PGA of America Opens Golf Central Office

Here comes the PGA of America. 

The organization is returning to its roots in Westchester by opening a satellite office in Elmsford this fall. The office will be at "Golf Central" on Knollwood Road, which houses the headquarters of both the Metropolitan PGA Section and the Metropolitan Golf Association as well as the Women's Metropolitan Golf Association, the Westchester Golf Association, the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association, and the Hudson Valley Golf Course Superintendents Association (did I miss anybody?).

Kevin Ring, The PGA of America’s chief marketing officer, will relocate to the area to head the office, which will be helpful as the organization gets ready for its Centennial Celebration in 2016 and 98th PGA Championship to be held that year at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J.  The office will also be used to build deeper PR, marketing, and communications relationships in the NY media market.

Robert White, a club pro and entrepreneur at Wykagyl CountryClub in New Rochelle, became the PGA’s first president at a meeting of leading pros and amateurs called by Rodman Wanamaker, son of the department store founder, to organize the group at the Hotel Martinique, now the Radisson Martinique, in Manhattan. Wanamaker donated the namesake trophy awarded to the winner of the PGA Championship each year. The inaugural PGA Championship was played in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville.

 

“We are very excited about establishing a foothold in the New York metropolitan area, near the birthplace of The PGA of America,” said PGA CEO Pete Bevacqua. “New York holds a key to our future and a special link to our storied past. As we drive forward towards our centennial in 2016, the region will play a major role in telling the story of the first 100 years of The PGA and what the next 100 have in store for our association.”

Welcome home!

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf