Steven Spatafore is the 2026 winner of GCSAA’s Emerging Leader Award. Photos by Christina Leung
Origin stories usually are reserved for superheroes, but they can be telling in the case of golf course superintendents as well.
While some can be vague or convoluted, twisting and turning through the vagaries of life, some — as is the case with Steven Spatafore, GCSAA Class A director of agronomy at Los Altos (Calif.) Golf & Country Club — are more distinct and obvious.
It started with an a-ha moment (or two) not all that long ago, back in 2008. Spatafore, winner of the 2026 GCSAA Emerging Leader Award presented in partnership with John Deere and an 11-year GCSAA member, was 12 at the time. To reward the youngster for getting good grades, Steven’s dad, Pete, took him to attend the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Both avid golfers, father and son arrived at the storied course early to secure seats behind the fifth hole.
“We got there super early, so early the maintenance crew was still on the course,” Steven Spatafore recalls. “Being a kid, I asked one of the employees if there was any way we could take a photo on the green. It turns out the person I asked was an assistant superintendent. He waved me out, I took a photo, and we walked to the next hole.”
When the crew caught up to the Spatafore duo there at No. 5, the same assistant waved the youngster over again, handed him a putter and encouraged him to putt around the green.
“I was over the moon,” Spatafore recalls.
Spatafore (center) with Nicolas Zepeda, first assistant superintendent (left), and Servando Diaz, second assistant superintendent.
That assistant, Billy Hausch, thus planted the seed for what would become Spatafore’s life calling … but he wasn’t done yet. He later invited the Spatafores to return to play Pebble Beach Golf Links. “The guys in the pro shop used to call it my Make a Wish program,” Hausch said. “I’d just take random people out to play Pebble Beach.”
The following year, the Spatafores reached out to Hausch again and asked if there was any way they could repay his kindness. Pete wondered if they could volunteer for the Pro-Am, and Hausch assured him they’d be welcome.
“Billy said, ‘We always have volunteers,’” Steven says. “I was 13 at the time. He said, ‘You can come rake bunkers. If you hate it, don’t worry. You can just watch.’”
He didn’t hate it. At some point, rake in hand and watching the sun rise over the Pacific, young Steven Spatafore decided.
“I couldn’t believe you could do this for a living,” he says. “It all just clicked. Ever since I was 13 years old, all I’ve ever wanted to do was to work on golf courses. It has been the sole focus of my academic and professional careers. It was just an incredible experience.”
Spatafore has been the GCSAA Class A director of agronomy at Los ALtos (Calif.) Golf & Country Club since June.
Eye on the prize
Guided by laser focus and unburdened by distraction, Spatafore set off on a meteoric rise in the industry. Eventually.
Through high school, he worked on the cart staff at a local course that wouldn’t permit youths under 18 on the maintenance staff, then headed off to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to study turf. He worked as a research assistant and immediately began trolling for summer internships.
Spatafore had hoped to intern at his beloved Pebble Beach and reached out to then-superintendent Chris Dalhamer, CGCS, who explained that organization preferred yearlong internships. “I consider him one of my mentors,” Spatafore says. “He encouraged me to go somewhere like the mid-Atlantic coast, somewhere in the transition zone — somewhere tough.”
Spatafore reached out to Roger Meier, then the superintendent at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., asking if he could intern there the summer after Spatafore’s freshman year. “I worked a lot, worked a lot of long hours,” Spatafore says. “I got to experience all the heat and humidity a boy from California doesn’t really get to experience and left thankful for the experience.”
The following summers, he interned at Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, Calif., and Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz, Calif., before becoming an assistant-in-training at Pebble Beach after graduation.
His timing proved impeccable. Pebble Beach hosted the U.S. Open that year, 2019, and with such an enviable résumé, it didn’t take Spatafore long to land his first assistant superintendent job later in 2019 at Contra Costa (Calif.) Country Club.
“I have to admit, part of it I credit to being at the right place at the right time,” he says.
Spatafore with his wife, Courtney. Photos courtesy of Steven Spafore
‘This is your guy’
Spatafore’s fortune — and rapid rise — didn’t waver.
“I remember interviewing him and realizing he’s very educated, very smart,” says Ryan Maher, a 13-year association member who was then the superintendent at Contra Costa CC. “You could tell he cared very much about his own goals and was a good communicator. After he started, I realized he had a lot of intangibles, the things you don’t learn in school. He’s very curious and has a big heart. He’s a hard worker and a good person.”
After 14 months as an assistant superintendent at Contra Costa CC, Spatafore learned Maher was leaving to become the GCSAA Class A director of agronomy at Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“When we realized I was moving on, I immediately told the club, ‘This is your guy,’” Maher says. “I said, ‘Trust me. He’s young. But he trained for this.’ I let him basically become the superintendent my last few weeks at Contra Costa. When I was an assistant, I had the same type of superintendent. It takes someone special to do that, but obviously I trusted him to start making decisions.”
