The Canadian Golf Superintendents Association (CGSA) and The Toro Company, the award sponsor have announced Dean Piller, AGS, of the Cordova Bay Golf Course in Victoria as the CGSA Gordon Witteveen Award winner for 2021.
The Gordon Witteveen Award is presented annually to the superintendent or assistant superintendent who has authored the best article for publication in the CGSA GreenMaster magazine during the past year.
Piller’s article entitled Managing Your Golf Course Ecosystem, which was published in the Winter 2021 issue of GreenMaster, was judged by a panel of peers and Dean was chosen as the winner.
“It was an honour for me to contact Dean to notify him of this award,” said Braydon Gilbert, AGS, CGSA communications and editorial committee chair.
“We want to thank all authors who have contributed to the magazine and encourage members to continue to submit articles for their magazine,” he said.
Piller’s article chronicles 30 years of managing Cordova Bay, acknowledging the ecosystem on this property as the very backbone to its identity and natural beauty.
He shares the experience of making the course more environmentally responsible and creating a natural habitat where golfers, flora and fauna could co-exist. To read the article, click here.
Dean has been a CGSA member since 1985, holds the Accredited Golf Superintendent (AGS) designation and participates on the communications editorial committee.
He has been thesuperintendent at Cordova Bay Golf Course since 1990 and was CGSA president in 1999.
He has been the winner of several CGSA awards, including the CGSA Superintendent of the Year in 2010, the CGSA Environmental Achievement Award in 2009, the CGSA/Rain Bird Environmental Achievement Award in 2019 and has been the recipient of the Gord Witteveen award six times in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2017 and 2021.
He will receive an All Access conference registration, a cash award of $500 generously donated from the Toro Company and will be presented with the Gordon Witteveen Award during the awards ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 18, as part of the Canadian Golf Course Management Conference.