One of a kind

Roberston’s vision helped bring about friendly competition in the unique setting of The Spirit

Frank Krystyniak

The “Olympic Spirit” is hard to define. If it includes an athlete calling a self-imposed penalty, even though it may cost a victory, then golf is certainly within the Olympic Spirit.

If the “Olympic Spirit” means celebrating a shared humanity through friendly competition, applauding athletes from parts of the world in which resources are not as plentiful, and finding joy in doing your best even if you don’t win, then The Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship fits that description.

Golf was just this year added as an Olympic sport, to be contested in 2016 in Brazil. But international amateur golf has been played since 2001 in Texas, in a spirit perhaps even more Olympian than it will be in the real Olympics.

The 2009 Spirit tournament begins today and ends Saturday at the Whispering Pines Golf Club near Trinity. While hundreds of volunteers, many of whom are from Huntsville, will take care of the details, the tournament’s creation was largely the work of Corby Robertson, an ex-Longhorn football player from a wealthy and philanthropy-minded family.

“We all share a common heritage of humanity,” Robertson explains as his motivation behind establishing The Spirit and its home golf course, Whispering Pines. “It’s that feeling that brings us together.

“The Lord has blessed us all. I’m not suggesting that everyone has the same set of beliefs, but hopefully it resides in each of us.”

Robertson got into his family’s oil business when he graduated from UT in 1969, and promptly began what might have seemed like a corporate retreat — into the coal business. That seems to be working out well, though, since we still generate an awful lot of electricity from coal. By early in this century Robertson owned what the Forbes publication called “the largest private hoard (of coal)” in the nation.

Even before he graduated, in 1968, Robertson and teammate Chris Gilbert founded Camp Olympia on Lake Livingston just east of Trinity. In 1970 they bought 400 adjoining acres for nature trails and horseback riding for the Camp Olympia kids, and in the 1990s, as he was harvesting some of the pine trees that beetles had killed, Robertson began thinking of building a golf course.

The result was the highly-acclaimed Whispering Pines — the Augusta National of Texas. Since opening in 2000, the 7,400-yard, par-72 course has been ranked No. 11 in America’s 50 Greatest Golf Retreats by Golf Digest, No. 90 among all U.S. courses by Golf Magazine and the No. 1 golf course in Texas for the fourth straight year by the Dallas Morning News.

If you want to play Whispering Pines, you’ve got to get into “the spirit” of giving. For their donations to the World Health & Golf Association, ranging from $6,000 (20 rounds of golf) to $25,000 (84 rounds of golf), members and guests can play an Augusta-like schedule of 15 weeks each in the spring and fall.

“One of the great things that golf does is the amount it gives back to the communities,” says Robertson. “It’s a game that builds character, integrity, and patience. There’s a good spirit about golf that fits with the philanthropic spirit.”

Half of the membership fees to Whispering Pines go to World Health & Golf Association charities. These include the Baylor College of Medicine Teen Health Clinics, the First Tee program at Whispering Pines and the Houston-Harris County Immunization Registry.

Robertson is proud of his organization’s efforts to help increase the Harris County immunization level from 62 percent to 82 percent. But there is also a thoughtfulness and distinct international focus that goes with WHGA giving.

This includes buying trucks for the Medical Bridges Inc. program that has shipped more than $60 million in medical supplies and equipment to 81 countries in the last 10 years. A big portion of last year’s $364,900 donation to the Baylor College of Medicine will go into a Web effort to reach teens world wide with information to combat sexually-transmitted diseases.

That effort will also produce films and other electronic resources. Reaching teens by Internet is an idea whose time has come. Computer Industry Almanac has estimated that there were 234 million Internet users in the United States in 2008 and 1.59 billion worldwide, with the number rising fast.

“The best way to take care of disease is to prevent it,” says Robertson.

The Internet is also coming to The Spirit. While Whispering Pines may be an easy drive from Huntsville, until this year the families and friends back home in the 20 countries that send players had to rely on cell phones for their daily reports. The solution to that problem — the WHGA created its own Web site, AMGOLF.com.

That site includes a worldwide amateur tournament schedule, tournament results, amateur player rankings at all levels, player profile information and a login area to help college coaches find potential players. This year AMGOLF.com will Web cast all four rounds of The Spirit competition.

While Robertson is proud of the technology that will make The Spirit tournament better known throughout the world, he hopes it will also become better known in Texas and the Huntsville/Trinity area.

“Encourage your friends and neighbors to come see the course and experience the competition,” he tells the volunteers. “Please let them know they are welcome.”

He’s also pleased that golf has been added to the Olympics, even though the top players will be professionals. The Spirit will not be threatened as the best amateur golf tournament in the world.

“We’re delighted that it was added,” Robertson says. “I’m kind of wondering why they didn’t think of that long ago.”

Maybe someone heard about this little tournament in Trinity, Texas, called The Spirit.