Behind the Parks: Meet Danny at Blacklick Woods Golf Courses

Danny Sorgini
Blacklick Woods Golf Courses Manager and Pro

Danny Sorgini is talking with Communications Coordinator, Virginia Gordon

About me

My family lived in Reynoldsburg until I was 6 years old, and then we moved to Pickerington, where I did my schooling. I have a half-brother, Curt, who is 12 years older than me. My dad passed away when I was 8 and my mom later remarried, to my stepdad, Cris. My dad had played golf recreationally and he loved watching the majors on TV. I found my own love for the game soon after. My first set of clubs were my dad’s, but we had the handles cut shorter, so I could use them. Even with the handles cut down so I could swing properly, the clubs were a little heavy for me, as an 8-year-old. My first-time playing golf was at Blacklick Woods Golf Courses. This was in 1995. My brother Curt took me to play, and that’s when I met and began a very long-term friendship with the then Blacklick Woods Golf Course Manager, Chuck Doran. Our first interaction was hardly a herald of a long-term friendship. Chuck’s very first words to me were, “Shut up!” It was my fault, of course! I had wanted us to book a golf cart, but Curt wanted us to walk. And as Curt was trying to pay Chuck for the round and to arrange our tee-time, I kept gibbering on and on about getting a cart! That’s when Chuck issued his memorable first words to me!

We went back and played a handful of rounds that first year, solidifying my love for the game. The following year, I started to spend lots of my spare time at the Blacklick Woods Golf Course. I helped out around the course, picking up golf balls on the driving range and bringing them back to the pro shop. As a reward for me, Chuck taught me how to play golf. During the summer, I would play at least five days a week and sometimes more than one round in a day.

That was the start of my journey to becoming a PGA Golf Pro. But that was a long way off. In 7th Grade I played for the Pickerington Junior High School golf team. We played our home matches at the Pine Hill Golf Club in Carroll. There were six players per team, but just the top four scores would count towards the team result. There was also a medal for the best scoring performance overall by an individual player. I medaled quite a few times and set a number of school records at both Pickerington Junior High and Pickerington North High School. Two of my records that still stand are for low number of putts for both a 9-hole and 18-hole round. We competed in the Ohio Capital Conference and usually played two matches a week. Our opponents included Westerville, Olentangy, Bishop Watterson and Upper Arlington High Schools.

In my high school senior year, 2004, I did well in the Sectionals and the District state qualifying tournaments, and became a First Team All-State player. I finished fourth in the High School State Championship, out of a field of more than a hundred players. The championship was held at Ohio State’s Scarlet Course that year.

GOLF AT UNIVERSITY
My success at golf qualified me for a golf and academic scholarship to college. I played all four years of my undergraduate study, but at two different universities. Initially I went to Tiffin University, near Findlay, Ohio, and studied Business Administration. I completed my freshman and sophomore years at Tiffin. It was good for my golf game, but I wasn’t fully happy there. Tiffin is a small town and there weren’t enough extra-curricular activities to satisfy me, and not enough happening in the community. So, I moved to Ohio Dominican for my junior and senior years. There were far more activities available for young people and lots of opportunities for networking.

My golf game prospered. Both my universities played in the NAIA division, which is the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for smaller academic institutions. I became a three-time national All American in the NAIA division, making 2nd Team All American in my sophomore year, and 3rd Team All American in my junior and senior years. I qualified to play in the USGA National Amateur Championships in both 2007 and 2010. In the 2007 championship at Olympic Club in San Francisco, I played a round with Dustin Johnson, who would go on to become a US Open Champion and an Augusta Masters Champion. At the 2010 championship, at Chambers Bay in Washington State, I played a round with another amateur who would go on to have a memorable professional career, Jordan Spieth. Jordan has won three majors, the Masters, the US Open, and the British Open. Of the two, I found Jordan to be very friendly and an interesting playing partner, but with Dustin he was all business and came across as aloof.

