A little more attention is often paid to the winners of the Philadelphia Section PGA season-long award for what happened on the golf course in 2022.
But the real work for the Section pros comes in the day-to-day operations of all the golf courses, be they private, public or resort, that make up the Section. And the awards that go to those people are no less well-deserved than the ones that are handed out to those who excel on the golf course.
There is no bigger award for a Philadelphia Section PGA pro than that of Golf Professional of the Year and that honor for 2022 belongs to Mike Wood, the director of golf of the sprawling operation that is Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem.
The Golf Professional of the Year award goes to a Section pro who displays leadership and strong moral character and who has a substantial record of service to the Philadelphia PGA Section and to the game of golf.
Wood arrived at Saucon Valley as a PGA Associate in 2003 and eventually became head professional before being elevated to his current position in 2021.
Saucon Valley’s Old Course played host to the U.S. Senior Open for the third time in the summer of 2022, but the Weyhill and Grace courses at Saucon Valley can be found on most lists of the top golf courses in Pennsylvania as well.
Being director of golf at Saucon Valley is a big job and Wood has proven that he is up to the challenge.
Nowhere has Wood succeeded more than in his handling of the business end at Saucon Valley, as evidenced by him winning the Section’s Merchandiser of the Year – Private Category in 2021.
Wood’s creative use of the footprint of all the pro shops at Saucon Valley has resulted in an 88 percent increase in sales since 2018.
When the USGA brought its 19th Hole concept of engaging U.S. Senior Open fans in a large area off the golf course to Saucon Valley, it found the perfect partner in Wood.
Wood helped his staff come up with a wide assortment of ways to engage fans in the hospitality area, including simulators, a 9,000-square-foot putting green, live music, a jumbotron that live-streamed coverage of the tournament, lawn games and food trucks.
With help from some of his fellow Philadelphia Section pros, Wood was able to obtain equipment from the Section and PGA REACH, the Section’s charitable arm, to staff the player development area of the 19th Hole experience for the U.S. Senior Open.
Wood works closely with his team members throughout the Saucon Valley organization. In his mind, someone can start as a seasonal assistant pro and work their way up to head professional at one of Saucon Valley’s pro shops. That approach has helped Wood recruit the best possible candidates to join the Saucon Valley team.
Evidence of that approach is Steve Chalmers, a Saucon Valley pro who will show up later in this post as the winner of the Section’s Youth Player Development Award for 2022.
Wood’s regional outreach includes partnering with Coordinated Health of Bethlehem on golf-specific seminars and with Penn State’s PGA Golf Management (PGM) University program to host its eighth annual PGM intern conference.
On the national level, Wood has volunteered at the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals at Augusta National Golf Club in 2019 and 2021.
The Section’s prestigious Teacher and Coach of the Year Award went to Steve Sieracki, the director of instruction at the Legacy Club at Woodcrest in Cherry Hill, N.J.
The award goes to a Section pro for outstanding services as a golf teacher, innovator and coach. Sieracki won the Section’s Youth Player Development Award in 2016.
Sieracki oversees private lessons, clinics, youth camps and golf programs and golf schools while training staff at Woodcrest.
Sieracki is involved with planning a new golf range and a second state-of-the-art indoor studio at Woodcrest. Club ownership and management are consulting with Sieracki to help design the new buildings.
In addition to Sieracki’s 3,000 hours of golf instruction and coaching, he also does 30 hours of virtual lessons online each week. Evidence of Sieracki’s youth program can be found on the Philadelphia Section’s Junior Tour, where six of Sieracki’s students were among the top performers in 2022.
Sieracki networks with PGA members and industry professionals from around the country, including notable instructors like David Orr, Andy Plummer, Mike Bennett and Nick Clearwater. Sieracki presents at various summits, seminars and online education events, both inside and outside the Section.
Sieracki has developed a strong following on social media and is working on a program that will help other PGA coaches to identify patterns in the golf swing that will help their students improve.
For the third time in his distinguished career, Jim Smith Jr., the director of golf at Philadelphia Cricket Club, has earned the Bill Strausbaugh Award in the Philadelphia Section. Smith was the Section’s Strausbaugh Award winner in 2006 and 2013.
The Strausbaugh Award recognizes a PGA professional who demonstrates exceptional character, integrity and leadership by teaching and mentoring other PGA professionals.
A PGA member for 28 years, Smith started at the Cricket Club in 2006. The Cricket Club includes an A.W. Tillinghast original in the Wissahickon Course, the Militia Hill Course and the nine-hole St. Martins Course, which was part of the original Cricket Club layout that played host to the U.S. Open in 1907 and 1910.
