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By Kurt Kragthorpe

Even before she became a Class A PGA Professional, Emily Jones was labeled a “success story” in the business. The latest chapter includes a Teacher of the Year award.

The former Emily Copier is young enough to have participated in a pilot program for girls high school golf in Utah after competing for the Skyline boys team in the fall season. And now she’s part of the vanguard of female golf pros in the Utah Section PGA.

Jones, who played in college for Weber State and BYU, is the second woman to be named the Section’s Teacher of the Year, following Melanie Van Delden in 1999. She joins Section staff member Annie Fisher and PGA Professional Darci Olsen among more recent award winners.

She was featured in a 2016 Golf Channel segment that highlighted successful programs in the country’s sections during the PGA of America’s centennial observance. Jones has worked for six years on the teaching staff of The Country Club of Salt Lake City, having started with youth programs and women’s clinics. “I have a passion for golf and I want other people to have that passion, so they can enjoy it like I have for a lifetime,” said Jones, whose approach is to encourage students and build their confidence.

Her golf career pursuits stemmed from a feeling that “I’m not ready for this to be over” when she finished playing in an NCAA Regional tournament for BYU in 2011. Ten years later, she’s thriving in this phase of the game.

By Kurt Kragthorpe

Dustin Volk will remember the 2021 golf season for multiple reasons, including a new job description, a meaningful victory and a Professional of the Year award in the Utah Section PGA.

Those major developments came 10 years after Volk’s remarkable season of 2011, when he became the Section’s Player of the Year and was named the Assistant Professional of the Year while working for Brad Stone at Davis Golf Course.

Volk, having served as the head professional at Valley View GC, now oversees both of those facilities as Davis County’s director of golf. He’ll always have some trophies to commemorate his career checkpoints of 2021.

“It’s been a great year, a busy year,” Volk said.

Volk’s Professional of the Year status is deep rooted. He’s a son of Wayne Volk, formerly the longtime pro at Hill Air Force Base’s Hubbard GC, and Dustin has been immersed in the Utah Section PGA’s operation. The award is dated “2021,” yet there’s no doubt that his work as the Section’s president in 2020 contributed to this recognition.

Volk remembers “hundreds of phone calls back and forth, all trying to do what we could for the golf industry and make good, sound business decisions,” he said. Section members worked together in developing courses’ protocols to deal with the pandemic.

Having competed in the 2014 PGA Championship, Volk maintains a solid game in his late 40s. He beat Zach Johnson, who’s now the Davis Park head pro, to win the Section’s Match Play title at Hubbard GC in May.

Continuing the trend of first-time Player of the Year honors is Red Ledges Teaching Professional Aaron Purviance, who earned the Rolex Assistant Player of the year with eight events played and 2,623 points. 2020 Assistant Player of the year Thomas Cook finished 415 point behind Purviance.

“It’s a very honorable thing to win,” Purviance said. “I worked hard all year. I tried to play as often as I could outside of work and I’m glad I was able to play well enough to win and glad I have good competition to play against. I get better by playing against those guys and they push me to play better.”

The secret to Purviance’s success this year was qualifying and competing in national events such as the PGA Professional Championship, where he missed the cut by one, and the Assistant PGA Professional Championship, making the cut in November and earning 1,000 points.

“I love playing in the Assistants Championship, I played really well last year and took 3^rd and took a lot of positive vibes from that going into this year. The PGA Professional Championship was probably my favorite event I’ve ever played in. I missed the cut by one but it was a really good experience.

“Those two big tournaments are my two favorite I played in all year, probably the two biggest besides the Utah Open.”

Purviance is currently competing in the Winter PGA Tournament Series in Florida. As for his plan for the 2022 season? “Just keep learning from it, having fun and trusting my game.”

2021 Rolex Utah Section Assistant Player of the Year Results.

The Country Club Assistant Professional Haley Sturgeon has completed the hat trick when it comes to the Rolex Utah Section Women’s Player of the year, winning in 2019, 2020 and again in 2021 .

“Three years in a row is cool,” Sturgeon said. “I always want to set goals for myself and keep striving. Hopefully set records that way the women behind me, or in front of me, can break them. That way we can keep trailblazing as females in the golf industry. Hopefully it’s motivation for the other girls to come take it from me.

“Winning this award three years in a row means my hard work is paying off. I want to give my dad credit for keeping my game consistent. He is my practice buddy and has helped me around the golf course in almost every event this year.”

Sturgeon has won the award since she joined the PGA PGM Program, the first winner belongs to Glenmoor Head Pro Darci Olsen in 2018, when the category for Women’s Player of the Year began.