I MET MY WIFE KEARY AT OHIO DOMINICAN
When I started at Ohio Dominican in 2007 I acted as a Resident Assistant to our floor in our dorm building. While doing this, I met a beautiful girl named Keary Michaeline McFadden. Can you guess from her name that Keary is from an Irish background? It’s probably even easier than spotting from my name, Sorgini, that I come from an Italian background. We worked closely together, and were peer advisers for a group of about 40 incoming freshmen. We would take them under our wing and train them to understand and navigate the vagaries of college life, to answer their questions, and to keep them in line, if needed, and become good and upstanding members of the student community.

Keary had a boyfriend when we first met, but we became friends by working together. By the following year, 2008, there was no boyfriend anymore, and we started hanging out together with a group of other friends. But still as friends. We would go to Nyohs Bar on campus, nearly every Tuesday, and would play pool together and have fun doing line dancing. Early in the year, Keary asked me to go with her to Cinnabon at Easton, where we sat and talked, drank coffee, ate cakes, and talked some more. It was our first ‘mini-date!’ Then on Valentine’s Day that year, we had our first proper date, which was a dinner date at the Polaris Olive Garden. For students, back then, Olive Garden was quite a fancy date and a posh meal. It was the start of a wonderful life together. We both graduated in 2009, got engaged very soon after, and married in September 2010 at Cheers Chalets, a wedding venue in Lancaster.

FINDING A CAREER
I graduated from Ohio Dominican in 2009, but went back there for two more years to obtain a Masters Degree. I worked at Ohio Dominican as a Graduate Assistant Golf Coach, which paid for my tuition. It was just a head coach and myself, overseeing both the men’s and women’s golf teams. I particularly enjoyed coaching and traveling to matches with the women’s team. Throughout high school and college, I had learned how to help others with their golf game by working summers as a caddy at The Golf Club in New Albany, which is a very exclusive club with a wonderful course. I would give the members tips on how to play and carry their bags. It was one caddy to two members, so that was quite a weight to carry the bags of both players. I would do about four loops a week, which is basically four 18-hole rounds. It allowed me to play at the course, on Caddy Days, usually on a Monday.

I left Ohio Dominican with my MBA in 2011 and started to wonder what to do about my career. Coaching was an option, but the pay wasn’t great, and there were a lot of weekends away at golf events. I talked with Keary about the possibility of my playing on one of the golf world’s mini tours as a professional golfer. But that would have involved me being away from home even longer, with no guarantee of success. Towards the end of 2011, Keary told me she was pregnant, so being away from home was no longer an option either of us wanted to consider. Then fate lent a hand. It was at the beginning of 2012 that I heard from my friend Chuck about an opening for an Assistant Golf Course Manager position here at Blacklick Woods Golf Course. For me, it was like a dream scenario. Chuck had retired by then. I applied for and interviewed for the position, and was over the moon to be offered the job. I started here as the Assistant Golf Course Manager in February 2012. When the position of Golf Course Manager opened up in 2021 I applied for the position and was promoted to Manager in September that year.

Our son, Liam, was born in August 2012, and we were blessed with a daughter, Giuliana, in March 2016. Our daughter’s name is based on my grandmother’s family name of Giuliani. My gran was born in a small village, called Introdacqua, which is west of Rome in central Italy. She came to the US via Ellis Island as a young woman, and married my grandfather, Peter Sorgini. I can get dual citizenship via my grandmother, and in fact Keary and I have talked about the possibility of us moving to Italy, when we retire. Although that is a long way ahead of us.

Keary is very athletic. She played volleyball and softball in high school, and likes to play golf as a recreational player. Once a week, we enjoy a family round of golf at Blacklick Woods. Liam is now 13 and Giuliana is 9, and they love to play. In fact, today, while we’re here doing this interview, Liam is out on the course having a private golf lesson with my old friend and mentor, Chuck Dolan.

What I do at Metro Parks and what I love most about it

Duties change all the time here. In general, we are the face of the golf course, handling customer interactions, welcoming all our visitors and seeking to give them a positive golf experience. We are particularly eager to build long-term relationships with our many regular visitors. As I’ve moved from assistant manager to manager, I seem to find myself with lots more admin and planning to do. Planning the schedules and tee times for the thousands of kids who play here in the summers can be something of a challenge, and sometimes a headache, but it’s rewarding to get it right. We host eight different schools for their team matches on our big course, the 18-hole course, and host matches of another eight schools on the short, 9-hole course. Knowing we’ll have three different school matches starting at the same time means planning well in advance, with shotgun starts so teams start their rounds on different holes. I often think I need to be three months ahead in my planning, or I’ll feel like I’m running way behind.

