Kane & Pearce Honored By Home Associations

 This past month, two long time New England Golf Association rules officials, were given awards respectively within their home state golf associations. Mike Pearce (Maine State Golf Association) was presented the Dave Child Volunteer of the Year Award on October 30th and Joe Kane (New Hampshire Golf Association) was awarded the Inaugural Joe Kane Distinguished Service award on October 17th.

“The NEGA is an association that relies on support from our volunteers like Mike and Joe. These gentlemen have been supporters of the association for many years, and we are thrilled to see their dedication to the game recognized within their state associations” said Manager of NEGA Operations Greg Howell.
For Pearce, the Dave Child Volunteer of the Year Award is named after the Maine State Golf Association longtime volunteer, who while at MSGA provided service in almost every department. Some departments include the Board of Directors, Rules, championship events and course rating.
A resident of Falmouth, Maine, Pearce has been a volunteer for the MSGA and NEGA for over twelve years. Pearce was President of the NEGA in 2018 and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the MSGA. For Pearce, this is not the only distinguished accolade he has been a part of this year. Most notably, Pearce served as a rules official for his first USGA event. This past April, Pearce traveled to Timuquana Country in Jacksonville, Florida where he served as a rules official for the 5th U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
For more information regarding Mike Pearce and his accolade, can be found on the MSGA website here:  https://www.mesga.org/club/scripts/view/view_pubnews.asp?NS=PUBLIC&PID=14789
On October 17th, Executive Director of the New Hampshire State Golf Association, Matt Schmidt, announced that the NHGA Distinguished Service Award will from now on be presented as the “Joe Kane Distinguished Service Award” within the state of New Hampshire. This award is presented by the NHGA to an individual of the community “who has dedicated countless hours to serving the game of golf in the Granite State.” This award marks the first-ever distinguished service award presented by the NHGA.
Kane originally joined the NHGA as a member of the Board of Directors in 2005 and has been a loyal volunteer to the game of golf ever since. Since 2005, Kane has served as the NHGA President in 2014, the charitable arm of the 2012 U.S. Junior Amateur, USGA Committee member, and New England Golf Association volunteer.
The official release of Joe Kane accepting his distinguished service award can be found on the NHGA website here: https://www.nhgolfassociation.org/Joe-Kane-Honored-with-FirstEver.news
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