Terry Bonar, longtime course superintendent at Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland, was surprised by his peers last week when he was given the Mal McLaren Award at a dinner at Fairlawn Country Club in Akron.
The award, for distinguished contributions to golf and the turf management industry, is the highest presented by the Northern Ohio chapter of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. It originated in early 1980s and has been awarded just eight times. It was created by two brothers who took different paths into golf after working summers for McLaren, the late superintendent at Oakwood Club in Cleveland Heights.
Bonar graduated from the turf management program at Penn State in 1958. He joined the Canterbury staff in 1961 and has been there ever since except for a stint in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam from 1964 to '67. He became Canterbury's superintendent in 1984 and a certified GCSAA member in 1988.
The father of four daughters and grandfather of four, Bonar serves on the advisory board of the Ohio State/Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, the advisory board of the Gates Mills Horticultural School, and the USGA Greens Section.
A single-digit handicapper who helped prepare Canterbury for the 1973 PGA Championship, 1979 U.S. Amateur, the original Senior Players Championship (1983-86) and the 1996 U.S. Senior Open, Bonar received the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation's Professional Excellence Award in 1996. More than 50 of his interns hold key positions at courses throughout Northern Ohio and the U.S.
Source: The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)