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2024 UGA Volunteer of the Year: Steve Meyer

Steve Meyer readily acknowledges that his volunteer work for the Utah Golf Association provides more than intrinsic rewards. He also endorses how important the course rating program is to UGA members.

So when Meyer talks about playing exclusive courses such as the Tom Fazio-designed Wasatch Peaks Ranch course near Morgan that he tested in October, he’s expecting varying percentages of envy and appreciation.

At age 81, having lived adjacent to three golf venues from Ogden to Washington and played for 65 years, Meyer enjoys how the course rating work provides him a meaningful connection to the game.

“What the UGA does for me is keeps me very active in the sport,” Meyer said. “I wish more people were aware of the importance of golf course rating.”

Meyer’s UGA Volunteer of the Year award will help raise the program’s profile. The former US West account manager joined colleagues Jim Mitchell and Dennis Wood in course rating nearly 20 years ago, and has covered every corner of the state.

Steve Meyer volunteered as a hole captain during the PGA TOUR’s Black Desert Championship in Ivins.

“It’s a good bunch of people to work with,” said Meyer, who’s involved in rating or re-rating eight to 10 courses each year. He was nominated for the award by Max Butcher, the UGA’s Director, Member Services, and Reese Nielsen, who received the UGA’s 2018 Gold Club Award for expertise in course rating.

The Volunteer of the Year award is presented to someone who has “demonstrated outstanding commitment” to the UGA and its definition commends all the volunteers: “These extraordinary people give their time and energy back to the game we all love, in many different capacities.”

Apart from his UGA efforts, Meyer volunteered for the PGA Tour’s Black Desert Championship in Ivins, working all week as a hole captain. Two days later, he was back into course rating, visiting Wasatch Peaks Ranch (“Really phenomenal,” he said) and the 27-hole Stonebridge GC.

After measuring the courses, playing them “is a kind of a reward,” Meyer said, while also enabling the rating team to “watch for things that we might have missed.”

A course’s rating is vital to the United States Golf Association’s handicap system, with the adjusted degree of difficulty creating “an even playing field” for competition, Meyer said.

These days, Meyer divides his time between homes in Murray (overlooking Murray Park GC) and Washington (near the No. 4 green of Coral Canyon GC). He grew up near the Ogden Golf & Country Club, where he caddied occasionally and played in his first junior tournament. More recently, Meyer caddied in Utah’s PGA Tour Champions event for the likes of Charlie Owens, Dudley Wysong and Donnie Hammond, who played as a junior partner in one format of the event at Jeremy Ranch.

On his 23rd birthday, Meyer’s first of four career holes-in-one merited mention on a local TV news program, thanks to a sportscaster who was playing in an adjacent group at Davis Park GC. His current judgment of a decent round is whether or not he shoots his age, having first done so at 74.

UGA Volunteer of the Year feature written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson.