PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- Jim Antkiewicz, the PGA director of golf at The Club at Nevillewood in Presto, Pa., whose efforts in growing the game in the greater Pittsburgh area have inspired both youth and aspiring PGA Professionals, has been named the 55th recipient of the PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award, the highest annual honor bestowed by The PGA of America on a PGA Golf Professional.
A 25-year member of The PGA of America, Antkiewicz is the third member of the Tri-State PGA Section to be so honored.
Antkiewicz will be recognized at The PGA of America Awards, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, during the 56th PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center's Linda W. Chapin Auditorium in Orlando, Fla. The program, honoring all 2008 national award winners, features the following recipients:
* Martin Hall of Palm City, Fla. - PGA Teacher of the Year
* Mark Wilson of Grand Rapids, Mich. - Horton Smith Award (Professional Education)
* Clayton Cole of Cherry Hills Village, Colo. - Bill Strausbaugh Award (Employment and Community Service)
* Jimmy Headrick of Slidell, La. - PGA Junior Golf Leader
* Bob Collins of West Middlesex, Pa. - President's Plaque (Player Development)
* Philadelphia PGA Section - Herb Graffis Award (Player Development)
The 2008 PGA Merchandisers of the Year Award winners are:
* John Lyberger of Gaithersburg, Md. - Private Facilities
* Mike Woods of Folsom, Calif. - Public Facilities
* Michael Buccerone, Myrtle Beach, S.C. - Resort Facilities
"Our 2008 award winners represent the best in our Association, and have each left an impact upon the game through their endeavors at their home club or facility," said PGA of America President Brian Whitcomb. "It is through their passion to become the best that they can be that PGA Professionals are able to stand as the experts in the game and the business of golf."
JIM ANTKIEWICZ - PGA Golf Professional of the Year:
Jim Antkiewicz, PGA director of golf at The Club at Nevillewood in Presto, Pa., follows Gary Ellis of Pittsburgh Field Club and Bob Ford of Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club as the third Tri-State PGA member to receive the Association's highest annual honor.
"It is a very humbling experience to be recognized as the PGA Golf Professional of the Year, and selected out of the 28,000 men and women who make up our Association," said Antkiewicz. "It is the highest recognition that I could receive.
"I knew at a very young age that I wanted a career in golf. Once I had begun to caddie at age 11, I knew the field and business I wanted to be in. It has been very gratifying to have played a part in introducing youth to the game and to help young professionals find their niche in our industry."
Elected to PGA membership in 1982, Antkiewicz, 51, has served as District 4 Director on the PGA national Board of Directors, from 2002 through 2005, as Tri-State PGA Section President from 2002-2006, and is currently a member of the PGA National Government Relations Committee, and past member of the PGA Budget and Audit Committee (2002-05) and the PGA Education Committee (1995-98).
A former caddie at Ambridge (Pa.) Country Club, where he first sneaked on to the golf course to caddie and work in the bag room at age 11 (one year under the age requirement), Antkiewicz has been a leader in both his home facility and throughout his Section. He has guided teaching programs that inspired, by his count, a dozen past assistants to become their own leaders in the golf industry. He is a 1980 graduate of Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa., and turned professional a year earlier.
He gained his first assistant professional position at age 21, at Allegheny Country Club where he served from 1978-83 under the tutelage of two-time Senior PGA Professional of the Year Roy Vucinich (1997-98), one of the premier playing professionals in the country.
Antkiewicz moved to Highland Country Club in 1983 and remained until 1995, when he took his present position at The Club at Nevillewood.
Antkiewicz founded the Tri-State PGA Teaching Academy in 1993, serving as its coordinator for two years. Since 2006, he has been chair of the Section Growth of the Game Committee and Long Range Planning Committee.
Antkiewicz and his wife, Renee, live in Aliquippa, Pa., and are the parents of a daughter, Leah, a junior at Bucknell University and a co-captain of the golf team; and a son, Vincent, a senior in high school and a member of his school's golf team.
