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Ayres Leads Special Awards List

Feb 18, 2014

On Monday, February 10, Chad Ayres of Hillcrest Golf and
Country Club was named the Indiana PGA Golf Professional of the Year at the Spring
Business Meeting presented by Callaway held at the Ritz Charles in Carmel, Ind. The PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award
is one of the highest honors the Association can bestow on a working Club Professional
whose total contributions to the game best exemplify the complete PGA
Professional.

Ayres strives to lead at Hillcrest daily through promoting the
game of golf in every aspect. He began
working at Hillcrest in 2006, and two years later was promoted to Director of
Golf and became responsible for managing the Grounds Superintendent and
department. In 2013, Ayres was given
another responsibility, and Director of Membership was added to his title. He then became in charge of recruiting,
hiring, and mentoring a Membership and Marketing Manager.

This position forced Ayres to expand his knowledge about how
to successfully maintain club membership, while growing the top revenue
producing categories. Hillcrest is about
to enter the Club’s Centennial year, and Ayres plans to aggressively attack the
market and expose hillcrest to many more prospective members.

Ayres has served on the Indiana PGA Board of Directors and as
Co-Chair of the Tournament Committee. He
also finds time to organize, conduct, and evaluate all golf related club events
to promote the game at Hillcrest and increase participation each year.

Ayres also puts instructing and mentoring juniors high on his
priority list. At Hillcrest, he has
implemented rules and etiquette seminars, weekly instructional clinics, summer
camps, play days, and inter-club matches.

“Inspiring my fellow golf professionals involves a
commitment to lead with enthusiasm,” Ayres said. “We must all have a positive outlook both on
life and on our industry.

All 2014 Special Award winners were announced at the Spring
Meeting.

Kyle Kolarz of Sycamore Hills Golf Club was named the
Assistant Professional of the Year. Kolarz
developed his leadership skills through his management of the outside
operations staff and the intern program.
He runs operations staff meetings and sets guidelines that help
employees grow both professionally and personally. Kolarz also hires and trains Professional
Golf Management interns. He enjoys
acting as a mentor to PGM interns and has seen a lot of progress during their
time at Sycamore Hills. Kolarz also serves
as Tournament Director at Sycamore Hills and manages the entire staff on
tournament days. Kolarz believes in the
importance of junior golf and runs the junior golf program and acts as a coach
for the Fort Wayne PGA Junior League Golf Team.

Chad Hutsell of Swan Lake Resort was named the Merchandiser
of the Year in the Resort Category.
Hutsell brought in over $241,000 worth of merchandise in 2013, for an
average of $8.45 per round. He believes
in working with vendors who provide quality products, and hiring a personable
staff to provide the best possible guest experience.

Mark Todd of Winchester Golf Club was named the Merchandiser
of the Year in the Public Category. Todd
brought in $190,000 worth of merchandise in 2013, for an average of $8.63 per
round. His merchandising philosophy is
to deliver quality products at fair and competitive rates through exceptional
customer service.

Jason LePage of Broadmoor Country Club was named the
Merchandiser of the Year in the Private Category. LePage brought in over $250,000 worth of
merchandise in 2013, for an impressive average of $22.42 per round. LePage strongly values customers input, and
sends out an annual survey inquiring which product lines customer would like to
see more of. LePage and staff also often
change their merchandise displays based on the latest happenings in the sports
and golf world.

Bill Pollert of Highland Golf and Country Club was the recipient
of the Horton Smith Award. The Horton
Smith Award is designed to recognize individual golf professionals for their
outstanding and continuing contributions to developing and improving education
opportunities for the PGA Golf Professional.

Pollert has served on the Board of Directors for the past
two years and has made many contributions to the Indiana Section’s educational
programs. He designed and implemented
the education for mandatory apprentice breakout sessions and also developed an
apprentice orientation program that guides and coaches all current apprentices
through their career path to fulfilling their coursework and work experience
towards their PGA Membership. While
serving as Apprentice Committee Chairman, Pollert also developed a Mentor
Contact List that provides contact information for some of the most respected
members in the section. This list serves
as an open invitation for apprentices to reach out to the professionals with any
questions they have about the industry.

Todd Smith of Rock Hollow Golf Club was the recipient of the
Bill Strausbaugh Award. The Bill
Strausbaugh Award is presented to those PGA members who by their day-to-day
efforts have distinguished themselves in the field of club relations, causing
dramatic improvements in employment conditions in their local Section and/or
for the PGA of America.

Smith was a Past Indiana Section PGA President, an Indiana
Golf Foundation and IGA-PGA Board Member and was recently elected back onto the
Indiana PGA Board of Directors. He has
personally consulted and mentored numerous PGA Professionals and influenced
countless others by the professional example he sets on a daily basis. Smith often times begins mentoring golfers at
a junior level and tries to make Rock Hollow “the place to be” for junior
golf. Many of his former junior golfers
have gone on to become PGA Professionals.
His hope is that the next generation of PGA Professionals understands that
they are more than a clerk or a business person, but that they are the go-to
person for golf at their facility.

