2022 Iowa PGA Awards Deacon Palmer Award

2022 Iowa PGA Deacon Palmer Award

Mark Egly, PGA

Mark Egly of Des Moines Driving Range has been named the 2022 Iowa PGA Deacon Palmer Award winner by the Iowa PGA Award’s Committee. The "Deacon Palmer Award" bestows special recognition on a PGA Golf Professional who personally displays outstanding integrity, character and leadership, in the effort to overcome a major obstacle in their life. This individual is an unsung hero/heroine at their facility and in their community, who serves to inspire, empower and assist others, both inside and outside of the game.

When asked on what this means to win, Egly responded with, “It is very hard to put into words an award that is named after a friend of almost 50 years father. A friend who once arranged to have my 12-year-old son Taylor come to see him so that he could tell Taylor about our friendship, all our work together as PGA professionals, and so much more about the things we had done together to make this world a better place. On June 28th, 1973, I first met Arnold Palmer at the age of 17. By the end of that day, I had gained a lifelong mentor and friend, a friend who was willing to share every ounce of wisdom he had with me throughout our lives. Today, all I can say is that I am very proud and thankful to be the recipient of an Award that bears the Palmer name, for I know everything that the award stands for and how the Palmer’s strongly shaped the path of my life! What does winning the Deacon Palmer Award mean to me? More than any words can properly express adequately!”

With Mark Egly’s leadership in recent years, the impossible is being accomplished in many people’s eyes, changing the Standard of Care for the medical community and the way that physicians and patients are being treated in the present and future. Lives have already been saved with Mark’s discoveries of a rarely diagnosed medical condition!

Mark has personally been inspired by Arnold Palmer on and off the golf course over the last 49 years. In the healthcare arena by Arnold and his late wife Winnie, by all the charitable work the Palmers have accomplished in the Orlando area. Mr. Palmer was a mentor, hero, and close friend to Mark from early in Mark’s life because of another hero of Mark’s, Dave Hill. Dave and Arnold were best friends as they played on the PGA Tour at the same time. Mark was fortunate to meet Mr. Palmer when Mark was just 17 years old when Arnold came to Jackson, Michigan, for the day. It was a day that day would change young Mark’s life forever! Their friendship and relationship led to the hiring of Mark at Des Moines Golf and Country as the Head of Golf Instruction in 1979.

Obstacles have been something Mark has had to overcome his entire career and life! For his entire life and the last three years, Mark has been overcoming major health obstacles that stand to start helping millions here in the USA and the world today!

Egly has won the Teacher of the Year Award in 2002, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2021. Mark also won the Professional Development Award in 2017 and the Player Development Award in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020. Egly was inducted into the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame in the Spring of 2022.

The Iowa PGA Congratulates Mark Egly as our 2022 Iowa PGA Deacon Palmer Award.