MARTIN HALL - PGA Teacher of the Year:
Martin Hall, PGA director of instruction at Ibis Golf & Country Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., is the third member of the South Florida PGA Section to be named PGA Teacher of the Year — preceded by Gary Wiren in 1987 and Jim McLean in 1994.
Earlier this year, Hall, 52, was awarded PGA Master Professional status by the Professional Golfers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland.
Born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, Hall is the first native of the United Kingdom to be a recipient of the PGA Teacher of the Year Award. He was introduced to the game on his own.
At age 11, having already declared himself the next best soccer player in the country, Hall decided one day to try golf and gathered his mother's set of clubs from a closet, boarded a bus and arrived at Newcastle Golf Club, where his family had a membership. He walked out to the first tee and began playing.
Hall moved to the United States in 1985, and served from 1986-91 as director of instruction at St. Andrews Country Club in Boca Raton, Fla., and from 1991 to 1997 as lead instructor for the Nicklaus-Flick Golf Schools. He was elected to PGA membership in 1996, and a year later was named PGA director of instruction at Ibis Golf & Country Club in West Palm Beach.
Since 1994, Hall has ranked No. 12 in GOLF Magazine's Top 100 Golf Instructors roster, and is a charter member of Golf Digest's top 50 instructors. In 2003, he was named the South Florida PGA Teacher of the Year. Hall has collaborated on five books and written two, Golf Myths Exposed and What Tour Pros Know and You Don't.
Hall married the former Lisa Hackney in 1998, who has since gone on to become a standout member of the Ladies European Tour, winning three times in the past nine months, including the 2008 Australian New Zealand Ladies Masters.
Lisa Hall is a former LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year and a two-time Solheim Cup participant. She is one of many professionals whom Hall has coached to premier heights, led by Morgan Pressel of Boca Raton, Fla., whom Martin Hall has guided since she was nine years old. Pressel's accomplishments include winning the 2005 U.S. Amateur, finishing runner-up in the 2005 Women's U.S. Open, and in 2007, at age 17, becoming the youngest LPGA major champion when she captured the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Though his work week of some 40 hours on the practice range is highlighted by many of the most pre-eminent players in women's golf, Hall also has left an indelible impact upon players of all ages and abilities. Four of his students earned a berth in the 2007 U.S. Junior Championship.
Other Tour professionals whom Hall has guided include former Women's U.S. Open Champion Alison Nicholas, LPGA Tour star Tammie Green, Solheim Cup veterans Catrin Nilsmark, Patricia Meurnier Lebouc and Trish Johnson; U.S. Amateur runner-up Steve Scott, now of the Canadian Tour; Nationwide Tour member Hiroshi Matsuo and Champions Tour member George Burns.
Hall and his wife, Lisa, live in Palm City, Fla.
MARK WILSON - Horton Smith Award:
A contributor to PGA education for more than two decades, PGA Master Professional Mark Wilson of Grand Rapids, Mich., is the second member of the Michigan PGA Section to be named the national PGA Horton Smith Award winner. The award, established in 1965 and named for the late PGA Past President and inaugural Masters Champion, gives special recognition to an individual PGA Professional for outstanding and continuing contributions to professional education.
Since 1982, Wilson has served as PGA head professional at Watermark Country Club in Grand Rapids. He was elected to PGA membership in 1984.
The chair of the PGA Rules Committee since 2005, Wilson has presented education programs throughout the country, and especially in the Michigan PGA Section, where he is an eight-time recipient of the Section Horton Smith Award. He won the 2007 Section Bill Strausbaugh Award and was inducted in 2007 into the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame and this year was an inductee into the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame.
Wilson, 53, is a native of Grand Rapids and a 1978 graduate of Michigan State University. He has served as a Rules official at every major championship in golf, a list that includes 19 PGA Championships, 13 Masters, five British Opens, three U.S. Opens and six Ryder Cups. He was chief referee at the 37th Ryder Cup earlier this month.