Smith is most proud of the fact that 32 of his former co-workers have advanced to management positions such as director of golf, head professional or director of outside services. In his mind, helping staff members achieve their career goals in the single most important thing he does professionally.
In the Section, Smith has been president, vice president and director of Section affairs and has chaired the Philadelphia Assistants’ Organization (PAO) as well as the club relations and long-range planning committees.
Smith was the Section’s Golf Professional of the Year in 2005 and the Merchandiser of the Year – Private Category in 2002.
Dean Kandle, the vice president of professional development and education at the Golf Business Network and the former head pro at St. Davids Golf Club, is the winner of the Professional Development Award.
The award recognizes someone who makes contributions to the education of PGA professionals. During his 10 years at St. Davids, Kandle won the Professional Development Award in 2019 and 2020 and was the Section’s Golf Professional of the Year in 2020 when the onset of the coronavirus pandemic challenged golf professionals like nothing else before or since. Kandle was also the Bill Strausbaugh Award winner in the Section in 2018.
Kandle’s website, Golf Professional Growth, which he launched in 2017, continues to offer PGA pros advice on how to maintain the difficult balance between their work and their personal lives. Kandle continues to emphasize that theme as he hosts a couple of podcasts, Getting Better Now, and Golf Professional Growth, an offshoot of his website.
In his new position at GBN, Kandle has launched GBN University as a complement to education that young pros receive from the PGA of America.
Andy Signor, the head professional at the Pine Meadows Golf Complex in Lebanon, is the winner of the Patriot Award, which recognizes a PGA professional who personifies patriotism through the game of golf and demonstrates commitment and dedication to the men and women who have served our country.
Signor started a tournament in 2017 to benefit Folds of Honor, which provides scholarships to spouses and children of fallen or disabled U.S. military personnel, as a way to pay tribute to Pine Meadows member Seldon McIntosh, a two-time Silver Star recipient who has since passed away.
With a modest goal of raising $2,500 in its first year, the tournament has continued to gain momentum, contributing $42,000 to Folds of Honor overall.
Signor was the Central County Chapter Golf Professional of the Year in 2018.
David Zimmaro, an assistant pro at Overbrook Golf Club, was honored by the Section for the second year in a row, this time with the Player Development Award. Zimmaro was the Section’s Teacher and Coach of the Year in 2021.
The Player Development Award goes to a PGA professional who has displayed extraordinary contributions in the area of player development.
Zimmaro has been the captain of Overbrook’s PGA Junior League team that has gone undefeated in the regular season in each of the last three years.
In addition to his duties at Overbrook, Zimmaro is seemingly everywhere in the Philadelphia area, working as a First Tee of Philadelphia site director, taking part in the PGA REACH’s Golf in Schools initiative and working with the Middle Atlantic Blind Golf Association, the Widener Memorial School, the Overbook School for the Blind, La Salle Academy, AIM Academy, the Bridge School, Fort Dix Military Base and the Department of Justice’s Students for Juvenile Justice program. Zimmaro also learned American Sign Language in order to work with the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf.
Steve Chalmers, a member of Wood’s team at Saucon Valley as the director of instruction, is the winner of the Youth Player Development Award, which recognizes contributions and achievements in the area of youth player development.
Chalmers joined the Saucon Valley staff in 2020 and serves on the junior golf committee while coordinating all the youth golf activities at his facility.
Chalmers has created popular events like the Halloween Parent/Child Glow Golf Night and runs junior championships for 13-and-under and 14-and-over age groups. Chalmers is also the captain of a Saucon Valley PGA Junior League team.
Chalmers is active in the Lehigh Valley community, working with the Bethlehem YMCA’s LPGA-USGA Girls Golf of Lehigh Valley program and helping out with the Tri-State Championship for scholastic players hoping to move on and play competitive college golf.
Chalmers also runs a college golf night at Saucon Valley, hosting college coaches who share their experiences with the college recruiting process.
The bar for youth development in the Philadelphia Section was set pretty high as Andy Miller, the director of instruction at LedgeRock Golf Club in Mohnton, Berks County, was honored by the PGA of America as the winner of the national Youth Player Development Award in 2021.
Miller won the Youth Player Development Award in the Philadelphia Section in 2013, ’18 and ’19 and was the Teacher and Coach of the Year in the Section in 2020. In the early dark days of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, Miller put out a series of practice videos on Twitter that enabled homebound youngsters to work on their games indoors.
