GCSAA to Honor Alumnus

A leading golf organization will honor a Cal Poly Pomona alumnus for his contributions toward advancing the golf course superintendent profession.

Michael Kenna (’79, ornamental horticulture) will receive the 2021 Col. John Morley Distinguished Service Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). The association will honor Kenna at the 2021 Golf Course Industry show on Feb. 2.

The award honors individuals who have made an outstanding, substantive, and enduring contribution to the advancement of the golf course superintendent profession. The honor is named after Col. John Morley, GCSAA’s founder and first president.

"Mike’s years of dedication and extensive contributions to the industry help continue the vision of Col. John Morley,” said Rhett Evans, GCSAA CEO. “His leadership and insight in research efforts are second to none and of great value to superintendents and to the game of golf.”

A 25-year GCSAA member and now-retired director of U.S. Golf Association (USGA) Green Section Research from 1990-2019, Kenna oversaw environmental and turfgrass research activities at the USGA.

This included soliciting and evaluating research proposals, grant making and advancing the turf industry as a whole by working with other private and governmental organizations to develop cooperative funding opportunities for turfgrass scientists. Kenna managed more than 600 research projects funded with $40 million from the USGA.

“Receiving the Distinguished Service Award from the GCSAA is truly an honor. I have always looked upon golf course superintendents as the primary recipients of USGA research results,” he said.

Kenna has worked in the turfgrass industry since his first job at Singing Hills Golf Course in El Cajon, Calif., at the age of 15.

“Dave Flemming, the superintendent at Singing Hills Golf Course, encouraged me to attend Cal Poly Pomona, to become a golf course superintendent,” he said. “There, Dr. Kent Kurtz suggested that I attend graduate school after working for him at the research plots and conducting a senior project on zoysiagrass iron chlorosis.”

In addition to his bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona. Kenna earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in crop science from Oklahoma State University and became a postdoctoral research associate at Texas A&M University in 1984.

He returned to OSU as an assistant professor from 1985-1990 in the Department of Horticulture. During that time, he worked with superintendents in Oklahoma to conduct research solving problems specific to the management of golf courses.

As director of USGA Green Section Research, Kenna traveled to nearly all the turfgrass programs at universities in the U.S. and made presentations to most all of the state turfgrass conferences.

Kenna was an advocate for the GCSAA chapter grants and strongly supported the concept of on-site testing at golf courses evaluating new putting green cultivars. He was extensively published in turfgrass journals and related publications.

Notably, in coordination with other Green Section staff, Kenna helped develop a research program to improve laboratory testing, as well as projects to improve the USGA putting green recommendations. He also was involved in breeding projects that have led to more than 30 new cool-season and warm-season cultivars for golf course use.

For decades, Kenna worked closely with GCSAA, most remarkably as a long-standing member of the served on the GCSAA Research Committee. He provided extensive knowledge on past and present research projects which enabled GCSAA to best utilize the funds available for research that was truly needed, so it would be useful, practically-applied and unbiased. Kenna provided research to demonstrate that golf courses were a beneficial part of the urban landscape.

Kenna has received many industry accolades, including the 2003 Distinguished Alumnus award from the College of Agriculture at Cal Poly Pomona, and the 2016 Turfgrass Producers International Distinguished Service Award. This year, the Ferguson School of Agriculture at Oklahoma State University honored him with the Distinguished Alumni Award. He has also met with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to discuss the importance of federal research funding for turfgrass.

Kenna is currently a private consultant at Natural Grass Science and a member of the Oklahoma GCSA and plans to help support them during his retirement years.