The past four years, Wilson has been a consulting member of the USGA Rules of Golf Committee, contributing ideas and language to a new and revised Decisions on The Rules of Golf, which clarifies and explains the Rules of Golf.
A member of the PGA Rules Committee since 1990, Wilson follows a tradition of PGA Rules colleagues, who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to the Rules of Golf and transferred that expertise to the management of premier championships.
Previous PGA Rules Committee members earning the Horton Smith Award include: the late PGA Past President Bill Clarke (1968), PGA Past President Tom Addis III (1981), Don Essig III (1984), Larry Startzel (1985), PGA Past President Ken Lindsay (1987), Joe Terry (1991), Rick Burton (1993), Ed Hoard (1996), Warren "Stoney" Brown (1997), Ralph Bernhisel (2004) and Tom Carpus (2007).
Wilson and his wife, Sandy, live in Grand Rapids, Mich., and are the parents of a daughter, Megan.
CLAYTON COLE - Bill Strausbaugh Award:
Clayton Cole, a PGA Life Member of Cherry Hills Village, Colo., is the first Colorado PGA Section member to be honored with the Bill Strausbaugh Award. He served from 1991 to April 2008 as PGA head professional at Cherry Hills Country Club.
Cole is a 1963 graduate of the University of Houston and competed on the Cougars' golf team. His golf career began in 1967 working for his father, the late PGA Professional Winnie Cole. In 1970, Clayton Cole was elected to PGA membership and became an assistant professional that year for Warren Smith at Cherry Hills Country Club.
Cole, 67, was a former member of the Northern Texas PGA Section, where he served as president from 1981-82. He served on PGA national committees in three separate decades - from 1978 through 1993 - on the Public Relations, the former PGA Club Professional Tournament Series, Long Range Planning and National Education Committees.
During his career, Cole also mentored 11 assistants at Cherry Hills who went on to PGA head professional positions or significant posts within the industry.
Two former assistants, Joe Assell and Mike Clinton, teamed with Cole to merge an outdoor golf facility in Chicago with the Denver facility to create GolfTEC. Today, GolfTEC has more than 130 stores employing more than 300 PGA Professionals and has achieved $40 million in annual sales.
Cole was the 1993 Colorado PGA Senior Player of the Year, the 1993 Section Merchandiser of the Year, the 1995 and 1996 Colorado PGA Horton Smith Award winner and 2007 Section Bill Strausbaugh Award winner.
Cole directed the annual caddie training at Cherry Hills and was an active contributor to the Colorado Golf Association caddie program. Cherry Hills has produced 35 scholarship recipients in the Western Golf Association/Eisenhower Evans Scholarships over the past 17 years.
Cole was inducted in 2003 into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.
The Bill Strausbaugh Award was established in 1979, and is presented to a PGA Golf Professional who, by their day-to-day efforts, has distinguished themselves in mentoring their fellow PGA Golf Professionals in improving their employment situations and through service to the community. The Award is named in honor of the late Bill Strausbaugh, a PGA Master Professional in the Middle Atlantic PGA Section.
Cole and his wife, Rena, live in Englewood, Colo., and are the parents of three daughters, Debbie, Dianna and Susan.
JIMMY HEADRICK - PGA Junior Golf Leader Award:
Jimmy Headrick is a PGA director of instruction for The First Tee of New Orleans, La., and is the first member of the Gulf States PGA Section to earn the PGA Junior Golf Leader Award.
During the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Headrick lost his home and two positions - his post as PGA director of golf at The Golf Club at Eastover in New Orleans where he had served for more than 20 years, and as the women's golf coach for the University of New Orleans. The storm forced the university to drop eight sports, which included women's golf.
But Headrick began to resurrect his career by working part-time and serving as a tournament official for the Arrowhead Junior Golf Tour. In 2007, Headrick was named executive director of The First Tee of New Orleans.
Headrick, 54, was elected to PGA membership in 1979. He has been a decorated member of the Gulf States PGA Section, winning the inaugural Section PGA Junior Golf Leader Award and was honored again in 2007. He also was recipient of the 1989 Section Golf Professional of the Year Award.
