signed in 2008, just prior to the financial crash and escalating gas prices, but he has weathered that storm and is hopeful the financial climate will improve in the coming years.
“We’ve held our own. Our numbers are not down. They are not up like we wanted them to be, but we’ve held even,” Green said.
“High gas prices have hurt us, but we keep our fees $10 or $15 bucks below the Salt Lake market and so we have held our Salt Lake customers over the years,” he said. “There are some positive signs that we will have some growth in Tooele and so we hope to have some increase in rounds played,” he added.
“And if all of Coz’s friends come over to see him we will have a boom year,” he added.