Saddleback’s Whitey O’Malley brings down-to-earth, pragmatic approach to new role as president of National Golf Course Owners Association
By Gary Baines – 4/2/2026
When Whitey O’Malley, his wife Lanna and some partners built Saddleback Golf Club in Firestone starting in 1998 and opened it in 2001, it was one of O’Malley’s first impressions about the golf course business.
“My first experience, going back to the early 2000s, was ‘Holy smokes is this industry slow to take up technology,” O’Malley said in a phone interview with Colorado Golf Journal late last month. “That was my first take on it. … I was just amazed that the adaption of technology, even in 2001, was that slow.”
Even now, a quarter-century later, he noted, “I think we’re behind on the track quite a bit. It’s an industry that’s steeped in tradition, and I don’t think we’re as willing to try things. Here’s a good example: the autonomous mowers out there right now. We’re all excited because we’ve got all this new technology, right? These autonomous mowers running around the courses and how they can mow all night, how efficient they are and this and that. There are a lot of benefits. (Then) you look over to Europe; they’ve been (using autonomous mowers) for freaking 10 years. You know, what the hell are we doing? So we’re slow to adopt, very cautious, maybe afraid of change. But it slowly creeps in.”
(For the record, Saddleback recently went to basically totally autonomous mowing, with 16 such mowers soon expected in the fleet that does it thing overnight. “There’s no downside to it really,” O’Malley said. “We’re all in.”)
And now, O’Malley can help push the accelerator a little regarding productive changes in the golf business as in January he was named the new president of the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA), a role he’s expected to keep until early 2028.
“I have known Whitey for over 20 years and am thrilled he is taking the helm at the association,” Jay Karen, CEO of the NGCOA, said in a press release. “Whitey is a creative and successful business owner, and he has great intuition and a depth of experience that make him fully prepared for this leadership role. It’s going to be a fun and productive two years.”
O’Malley has never been afraid of taking a little different approach to things than some other people running Colorado golf courses. A good example several years back were humorous, fun-loving, “don’t take yourself too seriously” ads that Saddleback ran regularly on TV and social media.
O’Malley may take the approach he does because he’s somewhat of an everyman golfer himself. He plays about once a week in the men’s club and owns a USGA handicap index of about 24.
“I’m not good,” he said matter-of-factly. “Anybody that professes that I am, you can call him a liar.
“Golf courses need to be friendly and welcoming and growing the game,” he said. “I’m trying to live by that rule, where, ‘Hey, remember, it’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun.’”
And O’Malley perhaps can relate to the average golfer a little better than most because he’s one of them.
“I hope I do,” he said. “I mean, when I walk into a course in Mesquite, in Florida or wherever I’m traveling to, you don’t want to feel intimidated. You want to feel welcome — especially for beginning golfers. At Saddleback we just built a new two-bay teaching center on the driving range. We’re trying to make it easier, more friendly and more welcoming for golfers to take up and learn the game. Being a high handicapper, it keeps you humble; that’s for sure.”
Saddleback Golf Club, which O’Malley and his wife Lanna co-founded.
Meanwhile, O’Malley also certainly sees the importance of how people in the golf industry interact with policymakers and lawmakers. After all, those people have a significant say in the business of golf, both short-term and long-term.
This year, regarding Colorado and the region specifically — how dry and warm the winter and early spring has been, and given the longer-term water issues in the American Southwest overall — O’Malley thinks it’s especially important for golf leadership to take a proactive approach.
“The timing couldn’t have been better as far as what’s happening in Colorado,” he said. “This drought is everything right now, right? It’s the last thing you think of when you go to bed and the first thing you think of when you wake up anymore. And we’re on the front lines of it here (with Colorado golf courses). We’re in a position here in Colorado to kind of address it. There’s already questions: You see a TikTok on the drought and how much the snowpack is low, the Colorado River is low and Lake Powell and Lake Mead (are low). The first thing you see in the comments section is, ‘Well, we’ve got to shut off (the water to) the golf courses. Shut them all off. They keep blowing up water.’ So it’s kind of going to be a top priority on my radar to be making everybody aware: ‘Hey, we need to address this before we’re on the menu type of thing.’”
And what is an effective way to do that?
“We have (Golf Day at the Capitol in Colorado on April 15), where the (Colorado Golf Coalition) sponsors tables and (provides informational) stuff there, and the legislators come through and we talk to them about it,” O’Malley said. (Note: On a larger scale, National Golf Day activities are planned for May 4-6 in Washington D.C.)
“But this year will be more important than ever. It’s got to be When we’re getting thrown under the bus, the story has to be ‘We’re providing a form of entertainment and respite from not having a lawn, or very much of a lawn. Golf courses provide the park-like setting, and it’s more advantageous to do it with one big setting than it is with many small settings.”
O’Malley, a former airline pilot, and his family moved to Colorado on Nov. 1, 1998 and “the next day” started building the course at Saddleback, with his wife Lanna and three partners being the co-owners at that point. In 2018, the O’Malleys bought out the last of the partners, and this year the course will celebrate its 25th “birthday”. The O’Malleys reside just north of the course, in Firestone.
But nowadays, O’Malley is not only a golf course owner, but he’s president of the National Golf Course Owners Association. He’s also president of the New Coal Ridge Ditch Company — a key water supplier in northern Colorado — and sits on two other water boards.
“It’s a heck of an honor,” he said of the NGCOA presidency. “It’s a nice nod, and I appreciate it. Hopefully I can bring something to the table as far as the water issues with the Colorado River compact being renegotiated and the water issues that are going to be happening in Arizona, Nevada, and California specifically. And I’d also like to bring forward, making them more aware that golf courses need to be friendly and welcoming and growing the game so we don’t get into a situation that we did in early 2000s.”
To reinforce the point that O’Malley may be a course owner, but he’s anything but one with a stuffed shirt, he had this to say when asked about obtaining a photo of him at Saddleback to accompany this story: “I’ll have to find a clean tank top, but I can pull it together.”
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com