Among his innovative accomplishments include founding the first inner-city golf program in New Orleans in conjunction with The PGA of America and the New Orleans Police Department. Headrick also was involved in the renovation of the New Orleans Junior Golf Tour, which involved more than 160 youngsters, and he initiated the BC Cup, which is in its 14th season as the most prestigious junior golf championship in New Orleans.
The BC Cup also spawned the BC Foundation, which provides junior golf scholarships to a boy and girl in the New Orleans Junior Golf Program not based on golf skills, but rather on academic standing, attitude and community service.
Headrick and his wife, Carol, live in Slidell, La., and are the parents of five children: Joshua, Jill, Jacob, Jared and Josie.
BOB COLLINS - President's Plaque:
Bob Collins, the PGA head professional at Oak Tree Country Club in West Middlesex, Pa., is the first member of the Tri-State PGA Section to win The President Plaque, which is presented to individuals for extraordinary and exemplary contributions and achievements in Player Development. The award considers a PGA Golf Professional's growth of the game leadership commitment at the Section and national levels, and the impact at the members' own facility.
Throughout his professional career, Collins has been involved in a variety of growth of the game programs, dating from the 1980s when he distributed some 10,000 clubs to youngsters as part of The PGA's Clubs For Kids program.
In 1988, Collins began the Tri-State PGA Kings Junior Golf Tournament, which was sponsored by restaurateur Hartley King for players age 12 to 18. The event continues to be an early sellout.
Collins has developed multiple Growth of the Game programs at Oak Tree Country Club, which have expanded rounds of golf played for after-work families, including a Play Golf America Golf Night League.
Collins, 52, is one of the most decorated members of the Tri-State PGA Section, receiving the 1988 and 1990 PGA Junior Golf Leader award; the 1990 Section Golf Professional of the Year, 1995 and 1996 Section Bill Strausbaugh Award and the 2006 and 2007 President's Plaque.
Over the past three years, Collins has immersed himself in promoting such Play Golf America Programs as the Mercer County Golf Trail with other golf course owners, professionals and local hotels.
Collins and his wife, Linda, live in West Middlesex, Pa., and are the parents of daughters Caroline and Lexi.
PHILADELPHIA PGA SECTION - Herb Graffis Award:
The Philadelphia PGA Section celebrates its first Herb Graffis Award, presented annually to a PGA Section for extraordinary or exemplary contributions in player development, whether by conducting or supporting Play Golf America initiatives.
The Philadelphia PGA has sponsored the Junior Golf Tour, has devoted its membership and energy into supporting such organizations as Variety Club and its "Buddy Program," the Philadelphia Police Athletic League, the Mid-Atlantic Blind Golfer Association, the Executive Women's Golf Association, The First Tee and LPGA Youth.
Among Section initiatives include the Top 50 Women's Teachers Clinic, the Victory Golf Show, and the groundbreaking of a three-hole golf course for the physically challenged at the Variety Club Camp and Developmental Center in Montgomery County. The course project follows the Section's nearly 30 years of supporting The Variety Club. More than 100 PGA Professionals have served as "Buddies" with children in The Variety Club during that time. The Buddy Program pairs a PGA Professional with a child with a disability to help introduce that youngster to golf and build a lasting relationship.
The Herb Graffis Award is named in honor of the late golf historian, author, founder of golf magazines, the National Golf Foundation and co-founder of the Golf Writers Association of America. Graffis died at age 95 in 1989.
JOHN LYBERGER JR. - PGA Merchandiser of the Year - Private Facilities:
John Lyberger Jr. has served since 1996 as the PGA director of golf at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., one of the country's most celebrated sites of championship golf. Lyberger, 43, is the first member of the Middle Atlantic PGA Section to be named a PGA Merchandiser of the Year.
