New president for the GCSAA in the US

By Alistair April 4, 2021 07:09 Updated

Mark F. Jordan, a certified golf course superintendent who works at Westfield Country Club in Ohio, has been elected as the new president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), the world’s largest greenkeeping organisation.

Jordan served as vice president of the association in 2020 and has been a member of the association’s board of directors since 2014. A 34-year member of GCSAA, Jordan is also a member and past president of the Northern Ohio GCSA.

Jordan currently works as the ‘natural resource leader’ at Westfield and has previously served as the club’s general manager and superintendent. Prior to Westfield CC, Jordan had stints as an assistant superintendent at Winding Hollow Golf Club in New Albany, Ohio and Hyde Park Golf and Country Club in Cincinnati.

“As Col. John Morley was establishing GCSAA in 1926, he used the altruistic principles of justice, faithful brotherhood and generous benevolence as foundational elements. These timeless principles continue to guide the association today,” Jordan said. “I am humbled and honored to lead this same organisation that Col. Morley and every single president before me has led.”

He graduated from the Ohio State University – ATI in Wooster, Ohio, with an associate of science degree in turfgrass management; and the Ohio State University in Columbus with a bachelor of science degree in agronomy.

Other elected officers were Kevin P. Breen, golf course superintendent at La Rinconada Country Club in Los Gatos, California, as vice president, and Kevin P. Sunderman, director of grounds at Isla Del Sol Yacht and Country Club in St. Petersburg, Florida, as treasurer.

The GCSAA’s Golf Industry Show, the largest educational conference and trade show in the turfgrass management industry, was online this year, with more than 9,300 attendees from around the world during the live event. The education component of the event featured 88 sessions, with preliminary numbers for those presentations currently at 9,197 participants total. More than 200 exhibitors were part of the trade show, and recorded more than 200,000 booth visits in total.

“We are extremely pleased with the response,” said GCSAA CEO Rhett Evans.