A Message From the Iowa PGA
Greg Mason, PGA | Iowa PGA | Executive Director Are you thinking about a career in the golf business? Did you know that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln is one of the PGA/PGM Universities where aspiring golf professionals can begin to learn their craft. Please contact Joe Canny, PGA at jcanny2@unl.edu or call him at 402-570-1801 for more information on how to attend the University and their other scholarship opportunities. Golf offers many opportunities to remain in the industry in some fashion. One can become a Club Professional running golf facilities at all levels – Head Golf Professional, Director of Golf or even the General Manager of the whole facility. One can become a Golf Course Superintendent and maintain the grounds at one of our nearly 400 golf courses in and around Iowa. Iowa has some of the best turf degrees at our Community Colleges or at Iowa State University. One can also become a sales representative in manufactured goods to facilities, fertilizer and chemicals to golf courses or a myriad of various membership directors or such at golf facilities throughout the US and for sure our Region. You can also work for state golf associations whether for the USGA, PGA, CMAA or GCSAA associations. If you want to combine your love for golf into a career that you would love – call us and we will be glad to speak to you about the careers, we love. You can see by the Class of 2022 Iowa Golf Hall of Fame the various talents that going into that class and the various careers you can have in golf. Barb Berkmeyer showed that one can be a middle school teacher and still play golf as a recreation at a very high level including playing in eleven USGA Championships to go along with her many state and regional championships. The late Charlie Pribble turned a career as a Golf Course Superintendent into long-time mentoring and growing his fellow superintendent careers. I was privileged to work alongside “Pribbs” as we built Airport National Golf in Cedar Rapids in 1992. He taught me so much about the strong relationship a PGA Professional MUST have with their Golf Course Superintendent. He taught me that no one is ever so good at what they do that they can’t pick up the phone and call a colleague for assistance on any issue they may have at their facility. Pribbs was always doing that if he wasn’t answering the phone when a colleague called him for help. Mark Egly, PGA turned a strong career as a player into a life-long search to help make golfers of all skill-levels better in their own golf games. Whether they wanted to play on the PGA Tour or just find a way to “break 100”, Mark was always at the forefront of teaching in Iowa and the Nation. Similar to Pribbs, Mark is always there to help his fellow PGA Professionals improve their teaching and their teaching practices so that others benefit from these teachings. A career in the golf industry is shown by this class of Hall of Famers. Congratulations to the Class of 2022! Iowa Golf Hall of Famer Chad Proehl will be competing in another Senior Major in 2022. He has qualified for the 2022 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship to be held at Harbor Shores on May 25-29. We wish Chad luck as he gets to play with the best Champions Players in the world, again. Finally, I would like to thank our talented IowaPGA Staff for all of the hard work, perseverance and dedication. We lost Jazz Tulda to the Wisconsin PGA this winter as he has “headed home” to work as their Junior Golf Coordinator. We have hired two of our former interns with the Iowa PGA, Jacob Hesner (Junior Golf Coordinator) and Blake Newell (Tournament Assistant) to help us continue great things with the Iowa PGA. With the support of our Section Officers, Section Board and Foundation Board, our staff continues to a deliver high-level events to our Section Professionals and to the Junior Golfers throughout our Section. For those interested in marketing with us, we will have spots available for you to place an ad. Just look for our special marketing page within the pages of our magazine. This digital magazine goes to over 15,000 people on our email list along with being sent over our social media channels. If you wish to be a part of something new in the Iowa Golf scene, please feel free to email me at gmason@pgahq.com. You can always call the office at 319-648-0026 as well. Have fun, Play Well “Mase”
