Jim Nobles – Blue Collar Success
I’ve known and admired Jim Nobles for quite some time. His business instincts, his work ethic and passion are evident whenever you are in his presence. I had the pleasure of sitting down with him at Foxfire Golf Course recently and covering a lot of ground from his storied career. Hope you enjoy.
DB: Give me a background on what inspired you to start your first business?
JN: In ’74, I was out of college, I went to Paul Smith’s, then Utica College and came down to finish at SU (Syracuse University). I went to work for Goodyear, took all the training, it lasted four hours, I knew by noon that it wasn’t for me. I said I’m gonna leave; they said “Are you sick?,” I said “No, it’s just not my thing.” Boy, they were not happy with me. They said, “If you stay at Goodyear, 30 years from now, you’ll be glad,”…and I’m like, 30 years? I want to be out of here in 30 minutes. I left Goodyear. I had just gotten married, didn’t have any money, but back then things were a lot cheaper. My last thing at SU was to be an accountant, and that wasn’t my thing to sit at a chair. And it took time. I had to walk around when I’m thinking to do things, so growing up in Ithaca, I went to Ithaca High School. I had trouble in school because I had to squirm. Like being in Church, I couldn’t think when I’m sitting. If I’m out doing something, it gave me courage and gave me the good ideas to come up with.
I had heard that there was a Texaco gas station in Baldwinsville, where the rent was only two hundred dollars. And I thought, I’m good at fixing things, so I thought I’ll rent that, and then a month later the gas shortage started, so any gasoline you could get, you could make 35 or 40 cents per gallon. So I went to Texaco, and they said they could only give me 15,000 gallons, since the station doesn’t have a track record. I said ‘that’s great’ since I knew a third of 15,000 would be around five thousand dollars. The rent was only $200, so I said I can hustle a hundred dollars a day fixing cars. So I took it on, and everyone said, “what are you crazy, you’ve been to college,” so I decided I’m not telling anybody that I’ve been to college, because everyone said you sit at a desk with a suit and tie on. I enjoyed the garage. I tried plowing one year but everybody had a plow, so I said, maybe towing. I noticed there were no tow trucks. The first tow truck was seven hundred dollars and I just had fun with that. I could do it myself, and then I started going to other companies. I said I’ll do the towing for you. There wasn’t much sleep at times. I joined AAA or I acquired to be a AAA dealer. I did that for forty years. My son took the garage over. They gave up AAA since it was too hard to find drivers. I always enjoyed towing and that was what really helped buy the golf course, by towing cars all the time. And then I took a shot at Foxfire.
DB: I know that you’re a non-golfer, so what made you buy a golf course and what made you buy Foxfire in particular?
JN: Well, Tom Rich owned it and he went to Cornell, and my Uncle and him traveled together after they retired. My Uncle always said, “I have a friend in Baldwinsville that has a golf course.” I was new at the garage, I said “Tom I‘ve got two young kids, and I’ve got my hands full with the garage.” But I just kept watching it over the years and it just slowly went down, down, down. Tom ended up leasing it to his manager and I thought that was the end of that. Things didn’t work out, and then it really got run down. That was in 2005 and I called Tom Rich again, who I’d met through my Uncle and I said, “Is the golf course available?” He said “yes.” I told him the course is run down, and he agreed. There were three or four groups looking at it, and I said I’ll make an offer. The garage at this time was very busy and my son had come back from college and he took over the garage, so that loosened my time up so that I could come in here and work. I didn’t realize when I came here that is was like jumping off a bridge and not knowing how deep the water was. There was no equipment, no good golf carts, nobody in the kitchen. And I said, “Well, you can’t win ‘em all.” So my ace in the hole, was just keep working. Work until it works…just keep pushing.
DB: There have been a lot of local courses that have either closed or have been sold. Liverpool, Lafayette, Westvale, Seneca, Caughdenoy Creek. How have you been successful in the golf business when others have failed?
JN: Well one of the things was when I took a golf cart out, and I cut across the fairway and I hit a bump and the whole cart would jump up in the air and everything went flying. So I said, “I’ll start paving.” It took me nine or ten years to pave the whole course. It’s almost four and a half miles around. A lot of paving companies don’t like doing cart paths, they don’t make enough money. It’s hard, you have to have four feet, and now we’ve made it six feet because the carts are getting bigger. That’s been the best thing that ever happened, because this Spring with the wetness, people were coming from a 100-miles away to golf from Canada, from Watertown, from Ithaca because nobody would let a cart out for about six weeks in April and May. They’d come, it’d be 48 degrees and raining, and I’d say “Just stay on the cart paths,” and they would. And I was like, “You still want to golf?” Boy, a lot of courses really got behind this Spring. Not knowing back at the time. I just paved for a nice, easy ride around the course.
DB: What do you find most rewarding about owning Foxfire?