Spatafore (second from left) at the 2025 National Golf Day Community Service Project.
Contra Costa CC trusted him, too, and so, at the ripe age of 24, Spatafore landed his first head superintendent job there.
“Again, some of it was being at the right place at the right time,” he says, “but it’s a testament to the importance of building communities around yourself. In this industry, no one has all the answers to everything. I credit a lot of my success to being willing to ask questions.”
Spatafore, now 30, was content at Contra Costa CC, but he was contacted by a head hunter hiring for the vacancy at the high-end Los Altos CC, and Spatafore thought he owed it to himself to at least give it a shot. He landed the job this past June.
“I’m so proud of him,” Maher says. “I knew it was only a matter of time for him to move up to a club like that. The interview process for jobs like that is such a gauntlet. So many people interview and send in their résumés. His wittiness, his intelligence, really works in his favor in situations like that.
“Obviously, he’s very deserving. Those things can help you cross the finish line. He’s the first person who worked for me who moved on to a superintendent role, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
From left, Sally, Steven and Pete Spatafore.
‘A rare breed for sure’
The Emerging Leader Award isn’t given to the superintendent with the most impressive résumé or the fastest rise in the industry. Instead, it “recognizes an individual who serves the industry as a superintendent with less than five years’ experience, student, associate member or assistant who displays continuous growth in service and leadership.”
Hausch — the former Pebble Beach assistant who started this whole trajectory, a former 14-year GCSAA member and former head superintendent for four years who’s still affiliated with the industry as co-owner of Grassroots Turf Supply — says that describes Spatafore to a T.
“He’s definitely a rare breed for sure,” Hausch says. “He has a ton of support. He has such a huge network of people rooting for him. He’s one of those guys everybody is rooting for. He’s such a nice guy, how can you not root for him?”
Among his examples of service and leadership, Spatafore:
Served on the GCSAA PAC Board for two years.
Serves on the GCSAA Government Affairs Committee.
Is a GCSAA Grassroots Ambassador and has attended two National Golf Days in Washington, D.C.
Served on the GCSA of Northern California board of directors and was president in 2024.
Helps organize and conduct the annual Assistant Superintendent Boot Camp, which he found impactful when he attended.
Served as a GCSAA Chapter Delegate from 2022-24 and advocates for growing local participation in Rounds 4 Research.
Regularly sends welcome notes or emails to newly hired superintendents in the region, inviting them to events and offering to connect them to vendors.
“He’s got a lot of energy,” Hausch says with a laugh.
For his part, Spatafore says his extracurriculars “are nothing special.”
“It helps that I’m extremely passionate about what I do,” he says. “In this industry … it’s not a job. It’s a passion. It’s a career. And I heard it many times as a student and from current members of GCSAA and local boards and committees, that you get way more out of it than you put in. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s just a selling point.’ But no. It’s so true.
“This job can be very isolating when you’re only on one golf course. But being involved with other superintendents, other chapters, you can always find somebody who has solved your problem 10 times before you’ve even figured out a way to solve it once.”
Spatafore and mentor Billy Hausch (right) at the 2019 U.S. Open.
Network strength
Spatafore deflects credit for his achievements to his large and ever-growing network of professional peers.
“It’s wonderful to be recognized, and I appreciate it, but I don’t think of this as an award that just belongs to me,” he says. “It belongs to every single person who encouraged me. I’ve been fortunate to have met a lot of people who gave me great advice. I never claimed to be the smartest. I never claimed to know everything. One of the best things I know to do is ask for help.
“And that starts with my parents (Pete and Sally) for how great they’ve been. They’ve always encouraged me and my sister to just give 100%. If it doesn’t work out, that doesn’t mean you failed. It just means it didn’t work out.”
Spatafore also heaped praise on his wife, Courtney, whom he met as a college junior.
“I couldn’t do this without my wife,” he says. “I’m lucky to have my best friend for my wife. She makes this job more doable. When you’re dealing with disease on the fourth hole, and it’s just beating you up, she’s always there to listen and say, ‘Hey, let’s go for a walk. Let’s do something other than grass.’ She keeps me balanced and centered that way.”
Hausch finally met Courtney last year, and he immediately apologized for setting Steven on his course.
“That’s the running joke,” Hausch says.
More seriously, though, he adds: “As an industry, we need more people like Steven.”
For his part, Spatafore can’t imagine not being a part of it. What if that Pebble Beach assistant had told then-12-year-old Spatafore to get lost, kid?
“I have no idea,” Spatafore says. “Honestly, that’s probably something I haven’t reflected enough about. Sometimes I think that, when we get opportunities in life, when we reach those defining moments, you don’t know you’re in them until you look back on them. As far as a different career … I really don’t know. All I can remember is, from such a young age, this is all I ever wanted to do. I just hope I can do the same for somebody someday.”
Andrew Hartsock (ahartsock@gcsaa.org) is GCM’s editor-in-chief.