Super Notes

Gus A. Vincenty, golf course superintendent at PGA National Resort & Spa (Champion Course), is hosting the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Yale’s Ramsay named superintendent of the year
Scott Ramsay, who has overseen the rebirth of the Yale Golf Course in New Haven, Conn., since coming to the historic course in 2003, was named the 2006 golf course Superintendent of the Year.

Mike Packer VP of global sales for Club Car (L), with Scott Ramsay at the Golf Industry Show

Ramsay, 47, was selected from 80 superintendents throughout the U.S. who were nominated for the honor by club members, general managers, assistants and club professionals. The sixth annual Superintendent of the Year award was presented by Golfweek’s SuperNEWS magazine and sponsored by Club Car. Ramsay was given a Club Car Carryall Turf 252 utility vehicle during an awards ceremony at the Golf Industry Show.

Ramsay’s first encounter with the 80-year-old Yale course came in 1985 during a casual round. But the course, which was designed by golf architectural icons Seth Raynor and Charles Blair Macdonald, made an impression. "I swore to myself that if I could ever get back there, I would try to spend my career there," Ramsay said.

When he finally did return, to follow Harry Muesel as superintendent, he found a course that needed someone with his appreciation for classic golf course architecture, agronomic knowledge and ability to bring people together in support of a noble effort.

One of the first challenges Ramsay had to overcome was the fact he had no grounds staff. With members of the campus-wide service employees union on strike ("As I was driving on campus, they were driving off," Ramsay recalls), he had to recruit basketball and hockey coaches to rake bunkers and cut greens.  

Once the strike was settled and Ramsay had his crew back, he set to work refining bunkers, enlarging greens and making the course play firmer and faster. The Yale course now stands at No. 60 on Golfweek’s Best list of Top 100 Classic Courses and as the country’s No. 1 college course.

"It’s not just better, it’s incredibly better, and it’s better at an historically important place," said Brad Klein, founding editor of SuperNEWS.

Ted Woehrle among five named to Michigan Golf Hall Of Fame

GCSAA Past President Ted Woerhle is one of five new members of the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame announced by Michigan Golf Foundation.

Woehrle, a resident of Troy resident, Mich., who has seen the golf course superintendent profession advance from turf farmer to the highly specialized field it is today, began learning the craft in Illinois from his father, Herman, and graduated from Purdue University in 1954.

He was superintendent at Beverly Country Club, a Donald Ross-designed course on Chicago’s South Side when the club hosted two Western Opens and two Women’s Westerns. He was hired during the construction phase of Point O’Woods Country Club in Benton Harbor and that began a long association with Robert Trent Jones who designed the course and did some tweaking of Oakland Hills during Woehrle’s 24 years at the club.

More than 50 of Woehrle’s former assistants have become head superintendents and he has been deeply involved in the growth of the profession. He served as president of the GCSAA in 1977.

Other inductees include John Lindholm and Steve Maddalena who compiled brilliant playing records on the local, state and national levels; Bruce Fossum, who coached at Michigan State University for 25 years and is a member of the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame and PGA professional Mark Wilson, a top international and national Rules of Golf official.

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