We find our expert source in the card room area. Jake Justice 
has been part of the service team at Prairie Dunes, his first 
private club role, for 15 years, which he says makes him feel 
part of a family. He loves meeting members, and their families 
and guests who arrive from out of state and other countries. 
He likes to cook, leans on healthy recipes that are lower in 
carbs and fat, especially likes salmon, broccoli and brown rice, 
goes to lengths to avoid cauliflower, and has a sweet spot for 
cheesecake. He’s all about healthy eating 101 and, we’re told, 
hits the gym every day. 
It takes PD Director of Food & Beverage Calloway Kocher 
leaning into the conversation to tease more backstory from 
the guy she calls one of the most humble and hospitable 
people she’s ever met. Born in Kansas and raised in Texas, 
she relays, “Jake was working for Hard Rock Cafe in Texas. 
He was asked by leadership to move from his bartender 
position to become a Hard Rock corporate leader and open 
a new destination in Choctaw, Mississippi. He set the bar 
standard there for Hard Rock and created the bar staff 
training program.
“After his three-month assignment, he returned to Texas, 
received a call asking if he had a passport, and was sent to 
Nassau, capital of The Bahamas, to open and train there. He 
moved into the corporate Hard Rock world, as an operational 
manager, in the late 1990s. Eventually, needing a break from 
the pace, he moved back home to Hutchinson. He fell in love 
with Prairie Dunes.”
Today, according to Kocher, Jake sets the bar standard for 
making members comfortable. “He’s the always-smiling, 
supportive background warrior of the Dunes. If a member or 
guest had a good round, he wants to hear about it. Need the 
kick of the cocktail to forget what was blowing in the wind? 
He’s an avid listener who knows when it’s time to drop golf 
from the conversation.”
THE NAME GUNCH 
PUNCH SAYS IT ALL
It’s the cocktail that Golf Digest’s Drew Powell said makes 
a lost ball go down easier. Jake shares he was in the Golf 
Shop talking to Colin Brenner, who was an assistant pro 
then. “He said, ‘Jake, we need to come up with a drink, and 
we should call it Gunch Punch.’ I liked the name and started 
brainstorming.
“PD’s general manager [and COO] at the time, Jay Johnson, 
sat down at the bar and said, ‘Let’s come up with this drink.’ 
This was back when we had beverage carts and we needed 
something easy to make on the course. So, we dabbled with it.
 
“We brainstormed. I made it. He drank it. I continued to make 
it, and he tasted until he said, ‘I think we’ve got it!’” Jake 
mentions he quit drinking before he came up with Gunch 
Punch. Kristina, who stirs this convo in a minute, says Jake is 
very knowledgeable. He knows what mixes well and can judge 
by smell. He’ll mix something, hold it out to the team’s tasters, 
ask them to breathe it in, and then ask, Okay, team, what do 
you get from this? We didn’t need Golf Digest to tell us he’s a 
genius.
“This was five or six years ago. We originally made it on the 
rocks,” Jake continues. “Then we got some slushy machines 
and converted it to a frozen cocktail. You can’t take the kid 
out of anyone. After that, we watched it just blow up. We had 
no idea that was going to happen. Both men and women 
loved it.”
Kristina, who was promoted to PD bar manager in August, is 
a fan. “I love it. I absolutely love it. It’s so popular. Jake did a 
great job coming up with a very simple recipe that works. And 
the branding of it! Everyone knows about Gunch Punch! It’s 
a staple.”
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