December Newsletter

CENTRAL NEW YORK PGA

DECEMBER 2024

INSIDE THIS ISSUE PAGE 3

NOVEMBER RECAP GOLF PRO OF THE YEAR

PAGE 4

LETTER FROM OUR CEO

PAGE 5

CONGRATS! PDR OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIP INFO

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LETTER FROM PGA REACH CNY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

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PGA REACH CNY UPDATES STUART MILLER DONATIONS

PAGE 8 HOPE 4 HEROES INFORMATION

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OFFICE CLOSINGS MEMBER LINKS PDR CYCLE INFORMATION

PAGE 10

JLG WEBINAR DEC 9 JUNIOR TOUR OPENINGS DCP SITES BOOKED

PAGE 11 PGA JLG SIMULATOR MONTH

PAGE 12 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

SIEGEL COMPETES AT ASSISTANT CHAMP Siegel, an Assistant Golf Professional at Beaver Meadows Golf Club, is in Florida to compete in the National Car Rental Assistant PGA Professional Championship. He is the lone Central New York PGA representative at the four day, 72hole stroke play tournament at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie.

“It is an honor to represent the CNY Section.

I have a lot of respect for the past qualifiers from our Section.”

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LANZA, MARTINS ENTER HALL OF FAME The Central New York PGA is proud to announce the induction of Joe Lanza and Bruce Martins into its Section Hall of Fame. The PGA of America Golf Lanza and Martins’ dedication to the game of golf and their contributions to the Section helped them earned Hall of Fame honors.

Professionals will be honored at the 21st annual CNY PGA Section Special Awards and Hall of Fame Banquet.

FULL STORY>

NY GOLF FACILITY SURVEY The Empire State Golf Alliance comprised of the New York State Golf Associations, PGA Sections, GCSAA chapters, the New York Turfgrass Association, .

CMAA chapters, and the NGCOA has launched an Economic and Environmental Impact Survey to capture the valuable contributions of New York’s golf industry. We need one economic and one environmental survey completed per facility. Help us make a strong case for the positive impact of golf in New York! Our NY golf facility survey closes Dec 20! Highlight golf’s contributions to our state & secure credits. Don’t miss out!

SURVEY>

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FULL STORY>

MULHERIN, GOLF PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR

PGA of America Golf Professional Linda Mulherin (Drumlins Country Club) was named the 2024 Central New York PGA Golf Professional of the Year this week.

“It is an award decided by your PGA peers. It means a lot to be recognized by them,” said Mulherin, the Teaching Professional at Drumlins. “I hold my membership as a PGA member in high regard. I wear the logo proudly and represent it to the best of my ability.”

Mulherin will be honored at the 21st annual Special Awards and Holiday Banquet on Dec. 5 at Drumlins Country Club.

Mulherin, of Syracuse, began her career as an assistant working for Bill Grygiel Jr., PGA at Seneca Golf Club. After becoming a PGA of America Member in 1994, Mulherin has dedicated much of her career to growing the game through golf instruction.

Mulherin’s distinguished career includes seven CNY PGA Teacher of the Year awards, Section Player Development Award (2018) and Youth Player Development Award (2006). An annual junior tournament, the Tesori/Mulherin Cup, was named in her honor because of her heavy involvement and devotion to junior golf and junior players.

A LETTER FROM OUR LEADERSHIP I would like to take a moment to share my appreciation and gratitude with all of you. I want to thank each one of you for your role in making the game and business of golf so vibrant in Central New York. Our team shared many accomplishments this year but none of them could have been done without you. I'm blessed to be able to work with all of you in the game that I hold so dearly.

I'd also like to take a quick moment to congratulate this year's recipients of our Special Awards. Last week's Special Awards Banquet and Holiday Party welcomed over 100 guests as we celebrated the 2024 class of Special Award winners and Players of the Year. We also welcomed two new members, Joe Lanza and Bruce Martins, into the CNY PGA Hall of Fame. It was an amazing evening, and I'd encourage everyone to save next year's date (Dec. 4, 2025).

Please join us in celebrating your fellow members’ accomplishments.

As the year winds down and we look towards the future our staff and Board of Directors continue to be busy at work.

There are several things on the horizon that we are looking to leverage including the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage and our Section's Centennial Celebration in 2026.

I love the fact that we are concentrating our efforts on expanding our foundation's outreach. Doing the right thing in the community benefits us all while shining a brighter light on all of you and the game!

