GCSAA announces Anthony Williams, CGCS, as the first winner of the Grassroots Ambassador Leadership Award, presented in partnership with The Toro Co. Williams, a 21-year GCSAA member, is director of golf course maintenance at the Four Seasons Golf and Sports Club in Irving, Texas.

The Grassroots Ambassador Leadership Award is a new honor designed to recognize superintendents and assistant superintendents making great strides in advocacy.

As a veteran Grassroots Ambassador, Williams' consistent outreach efforts since 2014 with not one, but two congressmen, was a large factor in his win. Advocacy has become part of Williams' daily approach to his work because he "realized that when you attend some of these meetings with members of Congress, you become not just a better superintendent, but also a better citizen."

Originally from Georgia, Williams was a member of the inaugural Grassroots Ambassador class and was paired to work with Rep. Hanks Johnson (D-GA) representing the eastern side of Atlanta. Williams quickly noticed this new undertaking might be more challenging than he first imagined.

"I attended the first bootcamp held at the Golf Industry Show in 2015, and sitting there in that session I'll admit, I felt as lost as anybody. I had no idea how I was going to connect with Rep. Johnson," he said.

At first glance their differences were clear. Johnson was a lawyer, practicing Buddhist and vegetarian who grew up in the inner city. Williams was a turf grower and lifelong Christian who was raised on a farm, enjoyed hunting and a high protein diet. However, Williams was not going to allow their differences to define their relationship.

"In working with lawmakers, I came to understand that you don't have to agree on everything, but at least if you can understand where each other are coming from, you might find some things in common, and the one thing we always have in common is our community," Williams said.

After an initial meeting, Johnson toured Williams' course where he volunteered to sponsor one of the 108 bluebird boxes onsite, later saying, "the environmental work, the beauty of the property and the variety of activities and venues are a tremendous asset to our community."

After a move to Texas, Williams decided to restart his advocacy journey by reaching out to his new congressman, Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX). Starting from scratch in his role as an ambassador, Williams decided this time around instead of pursuing advocacy alone, he would act as a mentor to one of his assistant superintendents with an interest in politics, thereby passing along the ambassador torch.

Williams and assistant superintendent Mitch O'Brey, a six year GCSAA member, recently met with Marchant in the congressman's district office.

"The congressman asked up front, 'what do you want?' We said we were there to just introduce ourselves, and he said, 'Oh come on, everybody wants something. What do you want?' I said, 'no seriously, we just wanted to say hi and introduce ourselves," Williams said. "Now of course we discussed our priority issues and left behind some of our advocacy material, but I think he was genuinely struck by our desire to simply be a resource for him. It made a lot of difference on that day, and now we have something to build on."

As the first winner of the Grassroots Ambassador Leadership award, Williams continues to raise the profile of the golf industry with members of Congress, and he appreciates the opportunity to get involved in this unique way.

"I'm thoroughly excited to be chosen as the winner and I want to thank the gang at GCSAA so much," he said. "It has always been a team effort, and I feel like every time I pay my dues, I think of everything I'm getting back in return. I mean, if you are not an active member you are missing out. You have access to and the ability to get in the middle of so many things. For me, the best part is the journey and to have walked the walk. I just want to know, what's next? Where are we going?"

The Grassroots Ambassador Leadership Award will be given on a quarterly basis. To recognize other great advocacy efforts undertaken by Grassroots Ambassadors submit nominations, including self-nominations, for the next award by May 31.