2021 PGA NATIONAL AWARDS AND GRADUATION DINNER
presented by
The annual PGA National Awards and Graduation dinner was held on the 20th of September 2021. Annually Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club hosts the PGA’s most prestigious event of the year and all the awards winners and graduates who attend are always spoilt with the facilities and service provided by them.
The evening was managed by the Chief Executive of the PGA , Ivano Ficalbi, and the PGA Chairperson , Louis Destroo. Once again the camaraderie between the PGA Members was on display and we are truly blessed to have so many quality PGA professionals who work within the industry and that take our slogan of “Touching lives through the game of golf” very seriously.
A huge thank you to all the staff and management of Royal Johannesburg who looked after all the guests.
During the evening many of the PGA professionals will be congratulated by way of their achievements and one of the greatest achievements within the Association is joining the exclusive club of Master Professionals. A Master professional is the highest classification within the PGA and is given to members who have dedicated their lives to the game of golf and have a membership of more than 20 years.
Steve Cottingham was the newest inductee into this exclusive club of members and he continues to contribute to the PGA through the mentoring of apprentices and has been a member of the KZN Regional Committee since 2014. He has won numerous PGA awards to list a few:
- PGA of SA “top 20” teacher in 2001;
- KZN Region teaching Professional of the year in 2014, 2019 and 2021;
- PGA of SA Teacher Professional of the Year in 2014.
The PGA Professional of the Year announcement took place after the acknowledgment of the 5 National Winners in each category. The National award winners were as follows from left to right.
PGA Entreprenuer award winner : Peter Berman
PGA Grow Golf award winner: Byron Nel
PGA Managment award winner: Chris Bentley
PGA Coach award winner : Murray Smit
PGA Club Professional award winner : Jannes Sik
The evening highlighted all the good work that so many of the PGA Professionals do in various sectors within the golfing community and was closed off with the opening of the Runner-Up and Winner envelopes for the PGA Professional of the Year 2021.The worthy winner of the PGA Professional of the year was Chris Bentley , CEO of the Royal and Kensington Golf Club. Congratulations Chris
Chris was awarded the highest honor after a final stage of voting consisting of a panel of Board of Directors, Non-Executive Directors , CPD panel , Chairperson and a Master Professional from each region.
Congratulations to all the award winners and we look forward to the 2022 awards evening.