On behalf of our entire CNY PGA Team, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday Season!

Sincerely, ALAN SEAMANS, PGA Central New York PGA CEO & PGA REACH CNY President PAGE FOUR | CNY PGA

Welcome Louie Tesori!

Join us in congratulating Joe and Sarah Tesori on the birth of their third boy, Louie Tesori!

Louie was born on October 24th, 2024. The new family of five are all happy healthy, and ready to celebrate Louie’s first Christmas. Congratulations Joe!

Road2The Tour Summit The Road2TheTour Summit is an online, two-day event happening December 16-17, featuring 16 world-class speakers, including representatives from the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, and DP World Tour. Our lineup of experts includes renowned names such as: Mark Immelman, Pete Cowen, Parker McLachlin, Ted Scott, Sasho MacKenzie, Scott Fawcett, Ralph Bauer...and many others.

You can find more details about the event and register at https://road2thetourgolfsummit.com/pga

BECOME A MEMBER CLUB! It’s not too late! This program supports PGA REACH CNY. Your contribution is key to growing the game of golf in Central New York. Thank you to those of you who continue your support and we are hopeful more of you will consider participating as we grow this great game with our youth.

PGA Financial Assistance Fund Scholarship We are pleased to announce application for the 2025-2026 academic year is available now.

To be eligible, students must possess a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.4. Furthermore, they must be a child or grandchild of a PGA Member in good standing and not have exceeded the maximum limit of two scholarships during their undergraduate studies. The application can be accessed via this link, https://aim.applyists.net/Account/LogOn?ReturnUrl=%2fPGA. PAGE FIVE | CNY PGA

A LETTER FROM PGA REACH LEADERSHIP

We had our annual PGA REACH CNY board of governors meeting at the section office on November 18th. We covered all of our progress made in 2024 along with what we have on the horizon in 2025.We are looking forward to a great 2025 season and still have a couple more events planned for 2024 including a Toy Drive at Nottingham HS in collaboration with the Mary Nelson Foundation. I also want to give a big thank you to Dan Steinsdoerfer at Bellevue Country Club for donating clothes from his membership for families in need. We will be presenting those clothes to the Mary Nelson Foundation right before Christmas Day and are so appreciative of Dan and his members for doing this on behalf of PGA REACH CNY. We have seen tremendous growth in our PGA HOPE programs here in CNY and went from 4 programs submitted to PGA REACH for funding in 2024 to 17 programs submitted to PGA REACH for funding in 2025. What is so powerful about this growth is that we are impacting more lives of our veteran community here in CNY and are so grateful for that on behalf of our PGA Professionals and supporting clubs. We should be hearing before the end of the month from PGA REACH on how much funding support we will have from them. After we are notified, we will reach out to all of our professionals who have submitted their programs for funding and make them aware of what we are able to fund.

Our PGA REACH CNY jr. league team at Sunnycrest continues to grow and with the addition of a fall program this past year, we are confident that the growth will continue to sustain. We have some larger plans in 2025 to expand our youth affected in not only Syracuse but in the Oswego and Binghamton markets and have begun those conversations with local PGA Professionals and community members in those areas. We are also planning to have a youth camp at Sunnycrest where we will give local center city youth golf instruction and educate them on how they have opportunities in the golf space here in CNY. Lastly, for our PGA Works pillar, we have a Syracuse University minority student golf instruction program beginning in April. We have 3 dates scheduled and are targeting 20-25 minority students who we will give instruction to in the areas of; etiquette, full swing & short game. We are also slated for our Women’s Association championship in the fall of 2025 and are targeting 60-70 women here in CNY after our record attendance in 2024.

Great things are on the horizon and we are so fortunate to have support from all of you PGA Professionals. I do want to thank you again on behalf of our underprivileged families here in CNY for your support of the Toy Drive at the fall meeting. We are looking forward to the 21st of December at Nottingham and if you would like to come and show your support, please reach out!

Have a great holiday season and hope all is well with you and yours.

Best, Joe Tesori, PGA PAGE SIX | CNY PGA

UPDATES

PGA REACH CNY A WONDERFUL JOURNEY IN THE GAME OF GOLF We just received our first check from our local long standing sales representative Stuart Miller for his pledge to donate 10% of his royalties he is receiving from his recent book "A Wonderful Journey in The Game of Golf". The amount of the check was $200 donated to PGA Reach CNY. Stuart has also done this donation to the other 3 sections in his territory he serves: NENY, WNY, and the Connecticut PGA. He is asking for any of you who have not received his book yet via his generous tee gift for his Stroke Play sponsorship this year or for several of you purchasing his book off of Amazon.com to consider purchasing the book for this Holiday Season for your own reading pleasure or to send to a special friend or family member as a Christmas gift. Again all proceeds with any book sales, Stuart has made it clear to me his pledge will continue to support our PGA Reach program.

