WCTA Life Member Jim O'Connor Honoured
Long time WCTA member Jim O’Connor, recently retired, was honoured with a life membership at the 2015 Western Canada Turfgrass Association Conference and Trade Show that took place early March at the Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria, BC. A record crowd of 192 WCTA members were on hand at the Annual General Meeting where Jim’s son, Casey O’Connor, presented the award to his deserving father and mentor.
Jim’s turf management career began in Paris, Ontario at a 9-hole family owned golf course working weekends and summers from 1955 to 1960. Golf was a family business with one uncle, Dave Hutchison a charter member of the CPGA and another uncle, Clinton Robinson, who was later inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame.
Jim worked on the grounds crew of the Oakdale Golf and Country Club from 1961 to 1967, graduating from Penn State University in 1969. In 1968, he interned at the Sharon Club, a private and prestigious men’s only club in Ohio. Jim became the Assistant Superintendent at Chicago’s Olympia Fields Golf Club in 1969, site of the 1925 PGA Championship, the 1928 US Open, the 1961 PGA Championship, the 1997 US Senior Open, the 2003 US Open and the 2015 US Amateur Championship.
An opportunity out west saw Jim move to Calgary, taking on the role of Superintendent / General Manager and Supervisor of Construction and Grow-in at the Silver Springs Golf and Country Club from 1970 to 1981. As the golf industry grew, so did the demand for key people. In 1981, Jim took on the role of Superintendent at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course, a 36-hole Robert Trent Jones jewel located on the eastern slope of the Alberta Rocky Mountains.
Opportunity knocked again, this time at the Big Sky Golf and Country Club in Pemberton, BC where Jim resided from 1993 to 1996. In 1997, he and his family moved to Kamloops where Jim became the superintendent of another Robert Trent Jones course, Rivershore Golf Links where he retired from in 2014.
Jim has been a fixture and is well known in the industry. As a pioneer, he was the very first superintendent in Alberta to have a post-secondary education in turfgrass management and he has mentored over a dozen turf managers who have gone on to become golf course superintendents.
Jim O'Connor, left receives WCTA Life Member award from his son Casey, right, at the 2015 WCTA Conference and Trade Show
Congratulations Jim, on a remarkable career spanning nearly 60 years!