Grand Haven Mens Golf Assoc.

Larry Geiser was born in 1948 in Toledo, Ohio, and is the eldest of four sons.  Larry attended grade school, junior high and high school in Toledo.  He played sports in the neighborhood with his childhood friends, but only after completing the chores his father assigned – weeding the garden, cutting and trimming the lawn.  His father installed a basketball goal and backboard in the driveway one year and wouldn’t you know there was never any snow in the Geiser’s drive after that.
 
Larry’s favorite sports were basketball and baseball though he tried track, football, and wrestling.  He lettered in basketball and baseball in high school.  Larry’s uncle introduced him to golf at about the age of 10 and provided him with a collection of hickory shaft irons and a 2-wood.  You could play golf for $1.00 at Toledo’s Ottawa Park municipal course and Larry and a couple friends would coerce one of their parents to drop them off once in a while in the summer.  They collected golf balls from a corn field on the west side of the Inverness driving range, which was an easy bike ride about a mile from where they lived.  But, most of their golf was played in a couple neighborhood yards with “wiffle” golf balls, on makeshift “greens” that were hand trimmed and had soup cans sunk into the ground as cups.
 
Larry attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio for a couple years where he never met Bob Mehl, though they lived in the same freshman dorm.  After his parents moved to West Palm Beach, Larry moved to Florida and attended Florida Atlantic for one year while working as an apprentice carpenter part time.  He interrupted his college education and worked on homes, commercial buildings, churches and remodeling projects for five years.  He decided to return to college and enrolled in the University of Florida’s Building Construction program, graduating in the spring of 1975.  He really enjoyed the north Florida area and it was not easy to leave, but he headed west.
 
Upon graduation, Larry secured a job in San Diego with a large commercial contractor.  He started in the estimating department as a quantity surveyor, served as a project engineer, superintendent, project manager, construction manager, and became a vice president in 1984.  A few years later, he started a new company with several of his co-workers where he served as President, and in 1991, the company was acquired by one of San Diego’s oldest and largest companies.  Larry served as a Vice President, Director of Estimating and President of that company during his 12-year tenure.  For the final 10 years of his career, he was a vice president at three different companies, all headquartered in San Diego.  During most of his career years, Larry had responsibilities that included work in many other states; including South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.
 
The construction projects in Larry’s professional resume include office buildings, manufacturing facilities, medical, college buildings, public entertainment, retail, parking structures, large multi-family residential, prisons, and water and wastewater facilities.  Some of the most notable are San Diego’s Petco Park, renovation of San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, Shamu Stadium and Backstage at Sea World San Diego, Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, Callaway Golf Ball Manufacturing Facility, Bank of America Plaza San Diego, and Samsung City in Tijuana Mexico.
 
After 39 years in the west, Larry and Julie, his bride of 16 years, decided to retire and move to Florida to be closer to Larry’s family and to enjoy the benefits of living in a mild climate and retirement-friendly state.  Their cats, Mr. Tibbs and Bo, heartily agreed so long as they could enjoy the safety of an enclosed lanai!  Julie deserves all the credit for identifying Palm Coast and together they determined Grand Haven was where they wanted to live.  They moved here in January 2014 and to this day are so happy that they will periodically look at each other and say “pinch me”.  Larry and Julie are grateful for the warm community with so much caring that we are all blessed to live in.
 
Larry did not play golf regularly until his later working years when he could work in one or two rounds a week at Lomas Santa Fe CC in Solana Beach, CA.  His lone hole-in-one happened there in January 2011 on the 176 yard uphill 18th hole.  He loves Grand Haven where he can play four or more times a week and work on some semblance of a “game”.  Thanks to helpful fellow members who wish to remain anonymous (Tosh and Frank), and pointers from a couple pros, he is improving.  Now his tombstone will not say that he “just worked”!
 
Larry serves on the MGA Board and has been the 2015-2016 Tournament Chairman.  He is privileged to have worked closely with Dr. Mike Tebbano, Tournament Communications Director.