We also manage our banqueting suites here at the golf course and need to be on top of weekly ordering of food and beverages, and make sure the facility is always clean and looking at its best. We also manage the work load of 65 wonderful volunteers that we have at the golf course, who are mostly involved in keeping the golf carts ready for use by golfers, and checking in our guests to make their tee times.

I like being challenged and being busy, and making decisions on the fly. Sometimes this will involve handling angry customers, and smoothing the way so they enjoy their day at the course. This can relate to objections to the fact that we only accept credit card payments, and not cash. Or to our scheduling of players for a round. People often book a tee-time as a pairing of two golfers, but for our 18-hole course, we require four players to a round. Some people object to playing with people whom they might not know, and that can occasionally require time to provide a calm explanation of why we do things the way we do, and why it’s necessary. Objections were more volatile in the months after Covid, but golfers seem to be more accepting today. And with so many of our players being regulars, they know the rules and are happy to go along with them.

We also have our own maintenance department, maintaining the golf courses at their best. One success that I’m particularly proud of arose from an experiment that was first suggested back in about 2018 by our golf course superintendent Mike Samulski and his assistant, Jay Williamson. Our fairways, which were mostly made of Kentucky bluegrass, a cool season grass, were often a struggle to maintain at their best during our hot Ohio summers. In the hottest summers, some fairways could suffer die off and bare patches. New and improved watering systems were cost prohibitive, so Mike and Jay suggested a trial of the warm season Zoysia grass. I was delighted to get involved and provide a golfer’s perspective as we trialed Zoysia grass on some of our practice holes. We committed to a longer trial and have now changed the fairways on all of the short course holes to Zoysia grass. The experiment has worked.

As with everything, there are pluses and minuses, but the pluses win out in this case. We are about as far north as Zoysia grass will grow at its best. As it’s a warm season grass, it maintains a beautiful grass cover to the fairways throughout our hottest summers, with no bare patches. This is a huge plus for our golfers. And also, it requires far less watering and fertilizer than cool season grasses. The minus is an aesthetic one. Zoysia grass will go dormant a little earlier than cool season grasses, and in its dormant phase the color becomes more tan-like than a beautiful grassy green. But its playing qualities are not affected. The 18-hole course is still based on Kentucky bluegrass, although we have changed some of the tees to Zoysia grass.

As manager here, I love seeing the next generation of golfers coming to Blacklick Woods to learn and improve their game, and interacting with the kids and their coaches. A particularly fun event we host each summer is a Drive, Chip and Put event for about 150 kids aged 7 to 15. I also love the opportunity I have to help develop my staff to become the best versions of themselves, and work with them to shape and build a certain culture here at the golf course, based on respect and treating people the right way.

Soon after I joined Metro Parks, I began studying for my PGA certification. There is a lot of academic study as you learn how to run a golf operation, how to teach golf and how to become a well-rounded golf professional. I got my certification in 2017, which meant I had to give up my amateur status as a golfer. The PGA, or Professional Golfers Association of America, is based on 41 different sections across the country. My base is the Southern Ohio PGA. Last year, I participated in our SOPGA Section Championship and finished seventh of 75 players, which qualified me to play in the PGA’s National Club Professionals Championship. This was held at the US PGA Golf Club in Port Saint Lucie, Florida. It was a great experience, although I was a bit nervous. I finished 110th amongst the best 312 Golf Club Professionals in the USA. This year’s SOPGA championship is in August and I’m really eager to do well and qualify for the National Club Professionals Championship again.

My favorite Metro Parks activity

We love doing things together as a family in Metro Parks. I already mentioned our weekly family golf game. Another family activity that we love is fishing. We go to Sharon Woods, Slate Run and Chestnut Ridge to fish. My kids talk trash to me because I’m really bad at fishing. Whereas the kids catch bluegills as easy as you like. Giuliana caught five bluegills at Chestnut Ridge just last week. I never do as well as the kids do, but I did catch a bass at Chestnut Ridge, so I was really happy with that. We also like to hike together at Blacklick Woods and at Clear Creek. We haven’t been to Quarry Trails Metro Park yet, but we’re keen to try it this year.