Miller was among the national honorees recognized at the PGA of America National Awards Ceremony Nov. 1st of last year, the opening night of the 106th PGA Annual Meeting at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix, Ariz.
The Philadelphia Section put up the short video about Miller that was presented at the awards ceremony that had comments from a couple of his star pupils, including Evelyn Wong, the PIAA Class AAA runnerup as a senior at Emmaus in 2021 who is a freshman on the Lehigh women’s golf team, and Nick Fioravante, who was a PIAA Class AAA qualifier as a senior at Berks Catholic in 2018 and is a senior on the men’s golf team at York.
Todd Love, the head pro at West Shore Country Club in Camp Hill, was honored as the Philadelphia Section’s Merchandiser of the Year – Private Category, which recognizes a professional working at a private golf facility who excels in business and merchandising in the promotion of golf.
Love has been at West Shore since 1996 and took over as the head pro in 2017. His focus is to provide options for the 800 members at West Shore. Love will change displays on a weekly basis and works closely with his team to present merchandise in the most effective way possible.
West Shore’s sales were on pace for a double-digit increase percentage-wise in 2022 from its 2021 figures.
Ian Madinger, the head pro at Plantation Lakes Golf & Country Club in Millsboro, Del., was honored as the Merchandiser of the Year – Public Category, which recognizes a professional working at a public golf facility who excels in business and merchandising in the promotion of golf.
After four years as an assistant at Plantation Lakes, Madinger took over as the head pro in 2020. Madinger tries to keep his prices competitive with the big-box retailers.
Much like Love at West Shore, Madinger’s sales in the Plantation Lakes pro shop were headed for a double-digit increase in 2022 over the previous year.
Alex MaGann, the director of golf at the Seaview Resort in Galloway Township, N.J., was honored as the Merchandiser of the Year – Resort Category, which recognizes a professional working at a resort golf facility who excels in business and merchandising in the promotion of golf.
Seaview’s classic Bay Course layout plays host to The ShopRite LPGA Classic Presented by Acer each year.
McGann sets up a retail promotional calendar each offseason and works with his team, including Area Retail Manager Katie Werner and head pro Jeff Carswell, to finalize sales targets. McCann has also introduced an incentive plan for assistant pros and hourly shop employees that can earn them bonuses once monthly targets are reached.
Like his fellow Merchandiser of the Year honorees, McGann was on target for double-digit percentage growth in sales in 2022 compared to Seaview’s 2021 numbers.
Kevin Duffy, the head pro at Riverton Country Club in Cinnaminson, N.J., received the inaugural Deacon Palmer Award, which goes to a PGA professional who displays outstanding integrity, character and leadership while overcoming a major obstacle in his or her life.
Duffy’s first child, daughter Molly Rose, was born in 2013 and suffers from spastic paraplegia type 47, a rare hereditary disease. Duffy continued with his duties at Riverton while helping his newborn daughter with therapy to deal with her condition. In 2021, the Duffys had a boy, Owen Patrick, who also suffers from SPG47.
Partnering with another family in the same situation, the Duffys started a fundraising golf tournament with a goal to find a cure for SPG47.
The response from the community to the Golf for a Cure tournament has been overwhelming with the event raising $1.4 million in its first six years. A gene therapy has shown promise in the fight against SPG47 and is in the final stages of the process to gain approval from the FDA.
Merion Golf Club’s Keith Clawson is the winner of the Justin Riegel Assistant Golf Professional of the Year Award.
The assistant pro award honors the memory of Riegel, who had been an assistant pro at several courses in the region and died tragically in the spring of 2020 in his new position as the head pro at Philmont Country Club. Riegel was hustling players off the golf course at Philmont when lightning struck a tree, which fell on the golf cart shed with Riegel dying when the shed collapsed on him.
Clawson is the chair of the Philadelphia Assistants’ Organization (PAO) and has worked hard to make the PAO a source of numerous educational opportunities for its members.
Clawson is in charge of Merion’s youth golf program while also staying busy with merchandising, inventory management, men’s golf tournaments, team building, and private lessons for club members.
Clawson volunteers for PGA HOPE’s Philadelphia chapter at the Union League’s Liberty Hill Course and was one of the volunteers providing free instruction during the Youth Day at the PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship.
John Rutecki, an account executive for Greyson Clothiers in Howell, N.J., is the Salesperson of the Year, an award that recognizes a sale representative who contributes to the Section and is involved with sponsoring Section events.
Rutecki is an industry veteran with more than 25 years experience.
At Greyson, Rutecki has launched an ambassador program to make sure he’s getting as much feedback as possible from Section pros who sell its products.
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