Golf Course Management (GCM) magazine, the official publication of GCSAA, and GCSAA’s creative services team combined to win a total of 18 awards in the 2020 Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) Communications Contest. The awards were for content produced in 2019 and were presented during the organization’s virtual annual meeting earlier this month.
Two of GCSAA’s digital properties earned first-place honors in the contest. For the second consecutive year, GCMOnline.com and its editor, Megan Hirt, were recognized with the first-place award for websites in the New Media category. Also in the New Media category, the GCSAA Podcast and Scott Hollister, GCM editor-in-chief, won top honors in the podcast division for an episode featuring Curtis Tyrell, CGCS, MG, and Mark Clodfelter and Sean McNerney from Bayer.
In the Marketing category, GCSAA picked up a pair of first-place awards: Graphic designer Tyler Stover’s work on the Environmental Institute for Golf’s “Giving Tuesday” digital ad campaign earned a first-place award for digital design, and freelance contributor Paul Severn won for best photo for images used in GCM’s 2019 trade show booth at the Golf Industry Show.
GCM won three first-place honors in the Writing competition. Managing editor Andrew Hartsock took first in the “Column (Series)” division for his work on GCM’s bimonthly Environment column, while Hirt took first place in headline writing for Unlocked potential, an article about a South Dakota golf course’s partnership with a local women’s prison. In addition, Hartsock and Hirt received top honors in the “Series” writing category for their work on GCM’s coverage of labor issues and solutions in the golf course management industry (Labor pains, Unlocked potential and Retirement plan).
In the Photography category, GCM won first place for best use of stock photography for the photo of Old Tom Morris Award winner Gary Player that appeared on the cover of the December 2019 issue.
GCM and GCSAA also took home 10 merit awards:
• Hartsock for his column “The future of mowing (and gift giving)” in the August 2019 issue of GCM.
• Freelance writer Stacie Zinn Roberts in the Turf writing category for Renovating paradise.
• Hirt in the Operations Profile writing category for Unlocked potential.
• Hartsock in the Business Management writing category for Retirement plan.
• Hollister in the Website, Original Content writing category for From the corner office to Pebble Beach.
• Freelance photographer April Rocha for her photo of superintendent Justin DePippo at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles that appeared in the January 2019 issue of GCM.
• Roger Billings, senior manager, creative services, earned two merits, one for his design work on “Law of averages,” an infographic in the September 2019 issue of GCM, and the other for the 2020 “Dog Days of Golf” calendar.
• Kelly Neis, senior manager, creative services, won merit awards for the 2020 Golf Industry Show directory and map, and for the two-page guide to navigating GIS that appeared in the December 2019 issue of GCM.
TOCA is an organization composed of editors, writers, publishers, photographers, public relations/advertising practitioners, industry association leaders, manufacturers and others involved in green industry communications. Hollister currently serves as the group’s past president.