Traveling – places I’ve been, places I’d love to go

My mom and stepdad Cris lived in Charleston, SC for about 11 years and we went to stay with them every couple of years for summer vacations. We all liked the beach there and I also loved the history of Charleston. It’s a very old city with some beautiful old churches and buildings. The food was great there too. Sea food fresh from the ocean was expected to be good, but somehow the barbecue pork ribs down there taste better than any I’ve had here in Ohio, or anywhere else.

We’ve also been on a couple of cruises, one to the Bahamas and another to the nearby Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos Islands. We went in January, to escape the Ohio winter for a couple of weeks. Even in January, temperatures on our cruises were between 80 and 90 degrees. Food was great on the ships, and ice cream was available any time you wanted. I wanted rather too much of it on the cruises, so it was quite a challenge for my weight. The ships also have a variety of different shows and tons of activities. We often enjoyed just lying by the pool. We went on land to hang out on the beaches and tried snorkeling. Seeing the vibrant colors of the fish and the coral underwater was just stunning.

I’ve seen quite a lot of America by playing in various golf tournaments, but I’ve never been to Maine. That’s definitely a trip we’d like to do together as a family in the future. I’ve also been to Las Vegas, which was for a good buddy’s bachelor party. That was in 2010 and it was certainly a memorable weekend. People there seem to lose all their inhibitions and adopt what I can only think to call Vegas mode. It makes people watching quite a fun experience. I was amazed by the incredible dancing water fountain at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, which makes incredible shapes and colors, synchronized to music. Another venue has people dressed up to look like stone statues. And then they move as you get near to them! That was pretty cool, although I guess some people might get near enough a heart attack with the shock. As for the rest of that memorable weekend, well, as they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! ‘Nuff said.

Fun facts about me and my family

1. We’re a family of dog lovers! I had always wanted an English bulldog, and finally, as my Christmas present in 2023, I got one. She cost $1,700, but some English bulldogs can cost a lot more. She was eight weeks old when we got her, and we named her Peppa, after Peppa the Pig. She isn’t pink, though, like her famous cartoon namesake. Our Peppa is white and black. She joined our other dog, Georgia, who is a Frenchton, a French bulldog and Boston terrier mix. They get along together great, although they do ‘play fight’ a lot, which can be incredibly funny to watch.

Our previous dog, Izzy, was a black Labrador mix and she lived to age 15. When we lost her, it proved to all of us the maxim that pets are an integral part of the family. I was away at a golf tournament earlier that week, one that proved very successful for me personally. It was a match play tournament, like the Ryder Cup, between the top 10 players from the Southern Ohio and Northern Ohio PGA sections. I actually hit what proved to be the winning point for our Southern Ohio team, so I was on a real high. But soon after I got home, Izzy suddenly fell ill. She had a stroke and we lost her, so my high turned immediately to a real downer. Cushioning our kids through the trauma was a real parenting challenge. It was a full two years before we could contemplate getting another dog, which is when Georgia joined us. Georgia is now two years old.

2. We love the lake!
A few times every summer we rent a pontoon boat at Lake Logan, a 400-acre lake in Hocking County. We just love being on the lake. We’ve been doing this for the past five years now. We rent the boat for just a few hours, for about $200. We have a sail and just relax on the lake, do a bit of swimming and fishing. My uncle owns a boat, and we sometimes sail with him on Buckeye Lake. My uncle and others tell me that the work never stops when you own your own boat, but I’d love to become a boat owner at some point in the future. For now, though, we’re happy to keep on renting.

3. Church!
My faith is very important to me and my family. We are very involved with activities at our church, Grace Fellowship in Pickerington. We’re very welcoming to people at all points of their spiritual journey. My own journey didn’t bring me to faith until I was 28, which is when I met Jesus and became involved with church and community. As a kid, my family took me to church, but only for the big celebrations, such as Easter and Christmas. Although I had lots of successes in life, I always struggled with general anxiety. As time went on, I came to realize that you can’t always do things on your own, and that there is a creator. I give thanks to Chip Warren, who worked at the golf course for a long time. We had so many wonderful conversations about faith, and he led me to this new and wonderful relationship in my life. My anxiety is always there, but faith has given me a new perspective on life and I now know that God is always with me in good times and bad.

