The man credited with the renaissance of Pinehurst as one of the world’s great golf havens will be one of three inductees to the Carolinas Golf Association Hall of Fame later this year. The late Don Padgett, a past president of the PGA of America, was instrumental in bringing professional tournament golf back to Pinehurst, including the 1999 and 2005 U. S. Open Championships. Padgett died in 2003 at age 78.
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Other inductees this year will be long time Charlotte Observer golf writer, Ron Green, Sr., and pioneering golf course superintendent, George Thompson. Green, regarded as the dean of golf journalism in the Carolinas, covered 75 major golf championships, including 52 Masters. He is the author of four books: "From Tobacco Road to Amen Corner: On Sports and Life" (1990); "Shouting at Amen Corner" (1999); "Slow Dancing with Bobby Jones" (2004) and a "History of Charlotte Country Club" (2005).
Earlier this year, Green received the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. He has also won four Golf Writers Association of America awards and is a five-time North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year. Outside golf, he has covered four Olympic Games, 25 Super Bowls, the World Series, U.S. Tennis Opens, one world heavyweight boxing championship between Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes; and 26 NCAA Final Fours. He retired from daily newspaper reporting in 1999.
Thompson is the first career superintendent to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He pioneered the use of ryegrass fairway varieties in the Middle Atlantic region, including the Carolinas in the late ‘60s. A constant ally for turfgrass researchers, he provided “living laboratories” and research support at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst. In the early ‘90s, his experiments helped identify new bentgrass varieties leading to many of those in use today. He was among the first superintendents to actively promote wildlife habitats on golf courses.
Thompson is a past winner of Distinguished Service Awards from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association. In 2002, he received the USGA’s highest turfgrass honor – the Green Section Award. Retired as a golf course superintendent, he now instructs aspiring golf course superintendents at Sandhills Community College.
Don Padgett was hired as Pinehurst Resort director of golf in 1987 by then resort president, Pat Corso, and ClubCorp of America. “We needed a lot of things in that hire,” Corso said many years later. “We needed a mentor for a very young staff and I needed a mentor. That’s exactly what we got with Padge.”
Padgett’s influence and reputation with the USGA with other national golf organizations enabled Pinehurst to attract professional tournaments once again. The PGA of America staged the Club Professional Championship there in 1988 and the USGA brought the U.S. Women’s Amateur the following year. The PGA returned in 1990 and 1991 with staging of The Tour Championship. The USGA returned in 1994 with the U.S. Senior Open and Pinehurst was established as a fitting test for championship golf. The successful staging of the U.S. Men’s Open in 1999 and 2005 validated that reputation, along with Padgett’s legacy. He was inducted into the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame in 1998 and named a Living Legend by the PGA of America.
Inductions to the Carolinas Golf Association Hall of Fame will take place at the historic Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst at a dinner on August 7. Inductees are chosen by the Carolinas Golf Reporters Association for the Carolinas Golf Association.