Spartan Profiles: Rick Bayliss
HOSTING THE RYDER CUP
Golf’s biggest event today is the biennial Ryder Cup tournament pitting U.S. golfers against Europeans. Last September, the match took place at the legendary Oakland Hills Country Club in suburban Detroit, a challenge that was relished by Rick Bayliss, ’85, the club’s chief operating officer. “We consider it the Super Bowl of golf,” says Bayliss, who pulled out all stops to help land the $50 million event. “It’s arguably one of the top five or six sporting events in the world now, along with the World Cup, the Super Bowl and the Olympics.”
Rick and his counterpart from the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) of America led a team of committed volunteers to stage the event and drew an attendance of 204,000 people over six days. “We coordinated the various logistical activities and maintained public relations,” he explains. “We had a great team of fully committed volunteers.”
Except for the U.S. team losing, the event was spectacular in every way, with celebrities like George H. W. Bush, Sean Connery, Wayne Gretzky, Kathy Ireland, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Jordan and Donald Trump—and even Prince Charles—following the action. “Our main concern was to make it a pleasurable experience,” he notes.
A native of Harbor Springs, Bayliss chose MSU along with “11 or 12 others in our graduating class of a Class D school, so we had our own little fraternity,” he recalls. “MSU was an outstanding experience in every way. The professors and level of education was unsurpassed. They don’t baby you. You have to go out and work for it.”
Although he majored in advertising, Rick maintains ties with The School of Hospitality Business and its continuing education efforts. “Bonnie Knutson is a huge influence in our industry,” he notes. “There’s an enormous amount of talent, brainpower and commitment over there and our industry benefits tremendously from them.”
