Bob Farren Awarded USGA Green Section Award

 

 

USGA Green Section Award – Bob Farren, CGCS

A highly regarded leader in golf course management, Robert Farren Jr. began his storied 45-year career in golf course management in 1979. Three years later, he joined Pinehurst Resort & Country Club and advanced to his current role as director of golf course management in 2001. Since that time, Farren has been a principal force behind a dedicated effort to restore Pinehurst’s historic course architecture while advancing the environmental and economic sustainability of its now 11-course footprint. 

Those efforts have included reducing more than 40 acres of irrigated turf in favor of signature sandscapes that feature native wiregrass, converting greens and fairways to more drought-tolerant turfgrasses, eliminating resource-intensive overseeding throughout the property, and championing training for his team. He was also a principal founding partner of the Greenkeeper Apprenticeship Program, launched in the Pinehurst area last year with the USGA and Sandhills Community College to provide education and mentorship for golf course maintenance workers. Through Farren’s tenure, Pinehurst has become a beacon for innovation and a successful testing ground for advanced, data-driven maintenance practices and on-course learning for superintendents, agronomists, and others.  

Among the 11 USGA championships Farren has worked at Pinehurst, one of his team’s most significant agronomic accomplishments was in delivering a consistent playing experience for the unprecedented back-to-back 2014 U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open in consecutive weeks on Pinehurst’s iconic Course No. 2.

Presented annually since 1961, the USGA Green Section Award honors distinguished service to golf through an individual’s work with turfgrass.

 

For more information and a list of past recipients of the USGA’s Annual Awards, see usga.org/awards-and-honors.html

 

Full article from the USGA here