HALF MOON BAY, Calif., July 10, 2006 … Half Moon Bay Golf Links is celebrating the re-opening of its renovated clubhouse restaurant, now called Mullins Bar & Grill in honor of legendary club professional Moon Mullins.
"We could not be more delighted to pay tribute to one of the most respected gentlemen in golf," said Lyn Nelson, general manager of the Half Moon Bay Golf Links. "Moon Mullins has been a friend to everyone who has ever been here, from the time the first golf course was being built to today. We wanted everyone to know how much Moon has meant to all of us who have worked with him and played with him during the past 35 years."
Clyde Everett "Moon" Mullins has been a fixture at the Half Moon Bay Golf Links since it was nothing more than a vision. Nicknamed for a popular cartoon character of the mid-1900s, Mullins first saw the coastline property in 1970, when he was hired not only as its first head golf professional, but also as its first good-will ambassador.
While construction of the Old Course was underway, Mullins gave lessons as a nearby driving range to promote the game in an area that didn’t have a golf course. He also was on hand to work with Arnold Palmer, a co-designer of the original layout, and get to know the people in the community. It was the start of a relationship that has lasted 35 years.
"You meet so many nice people on the golf course," says Mullins, who has teed it up with legendary figures like Bob Hope and Joe DiMaggio – ironic, since golf was the last thing Mullins ever thought he would become his profession. "This is a wonderful place."
Half Moon Bay is a bit different place than Cabin Holler, Tenn., a coal mining camp in a rural area where Mullins was born. The youngest of eight children (four boys, four girls), his family had no running water in their home, where they lived until 1940, while his father Sam Mullins worked in the mines and built wooden fishing boats to make extra money.
Mullins has great memories of fishing with his father on some of those homemade boats and caught his father’s passion for fishing and boats. While Mullins played on the PGA Tour, he always traveled with two fishing poles in packed in his golf bag. Mullins once even passed up playing a morning practice round in the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club just to go fishing. These days, Mullins regularly takes out his boat – a 30-footer his dad would love, he says – to fish off the Half Moon Bay coast.
"I have never seen a fishing hole, or golf hole, that I didn’t like," Mullins says with a playful smile.
Not surprisingly, fish is on the varied menu at the new Mullins Bar & Grill, a comfortable setting for breakfast, lunch or dinner. A spacious dining room overlooks the 18th hole and Pacific Ocean, with doors that open out to the putting green on the first tee. Mullins can host up to 120 people for a tournament, social or corporate event.
Located just 30 miles south of San Francisco along California’s scenic Highway One, the Half Moon Bay Golf Links is an award-winning destination created with the golfer in mind. The 36-hole golf facility consists of the aptly named Ocean Course, a par 72 layout that offers inspiring ocean views from all 18 holes, and the Old Course, which was originally designed by Francis Duane and Arnold Palmer in 1973.
For more information about the Half Moon Bay Golf Links, call (650) 726-1800 or visit www.halfmoonbaygolf.com.
Contact:
Ed Vyeda
Hunter Public Relations
(831) 375-1747
evyeda@hunter-pr.com