“It feels really good to win,” Sturgeon continued. “The ultimate goal is to win “THE” Player of the Year, so I’m going strive to that. but being Women’s Player of the Year, it feels great.”

Sturgeon started the year with a win in the RMT/EZGO Winter Classic and would proceed to finish runner-up in the Homestead Open, Siegfried & Jensen Utah Women’s Open and the Women’s Match Play Championship.

“I would say, honestly, the Match Play Championship was the most memorable. There were a lot of great matches, playing against Sue (Nyhus) at one of her home courses and a course I know well and going head-to-head with her was really fun. I’m obviously a little upset with the ending but really happy for her with the year she had. I really enjoyed it.”

Ending the season with a win in the Pro-Assistants Championship at Sand Hollow and Sunbrook is icing on the cake for her 2021 season.

 “The Pro-Assistant playing with Wayne and getting the win was great. The camaraderie we have with each other, we can bust each other’s chops but still stay in the moment and have a good time.”

2021 Rolex Utah Section Women’s Player of the Year Results.

In his second full season as a senior, Mountain View Golf Course Head Professional Mark Owen is the Rolex Utah Section Senior Player of the Year. He sits on top of the points list with 17 events played and 8,415 points earned – 799 points clear of 2020 Player of the Year Scott Brandt.

“Well it’s a first, it feels good,” Owen said.

“I still expect to play well enough to do well in the regular division,” Owen continued. “Every tournament I sign up for, I sign up in the regular division and then the senior division is a fall back. There are some specific events for the seniors and those are really nice, an added bonus.

“There’s three or four senior events that have a lot of weight like the Senior Section Championship, that was a big one, the Utah Senior Open was another big point-gainer, and I happened to win both of those.”

Winning the Kean Ridd Utah Senior Open and the Senior Section Championship alone make for an outstanding season, but adding a win in the Southern Utah Open and consistent play throughout the year made it impossible to catch him.

As for Owen’s most memorable event? “Probably the Kean Ridd Senior Open, I like that one. That was kind of a three-peat for me as a professional. I won it the first year, I was low pro with Ryan Rhees the second year and the third year I was able to win again.”

For the 2021 Rolex Senior Player of the Year points results, CLICK HERE.

For the first time in his career Sunset View Head Professional Casey Fowles earned the Rolex Utah Section Player of the Year, playing in 15 events, winning three times and earning a total of 6,360 points – 1,000 clear of second place finisher and two-time winner Zach Johnson.

“I think last year I was second and I’ve kind of been in the top-five,” Fowles said, “but it’s always something you look at near the end of the year and aspire towards. One thing that’s always kind of hurt me is getting off to a slow start in the spring, but being able to win the Winter Classic really helped me get a jump start on things and that was the difference this year.”

Fowles shot a final-round 62 at Sand Hollow in February to win the RMT/EZGO Winter Classic for his first victory of the season. He would go on to win The Oaks Open and the Mountainland Valley View Open as well.

“For me, it’s been a couple of years process. That’s the hard thing about golf, sometimes the changes and things you do take months-to-years before you see the results. I’ve worked hard on my body and my game for a few years. It’s fun to see the results from that.

“I had some really good rounds and I had that 62 at Sand Hollow, but honestly for me it was in our Section Championship where I was kind of struggling getting the ball in the hole. Going into the last hole, knowing I needed to par to get in a playoff or make a birdie to get in the National Club Pro and to make the birdie, that was the topper for the year – to dig down deep and do it when I needed to, that was the most memorable.”

Fowles strong 2021 season will reap it’s benefits in April of 2022 at the PGA Professional Championship at Omni Barton Creek as he will join the other seven Utah Section Pros who qualified through the Section Championship.

“Once you’ve been to it you want to go back every year because it’s such a fun event. To be able to do that and make birdie when I needed to was probably my most memorable and best part of the year for me.”

Click HERE for the 2021 Rolex Utah Section Player of the Year Points.

Another year has come and gone, which means the 2021 Rolex Utah PGA Players of the Year have been decided. In an ever-competitive Section, this honor doesn’t come easy. Congratulations to:

Rolex Player of the Year: Casey Fowles, Sunset View GC

Rolex Senior Player of the Year: Mark Owen, Mountain View GC

Rolex Women’s Player of the Year: Haley Sturgeon, The Country Club

Rolex Assistant Player of the Year: Aaron Purviance, Red Ledges

This marks three consecutive years that Sturgeon claimed the Women’s Player of the Year Title, as for Fowles, Owen and Purviance, each are awarded the honor for the first time.

