Golf Course Management magazine, GCSAA TV earn top honors in 2019 Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association awards program

Lawrence, Kan. (June 25, 2019) – Golf Course Management (GCM) magazine, the official publication of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America,earned a total of 11 awards — including honors for its two newest digital properties, GCMOnline.com and the GCSAA Podcast — in the 2019 Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) Communications Contest. The awards were for work produced in 2018 and were presented during the organization's annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., in May.

GCMOnline.com and its editor, Megan Hirt, were honored with a first-place award for Websites in the contest's New Media division. In that same division, the GCSAA Podcast and Scott Hollister, GCM editor-in-chief, won a merit award in the Podcast category.

Two superintendent contributors to GCM also won awards. Jim Nedrow, the Class A superintendent at Indian Creek Golf Club in Elkhorn, Neb., won a first-place writing award in the Editorial/Opinion Piece category for "Don't let time pass you by," which was published in June 2018. Dave Waymire, CGCS, with American Golf Corp., took first in the Writing, Business Management category for "The 10 commandments of successful superintendents," published in July 2018.

Other GCM winners included:

• Howard Richman, associate editor, who earned a first-place writing award in the Product Information category for "In with the new," a story on the development of Toro's new Outcross turf utility vehicle that was published in February 2018.
• Roger Billings and Kelly Neis, senior managers, creative services, shared a first-place award in the Best Single Photo, Use of Stock Art in the Photography/Video/Multimedia category for the cover of the October 2018 issue ("A family affair"). They also shared a merit award in Special Projects, Miscellaneous Special Publishing Projects for the 2019 Dog Days of Turf calendar.
• Hal Phillips, a longtime freelance contributor to GCM, took first place for Writing, Environmental Stewardship for his story, "A new sheriff in town," about the team at Vineyard Golf Club in Edgartown, Mass. The story was published in January 2018, and also won the Gardner Award for writing, a best-in-show honor.
• Thom Nikolai, Ph.D., from Michigan State University, a bi-monthly GCM columnist, earned a merit award in the Writing, Series of Columns by Regular Department Columnist category for his "Up to Speed" columns.
• Freelance photographer Rick Bern won a merit in Photography/Video/Multimedia, Best Print Magazine Cover for his photo of Jason VanBuskirk that appeared on the Sept. 2018 cover.
• The GCM staff received a merit award for its collective reporting on the 2018 Golf Industry Show in San Antonio that was published in April 2018 in Special Projects, Best Coverage in a Magazine of an On-Site Event.

In addition, GCSAA TV and EPIC Creative, which produces the site on behalf of GCSAA, won four awards in total — two firsts and two merits — for video work that appeared on the online video product. And Hollister was selected as TOCA's Volunteer of the Year for 2018 after stepping in to serve as interim president when both the organization's president and vice president left the industry mid-year.