Keary came to faith a little later than me, after suffering some health challenges in her thirties, which shook her up a lot. We both commit a lot of time to our church. I’ve become a leader in our church’s 678 Ministry, for kids 6th through 8th grade. Our son Liam is in my 678 Ministry and has been selected as one of 10 kids from our ministry to go to work with the Urban Hope Training Center and Community Church in Philadelphia at the start of next month, helping the homeless and underserved communities for a four-day volunteer placement. We’re very proud of him.

Keary and I believe that prayer works and we are working together to help out with a marriage group at out church, which is an 8-week-long one day a week course to help people benefit from a Jesus-centered marriage. It was a class we took ourselves last year and we are excited to give back to other couples by helping with the course this year.

My favorite food and dessert

I enjoy lots of Italian food dishes, but my favorite by far is Chicken Alfredo. I like to make my own sauce, rather than using store-bought. I use cream, butter and parmesan cheese, and just occasionally will also add garlic. It’s a very creamy and very flavorful dish. I add sliced chicken breast for the final touch. I think it costs more than $20 for Chicken Alfredo at Olive Garden, and my own homemade version is frankly better. I like a glass of red wine with it, usually a Pinot Noir, or sometimes a Merlot. We also eat out a lot, but with four of us to dine it can get expensive. Both Keary and myself like to cook. Recently I’ve started to use a smoker, out in our yard, to cook pork ribs, pork shoulder, and whole chickens. It’s a wood pellet smoker and the first few times I used it was a case of trial and error to get things just right. The pork shoulder needs smoking between eight and 10 hours, so it’s important to keep checking on it and checking the internal temperature. When I get it right, the food tastes really good.

After a meal, I sometimes enjoy a sip of bourbon. Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey is my favorite, even though it’s expensive and hard to find here in central Ohio. I’ve made arrangements to know when it comes in stock in local stores, so I can make sure I don’t miss out.

For dessert, an original cheesecake with a topping of strawberries is my ideal. The Cheesecake Factory also serves a really tasty caramel cheesecake, which is also very good. I also really enjoy cookie dough ice cream, with cinnamon ice cream a close second. Graeters does a cinnamon ice cream as a seasonal flavor. I usually buy five cartons of it when it comes in to stores, and keep it in my freezer.

My favorite entertainment

Keary and I like to sit and watch crime shows together, such as the various NCIS shows, and FBI: Most Wanted. We also liked a Netflix show, Ginny and Georgia, which is a comedy drama about Georgia and her two kids, Ginny and Austin, who settle in New England after years on the run escaping from Georgia’s abusive partners. Another Netflix show that I really enjoyed, but which Keary gave up on after a couple of episodes, is called You. It’s a weird show, and gets inside the mind of a serial killer who is entirely charming and totally obsessive about the women he meets. Another show that both of us enjoyed was Ted Lasso, on Apple TV Plus, about a former football coach in America who becomes a coach of an English soccer team. It’s a really funny show, but also has a wonderful message about believing in oneself and in others, and seeing the good in people.

We’re a big sports family and I’m a huge Cleveland Browns fan, which is a miserable life to lead, to be sure! I usually enjoy the last game of the season, and the annual college draft, but everything in between is a continual disappointment. We’ve also been to a few Columbus Blue Jackets games, which is a great night out. Even though I’m local, I’ve never been an Ohio State Buckeyes fan. From a very young age, I’ve supported Notre Dame in college football and other college sports.

I used to read a lot of books when I was in my college years, but these days not so much. But I do read the Bible every day. I get up at around 5am and like to read a chapter of the Bible before breakfast, say for about 15 or 30 minutes. I sometimes use an App to select a devotional reading, with various verses from the Bible. I usually have a cup of coffee and a protein bar for breakfast.

What Manager of Park Operations Josh Laughbaum says about Danny

“Danny is an enthusiastic and dedicated manager for Metro Parks. He cares very much about the golf course and its upkeep, and about representing Metro Parks as a whole. He has made so many important improvements to the golf courses to encourage youth golf as well as to inspire players to continue coming to our golf course and become regulars.”