Jim Cooper
Jim Cooper grew up in Melbourne, and when he had made enough money in the long-term care business, he wanted to bring big-time golf to his rural hometown.
The late Bobby McGee, a posthumous inductee in the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame, designed an 18-hole course for Cooper, and readers of “Executive Golfer” voted “Cooper’s Hawk” the No. 1 public/daily fee course in Arkansas in 2012.
Cooper added to his golf holdings last year by purchasing the closed Mountain Springs course at the Greystone residential development on Highway 5 near Cabot. The course will now be known as Greystone Country Club.
Cooper will still live a chip shot from his Melbourne course, where he tries to maintain a 4 handicap.
“I haven’t had a chance to play a lot lately,” he said.
As for Cooper’s Hawk in Melbourne, it “will never be a money maker,” Cooper said. “We just want to break even and keep the course here in a rural area.
“As for Greystone, we want to keep making improvements there and I want to see a lot of changes in the next five, six years. We might want to reroute a few holes, change some greens, make the course longer in some places. … Personally, I have a lot of ambitions to make Greystone something special there in central Arkansas.”
Cooper said he has been around nursing homes and health care since 1987. “That’s my business where I have primary income,” he said. “I spend something related to the nursing home business every day, and it’s a seven-day, 24-hour, 365-day endeavor.”
That makes golf just a sideline hobby, something Cooper loves and something that’s led to lasting friendships and more business, the competitive Cooper said. It’s also why he enlisted Richard Johnson and his wife, Yvette, to run the Greystone course along with Johnny White, the former, longtime athletic director at Cabot.
His father, and uncle and aunt are business partners along with the Johnsons.
Richard Johnson, a native of Wales, called Fort Smith his home for a while, as it was his wife’s hometown. Johnson was the leading money winner on the Nationwide Tour in 2007 and earned a PGA Tour card.
After a short time on the PGA Tour, a wrist injury ended his playing career. He was the golf coach at UCA for two years before joining Greystone.
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