Stuart has been a lifelong friend and supporter of the CNY PGA and we are so grateful for his generosity over the years. Stuart has been very active with our section and now with our foundation, so any support will go a long way. For those who have read his book and would like to leave a review for him on Amazon here is the link to do that.

Click Here On behalf of Stuart, we at the section office would simply just like to say thank you for your consideration on this matter of purchasing a book this Holiday Season to help continue with our PGA Reach initiatives.

Click Here to purchase “A wonderful journey in the game of golf”

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HOPE4HEROES MATCH A big thank you goes out to Ryan McGinnis, PGA (Turning Stone Resort) who is matching all donations for the Hope 4 Heroes campaign through his social media platform. He is matching the first $500 raised by tracking all donations if they type, Ryan McGinnis Golf. Thank you Ryan for doing this match and for all you do for PGA HOPE & our Veterans here in CNY. Click Here to Donate now to HOPE4Heroes

PGA REACH CNY night at the Syracuse Crunch!

SAVE THE DATE!

Save the date for April 12 as the Crunch take on Laval at 7pm. We will be distributing a promo code to use when you buy your tickets.

More details to follow. We hope to see you there!

PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) is on a mission unlike any other – to change and save Veteran’s lives through the game of golf.

Veterans have given everything to be there for our country when we need it the most.

We need to be there when they come back. PGA HOPE aims to serve more than 50,000 Veterans by the end of 2024 and expand to over 550 program locations touching every corner of the United States.

You can help us build a community where Veterans can thrive through the game of golf.

PGA HOPE is doing more than putting a club in a Veteran’s hands – it’s saving that Veteran’s life.

Being there for those who have our six.

Scan the QR Code to JOIN IN on the mission today.

MEMBER INFORMATION OFFICE CLOSINGS The office will be closed December 23 to January 3, 2025. We will reopen on January 6 at 9am. We wish you and your families a very happy holiday season!

PGA MEMBER LINKS CNY PGA Membership Directory Section & Foundation Partners Workday Home Page Workday Help Video Northeast Region Education Hub

PDR CYCLE The NEW PDR cycle period is 6/16/22 - 6/15/25. Click here to see the PGA Professional Development Requirements chart for ways to earn credits. Check out our new Northeast Region Education Hub for more PDR opportunities.

Northeast Region Education Hub PDR CYCLE IS ENDING SOON! PAGE NINE | CNY PGA

PGA JR. LEAGUE Coaches’ registration for 2025 is now open!!

Please be sure to register your team as soon as possible! Thank you to all that attended our Webinar Dec 9. If you missed it but would like to tune in, please click below for the recording.

Click here for Webinar recording Click here for presentation Looking to continue JLG in the winter? Check out the next page for how you can join JLG’s “simulator month” this February!

Thank you for growing the game!

JUNIOR TOUR Any facility interested in hosting a Jr. Tour Event next season please reach out! We are planning our schedule now!

DRIVE, CHIP & PUTT We have finished scheduling our qualifiers for the 2026 Qualifying season! Thank you to all who have reached out! Be on the lookout for our schedule soon.

Congrats to Junior Tour player & CNY DCP Qualifier Tommy Goodelle on winning the Regional Qualifier at the Ridgewood Country Club! Tommy will now head to Augusta the Sunday before The Masters to compete in the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals!

PAGE TEN | CNY PGA

The holidays, despite the snow, are my favorite season. It’s a time where it seems like everyone believes in a little bit of magic.

It's a time when belief in the unseen, whether it's the spirit of giving, the warmth of family, or even the possibility of miracles just seems a little more tangible.

I’ve always loved the holidays because it feels like everyone opens their hearts a little more, allowing space for wonder and connection. So, take extra time this season to embrace the magic around you, whether in quiet moments or laughter-filled gatherings with loved ones.

Wishing you all the joy, warmth, and a little bit of holiday magic. See you next year!

Happy holidays and thank you all for your constant efforts to grow the game!

Brittany Wowelko

“Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

The Santa Clause