Lyberger oversees a core group of eight employees that have elevated Congressional's merchandising reputation with vendors and members. The staff espouses the following "Cornerstones of Congressional Country Club":
"We are in the "happiness" business
We are Family taking care of Family
We are committed to excellence
We exceed our member's expectations - consistently."
Lyberger is a 1988 graduate of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., where he completed the PGA Professional Golf Management curriculum. He began his service at Congressional Country Club in 1987 as an assistant professional and was elected to PGA membership in 1991. From 1992 to 1996, Lyberger served as PGA head professional at WestWinds Golf Club in New Market, Md., before returning to Congressional Country Club.
Lyberger, who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., is engaged to Darcy Ryan, and is the parent of three daughters, Amanda, Jaclyn and Holly.
MIKE WOODS - PGA Merchandiser of the Year - Public Facilities:
Mike Woods, who has spent his entire career at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, Calif., is the second individual of the Northern California PGA Section to be named a PGA Merchandiser of the Year. His award also marks the third time a PGA Professional from Haggin Oaks Golf Club has been so honored, following Ken Morton Sr., the award winner in 1990 and 1998.
Haggin Oaks is a municipal facility boasting two championship golf courses, a world-class teaching facility with more than 15 golf professionals, more than 10 different junior, senior, group and private programs and a 100 stall, lighted practice range that includes five practice greens and two bunkers.
The facility employed 14 PGA Professionals in 2007, with each focused on player development, club fitting, club sales and golf instruction. The Haggin Oaks Golf Super Shop, first built in 1997, spent nearly $500,000 in 2007 to upgrade the golf shop, doubling in size to nearly 15,000 square feet.
Woods, 39, manages a staff that hosts the Haggin Oaks Golf Expo - America's Largest Demo Day, which was founded 33 years ago. The event attracted 17,000 visitors in 2007 and more than 100 vendors. The Haggin Oaks Golf Expo was cited by GolfWorld, Golf Digest and Golf Range magazines as the best golf promotion in the country.
Woods manages a 90-member retail employee unit, spending half his time managing the retail department. Woods' merchandising philosophy carries on a successful tradition at Haggin Oaks: "We create genuine enthusiasm by exceeding service expectations for each and every guest."
A native of San Rafael, Calif., and a graduate of California State University - Sacramento, Woods joined Haggin Oaks in 1993 as an apprentice. He was elected to PGA membership in 1997, when he was named PGA head professional.
Woods and his wife, Leslie, live in Folsom, Calif., and are parents of a son, Sean, and a daughter, Leah.
MICHAEL BUCCERONE - PGA Merchandiser of the Year - Resort Facilities:
Michael Buccerone is the general manager of The Resort Club at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach, S.C., a nationally-recognized hub of golf that features more than 100 golf facilities throughout the "Grand Strand."
Buccerone, 36, graduated in 1995 from Methodist College, and was elected to PGA membership in 2001. He is the seventh member of the Carolinas PGA Section to be named a PGA Merchandiser of the Year. Since the PGA Merchandise of the Year award was first presented in 1978, the Carolinas PGA has been recognized on nine previous occasions.
Specifically, Buccerone's merchandise philosophy is, simply. . ."it does not sell itself. Merchandising is a continuous tactic that can not be putoff or overlooked. Merchandising goes beyond the aspects of golf shop design with color patterns and fixtures, visual displays, special groupings and traffic patterns. Merchandising is nothing more than customer service . . . helping the customer by assisting with ideas for what they want to purchase.
"To interact with guests allows the opportunity to recognize those wants and special requests, observe personal styles and trends, and possibly develop a trustworthy relationship that will be mutually beneficial to the customers and the sales agent."
About The PGA of America:
Since 1916, The PGA of America's mission has been twofold: to establish and elevate the standards of the profession and to grow interest and participation in the game of golf.
By establishing and elevating the standards of the golf profession through world-class education, career services, marketing and research programs, the Association enables PGA Professionals to maximize their performance in their respective career paths and showcases them as experts in the game and in the $76 billion golf industry.
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