Mike Suhre, PGA, Head Golf Professional and third-generation owner of Oak Brook Golf Club in Edwardsville, Illinois, is the pied piper of youth golf development in the greater St. Louis area.\u00a0 At 47, he is a generous ambassador and advocate for young golfers, a teacher, coach and leader who believes life lessons are best learned through golf experiences.<\/p>\n
The 2025 PGA Youth Player Development Award recipient doesn\u2019t do everything conventionally as a golf facility owner and operator.\u00a0 He never says no to junior golf events or to youths wishing to play Oak Brook, providing free golf to more than 100 high school golfers each year and hosting junior programs and free golf for kids 280 days per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oh, and Suhre has coached seven PGA Jr. League teams during the past seven years, while finding time to serve as the Gateway PGA Section Junior Golf Committee chair and as a Section officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps Suhre\u2019s love for teaching and training youths is centered around his fond memories of accompanying his father, PGA Life Member Larry Suhre, to Oak Brook virtually every day from the age of 5.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suhre will be the first to admit golf is his life and mentoring young players is his passion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother insists I was baptized with a golf club in my hand, and I\u2019ve lived on the golf course my entire life,\u201d claims Suhre, who was elected to PGA of America Membership in 2007.\u00a0 \u201cI am blessed to be able to pass down to others the lessons I learned from my dad and others through golf.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suhre\u2019s philosophy on providing a platform for the next generation of golfers to succeed and enjoy the game is simple.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want the juniors in my program to see how fun golf can be,\u201d Suhre says.\u00a0 \u201cIt is a gift.\u00a0 As a game you can play your entire life, learning it at a young age is priceless.\u00a0 If golf can provide joy for my students now, it can for the rest of their lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But is having an open-door policy for young golfers good for the bottom line at Oak Brook?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMany golf courses have countless tee times that go to waste daily,\u201d says Suhre.\u00a0 \u201cGiving free golf to fill those times is not hard. It doesn\u2019t make you a saint, but just makes sense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is not an exaggeration to say Suhre eats, sleeps and breathes golf 24\/7\/365, and he has literally spent his entire life at Oak Brook Golf Club, where he and his wife Mandy, three kids, five dogs and a cat live 75 yards away from his father and mother Nancy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mark\u2019s grandfather, Wilbur, wanted Mike\u2019s father, Larry, to play on the PGA TOUR.\u00a0 But when that didn\u2019t work out, the two Suhres decided to build a golf course \u2013 Oak Brook \u2013 and 83-year-old Larry still works at the course every day alongside son Mike.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandpa (Wilbur), who was a life-long entrepreneur, bought some ground out in the middle of nowhere, and started what is now Oak Brook Golf Club,\u201d notes Suhre.\u00a0 \u201cMy dad has opened and closed almost every day for the past 52 years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mike\u2019s penchant for golf and his love for teaching and coaching youths took root while playing high school golf at Edwardsville High for legendary coach Dick Gerber and competing under Jack \u201cThe Rock\u201d Pheanis and Assistant Coach Dr. Jim Suttie at Northern Illinois University, where he was a two-time NCAA Division I Academic All-American.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those gentlemen had a profound impact on my perspective on life and competition,\u201d says Suhre, the Gateway PGA Section\u2019s Golf Professional of the Year in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He qualified for his first professional event in 2000 on the Buy.com Tour (now the Korn Ferry Tour), met his wife Mandy in 2002, and played on several mini-tours until 2005.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved to play competitive golf, but I just didn\u2019t make enough birdies,\u201d admits Suhre. \u201cGod gives us all unique gifts. Once we know those gifts, it is our duty to share them with as many people as we can.\u00a0 Junior golf is my gift.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Suhre, PGA, Head Golf Professional and third-generation owner of Oak Brook Golf Club in Edwardsville, Illinois, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-401674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}