Stacey Rice, the Director of Player Development at the Indiana Golf
Office, was the recipient of the Youth Player Development Award (formerly the
Junior Golf Leader Award). This award is
designed to pay recognition to a PGA Golf Professional who is a leader in
junior golf, reflects the qualities and ideals of those who work with our
nation’s youth, and provides opportunities and experiences for juniors to learn
and play golf.

Rice focused much of her time and energy this past year
promoting two programs, the PGA Junior League Golf Program, a program of the
PGA of America, and the Indiana Golf Foundation Boys and Girls of America
Outreach Program. Rice conducted
presentations at both the 2013 Spring and Fall Business Meetings about PGA
Junior League Golf in hopes of getting as many PGA Professionals interested as
possible. In 2012, the Indiana Section
had six PGA Junior League Golf Teams, and in 2013 that number grew to sixty,
largely due to Rice’s efforts. Rice also
found time to personally coach a team.
At the 2014 PGA Merchandise Show, Rice and Executive Director Mike David
accepted an award on behalf of the Indiana Section. Indiana and the Mid-Atlantic Section were
named the Co-PGA Junior League Sections of the Year. Rice also hosts a weekly Boys and Girls Club program
at Franklin Community Schools for six weeks.
The goal of the program is to introduce the game of golf to students in
an afterschool program, and provide information about additional programs that
the Indiana Golf Foundation offers.

Dan Ross of Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex was the recipient
of the First Annual Player Development Award.
This award is designed to recognize a PGA Professional for extraordinary
and exemplary contributions and achievements in the area of player development. This award considers the PGA Professional’s
growth of the game leadership commitment at the Section and National levels and
the impact made at the facility.

Ross has supported and embraced Growth of the Game programs
as they have been introduced including Golf for Business Life, Get Golf Ready,
and PGA Junior League Golf. In 2013,
Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex offered 45 Get Golf Ready events that reached
147 students, which is twice the number of events as the next closest Indiana
Section facility and almost three times as many students as the next closest facility. Ross served as a coach for a PGA Junior League
Golf Team, and worked Junior League into his normal Junior Golf offerings, which
includes two beginner camps and one advanced camp. Ross felt that the format of matches and
practice times that PGA Junior League offered was a far better program than
what he had offered in the past. Ross also
taught a class at Purdue called “Golf: For Business and Life,” which introduced
students to the game of golf from a recreational standpoint, and as it relates
to the business world. After doing a
cost analysis, Ross realized the course was not receiving what it needed
compared to the amount of range balls and course usage being given to
students. Ross now charges students $400
and provides a semester long class, which helped the golf operation generate about
$90,000 worth of revenue, compared to $7,500 when he first started teaching in
2004.

Brad Fellers of Woodwind Golf Club was named the Teacher of
the Year. The Teacher of the Year Award
bestows special recognition on a PGA Golf Professional who has performed
outstanding service as a golf instructor.

Fellers joined the Woodwind Staff in 2010, and in the four
years he has spent there, he has increased his instruction and club fitting
services by 1200 hours, for a total of nearly 2200 in 2013. That same year, Fellers worked with 21 fellow
PGA Members, their families, and their members providing putting instruction,
full swing instruction, club fitting and other services. Over the past two years, Fellers has
developed a new “Preparation Process” for all of his competitive players that
he instructs. It is a three step program
that focuses on creating detailed practice plans that work on every aspect of a
player’s game, detailed strategies for upcoming events, and meeting three times
per year to evaluate growth and preparedness for college golf. Fellers also organized an annual golf trip
for his high school Boy’s Varsity players to get rid of the “winter rust.” Fellers found this trip to have a very positive
impact on his players’ games before the season starts in the spring. Fellers has had a lot of success instructing
players of various ages. He has taught
five club champions, a PGA Junior League Team member who participated at
Nationals, and fifteen State finalists including a third place finisher. Fellers also assists with Junior Camps,
Ladies Clinics, and Senior events at Woodwind, and has built new swings for
students with disabilities.

PGA Players of the Year were also announced at the Spring
Meeting.

Brett Melton of the Country Club of Old Vincennes was named
the Indiana PGA Player of the Year.
Melton had a tremendous 2013 tournament season. In the ten Indiana Section PGA Events that
Melton participated in, he only had one finish outside of the top ten. In the opening event of the year, the first
Tournament Series, Melton posted an even par 72 for a second place finish. In late July, Melton posted another second
place finish at the second Tournament Series event after firing a 1-under-par
69. He capped off his season with a win
at the final Tournament Series event held at Elcona Country Club. Melton posted an impressive 5-under-par
67. This is Melton’s third time
receiving this award, with previous wins coming in ’08 and ’09.

Chris Clemens of Winding River was named the Taylormade PGA
Assistant Player of the Year. Clemens
had seven top ten finishes during the 2013 tournament season, including two
wins. In earl y June, Clemens posted an
8-under-par 64 at the PGA Northern Open held at Briar Ridge Country Club. This was enough for a three shot victory. Clemens capped off his tournament season with
a victory at Highland Golf and Country Club at the Indiana PGA Four Man
Team. Clemens along with teammates
Justin Tereshko, Jeff Smith, and Dave Bean posted a best ball total of
11-under-par, 59. This was Clemens’s
first time receiving a Player of the Year Award.