Fowles finished runner-up to Joe Summerhays in 2020, but with three victories and never finishing outside the top-10 in any of his 15 events played, he was hard to catch as he claimed first by over 1,000 points.

Owen also claimed three wins this season, highlighted by the Kean Ridd Utah Senior Open and the Senior Section Championship.

Sturgeon won the RMT/EZGO Winter Classic and finished runner-up in the Homestead Open, Siegfried & Jensen Utah Women’s Open and the Women’s Match Play Championship.

Purviance highest finish of the season was runner-up in the Utah Assistant PGA Championship but appearances in national events was the decider – qualifying for the PGA Professional Championship in April and then making the cut in the Assistant PGA Professional Championship in November provided just enough to win the 2021 honor.

2021 Rolex Player of the Year Points List.

The Utah PGA is joining forces with KSL’s Quarters for Christmas to have an influence on the lives of kids in our community. The UTAH PGA Family is an amazing group of individuals, we ask you to join our Utah PGA Cares campaign as we come together to make a difference. The Utah Section PGA will match your donations up to $5,000.

Quarters for Christmas provides coats and shoes for children in need, and 100% of the money we receive goes back to our community. The funds raised are distributed to Utah’s education foundations, Crossroads Urban Center, Catholic Community Services, and The Road Home.

With COVID, we know that the need is greater now than in the past. Our goal is to raise more money than ever.

• 100% of the donations go back to our community to help provide shoes and coats for children in need
• The funds are distributed to Utah’s education foundations to help kids around the entire state, Crossroads Urban Center, Catholic Community Services, and The Road Home
• The bulk of the money goes into the schools giving teachers the ability to help their students

Click here to make a difference and donate

December is here and so is the year’s final issue of Utah PGA Monthly digital magazine – a publication dedicated to recognizing and better communicating with Utah PGA Professionals.

In this issue we welcome seven new PGA Class A Members in the Utah Section:

Shawn Tharpe, Hidden Valley CC
Scott Bentley, The Ridge
Skylar Lambourne, Hidden Valley CC
Sue Nyhus, First Tee Utah
Zach Bowcut, Bonneville GC
Drake Neumann, Entrada CC
Gavin Eckert, Old Mill GC

Also included in this issue is Eaglewood Golf Course General Manager Tyler Abegglen who has recently become a PGA Certified Professional in all four available areas of the PGA’s Certified Professional Program.

Click Here to read the December issue.

And Click Here to read all past issues of Utah PGA Monthly.

The Utah PGA Pro-Assistants Championship, presented by TaylorMade, played at Sand Hollow and Sunbrook golf courses November 15-16, concluded the 2021 season for Utah PGA Professionals. Teams from The Country Club, Eagle Mountain and Hobble Creek all took advantage of the last event of the year.

The Country Club’s Wayne Fisher & Haley Sturgeon and Eagle Mountain’s Chris Marx & Triston Hartfiel finished tied at the top with a 13-under Best-Ball performance, finishing the two-day championship as co-champions.

Fisher & Sturgeon are familiar with the event, winning the 2019 showing. They started out strong with a (-9) 63 at Sand Hollow and followed with a (-4) 68 at Sunbrook.

“Wayne is steady-Eddie,” Sturgeon said. “He’s always down the middle and on the green so it frees my swing up where I can go for things we normally wouldn’t.”

“It is always a treat teaming up with Haley,” Fisher added. “she’s a player, which is fun. I can play my game and let her loose. For me to be able to sit back and ride her coat tails, we’ve been a great team over the years.”

Marx and Hartfiel started with a (-4) 68 at Sand Hollow and made their comeback at Sunbrook with a (-9) 63 – providing a win in Hartfiel’s first event in the Section.

“Well I hurt Chris’s back yesterday because he had to carry me so much that I had to make a couple of birdies today,” Hartfiel said.

“Neither one of us played amazingly deep,” Marx added, “we just ham-and-egged it. We both went on the putting matt last night and all of a sudden it happened today.”

In the net division, Hobble Creek stole the show as Craig Norman & Joel Grose tied with Norman & Sue Nyhus. A scorecard playoff determined Norman & Grose the winners – both teams finished 19-under.

A big thank you to Chris Nugent and the TaylorMade staff for sponsoring the event and to Adam Jasperson and his Sand Hollow Staff and Reed McArthur and his Sunbrook staff for hosting the championship.

Full Results Here.