JN: With Liverpool and Westvale being bought out, we had always averaged sixteen to eighteen leagues and now there are thirty leagues. It’s like a tournament every day, five days a week, so it’s a little trying. I learned to buy ten new carts every year and keep the carts as good as I can. Being a so-called ‘mechanic’ in the garage, I can tell when a tire is flat, I can tell when something isn’t running right, so it’s been easy for me to fix them. The hardest thing now is trying to find people that know what I can do to fix carts. I’ve had a lot of great people that have worked here and that’s what’s helped the best. They know the golf and I know the carts and equipment. I never bought used carts, that’s not the way to go, just new ones. But the mowers are so expensive. I just bought a couple of fairway mowers last Fall and this Spring and they cost $81,000.00 per mower and they’re not even as big as the old days. These little things, I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” That’s what’s scary, this equipment is getting so expensive and high tech. The guys that mow are all seniors, and they love it. They can mow for twenty or twenty-five hours, get out of the house, and in the winter, they can collect unemployment. I’ve never had to worry about them coming to work and they’re glad to get out of the house for five hours a day.
DB: How do you motivate and empower your team members here at Foxfire?
JN: I think they see me working, that’s all. It’s been hard since after the pandemic; everybody wanted a hand-out. A lot of the guys enjoy golf, being around the golf course. They like how it has been fixed up and they see me working. I say, “If you’re not going to do anything, then get out of my way, so I can get going.” There’s a lot of great people that work here. Maybe sometimes I don’t give them enough compliments. My Dad was a POW, so you had to do better, you’ve got to do better. There weren’t a lot of compliments growing up in Ithaca.
DB: How do you differentiate your business model from other courses in Central New York?
JN: I live near Timber Banks, which I’m still amazed at how nice the clubhouse is and the course is just pristine. Whereas I give discounts for seniors, so I think it’s great with Timber on one side, and I’m on the other side of Baldwinsville. B’ville has really grown. When I first came here, boy it was just the four corners and the B’ville Diner. It’s worked out good with Timber. I just try to keep it reasonable for people, that’s all. Just go with the numbers, don’t try to go with the big dollar. And with other places closing, It’s been like the perfect storm, everything has fallen into place.
DB: You had previously put in a bid for Radisson back in 2012, how did that all play out?
JN: I really looked at it because I live in Radisson, it’s only a mile from my house. I had sold a piece of land to Byrne Dairy, so I’m waiting for the check, because the company was in Connecticut that owned Radisson. They kept calling, “Jim, what’s going on?” I said, “Call Byrne Dairy, I’m waiting to find out when they are going to send a check.” In the meantime, a group got together and found out that it was available, and I don’t think they wanted me to have it. And my wife Sue was really against it, because she said “One’s a lot of work…what are you going to do with two golf courses?” So low and behold, it got sold out from under me. I went around B’ville and everyone was saying, “I thought you bought Radisson?” I said “I thought I did too.” So Gypsum had a group of guys and they bought it. I said, “Let’s see what happens.” It’s hard when you have a lot of partners, because somebody has to do the work, somebody has to be there, close up, have somebody responsible and make sure the work is done.
DB: You’re a tireless worker. How much longer do you want to keep up this pace? What is next for Jim Nobles?
JN: I know my wife gets frustrated, but we do go to Fort Lauderdale in the winter. We have a son there, so that’s good for three months. But it’s hard for me because I don’t golf down there, all my friends have boats. I have a son in the Yacht business, he sells the big boats, but everyone laughs at me. So I have a tough time in Fort Lauderdale. I thought of starting a storage business, I bought the land across the street and my other son wants to build storage units. But it seems like every time I think of getting into it, there’s one on every corner that opens up. So I’m not really sure right now, but I just enjoy working, that’s all. My Dad went until 101, and I’m 77. But Foxfire has been a good thing. It’s in such a great location. B’ville? Who would ever have known? Growing up in Ithaca, I had never even heard of Baldwinsville. Who would have ever thought B’ville would have grown like it has.
DB: You mentioned your Dad lived to be 101? Tell me about your folks?
JN: My Mom, Betty slipped away at 18 to get married. My Dad, Bob was in the Army as a paratrooper. After D-Day, they jumped on June 6th, one week later he got captured. Nobody knew where he was for three or four months. He was in a prison camp. But back then they didn’t talk about it growing up, being in prison camps. The parents didn’t know anything until later in life. I said to him, “Why did you ever want to be a paratrooper?” He said, “It looked like fun.” I said, “Oh Boy.” He did the honor flight a couple of times, and he was born in Ithaca and died in Ithaca. He lived in the same house for seventy years. I lived in Fall Creek, right at the base of the Ithaca Falls. With Cornell and Ithaca College, it was quite a town, it was a fun place to grow up. Things were different then, things weren’t as crazy as they are now. I tell all the kids here, this is the best time of your life. They look at me like, “what?” I tell them that it’s only going to get harder for you. Things aren’t easy. Boy they are getting harder and harder.
