The sons came home for Thanks-giving and they'll also come home for Christmas.  Mike is a business student at Southern Methodist University.  Ryan is a journalism student at Arizona State University. 
Great anticipation is in the air.  Harvey feels it too.  A Welsh Corgi is usually not such a bundle of nervous energy.  Says his owner, "He's all wound up to see the boys."
Tom and Sandy Abts agree there is nothing better than being with family at home for the holidays.  Their home is tucked away in Deephaven and surrounded by creation, both of God and man.  Bows and boughs of evergreen and the red of pretty poinsettias decorate their Christmas season.
It's a short jaunt to Victoria for Tom, where his second passion has also taken root and blossomed like a Christmas cactus.  Great anticipation for each of the four seasons, including winter, is part of the theater of life at Deer Run.
Deer Run is home to many people, golfers and non-golfers alike.  Even in winter and during the twelve days of Christmas, people are welcome to come in and sit by the fire a while.  There's no place like home for the holidays.
The fireplace in the pub at the Deer Run Club House begs you to linger.  Its cherry wood, also in the bookshelves and moldings, is warm and rich.  Leather furnishings invite you to light a lamp and read by the fire.
One almost expects to see Charles Dickens seated near the hearth with a pen in his hand and the Ghost of Christmas Past peeking over his shoulder.
Soon, in the twinkling of an eye and the turning o' the green, the driving range will open again in lilac time and people can be home sweet home on the Deer Run Golf Course as well as in the Deer Run Club House.
Who would have imagined that an old farm house in Victoria, Minnesota, might one day be home to an Old English pub - call it an Irish pub, if you like -- replete with a wide range of beers, wines, and spirits, a deck in the back, a parlor on the side, and courtyard greenery that includes 18 holes of golf all around.
The golf course and club house arrived on the Victoria scene in the fall of 1989.  Its history and development was documented by the Victoria Gazette at that time.  Fred Plocher of Victoria was the visionary, the risk taker, not to mention developer with a dream.
Tom Abts, arrived two years later, in the fall of 1991 to become the Head PGA Pro at Deer Run.  He says he's the luckiest guy in the world.  Besides his family, his work is indeed his passion.
Did Tom Abts see golf in his future early on?  "I was an amateur golfer and I wanted to be a pro," he said.  "My parents were members of a country club.  Some of the older country club men talked me out of it.  They said you work 70 hours a week and you never get to play and you don't make any money.  They said what you want to do is make money and be a member of a country club."
So Tom turned away from his dream and acquired business acumen in the clothing and accessory business as well as ownership of a chain of nine retail stores.  That background gave him an advantage when he returned to his passion for golf and was hired as a pro for Deer Run.  That position, along with his passion, led to even greater involvement in the business of golf when he was soon promoted to also be General Manager at Deer Run.
What are his responsibilities?  He replied, "For everything, I'd say … budgeting, marketing, total operation whether golf, food, shop, maintenance …
I feel very responsible, and I feel very responsible in training my staff to learn the business side of things.  I like my staff to be strong and be able to make independent decisions."
Tom spoke of his core staff at Deer Run:  Troy Malo, assistant pro and also business manager; Angie Williams, food and beverage manager; Barry Provo, grounds superintendent; and Jake Hindermann, assistant golf pro. 
"I'm very lucky to have them.  We are on the same wavelength," he said, adding, "I'm also very lucky to have a lot of support from the Deer Run Board of Directors.  We share the same vision."
That vision is evident as soon as one drives up to the club, and even more evident inside the club.  Tom explains it in his own words.  "Three years ago we decided to expand and improve the club house.  If we were purely practical, we would have leveled the house."
"But," Tom continued, "we wanted to keep the small town charm.  We respect the past.  We respect tradition.  To us, the club house is a merger of the past and the present.  We didn't want a typical golf course where you would find the same atmosphere in Victoria as in Phoenix or Palm Springs."
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