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2024 UGA Gold Club Award: Allen Simkins

Golfers who lose a match credit their opponents and blame themselves, in varying degrees.

Steve Poulson played some great golf in the final match of the 2007 Senior State Amateur, but Al Simkins’ defeat was his own fault. If he had taken a strong stance about the Utah Golf Association’s lowering the minimum age from 55 to 50 for the senior championship, Poulson would have had to wait five more years and Simkins, then 61, may have won a second consecutive title.

“My passion in life has been golf for the last 55 years,” Allen Simkins said.

Other UGA board members figured that’s what he would do out of self-interest, but Simkins defied the expectation. “I didn’t,” he said, “because I knew it was the right thing to do.”

And that’s one way that senior golf in Utah has become a major part of Simkins’ UGA legacy, contributing to his selection as the Gold Club Award winner of 2024.

The award is “presented annually to an individual who through significant achievement or unselfish service has contributed to the history and tradition of the game of golf in Utah, and whose personal integrity, sportsmanship, common courtesy, loyalty and friendship earn the love and respect of fellow golfers.”

Simkins’ playing ability and contributions to the game were equally distinguished in 2015, when he was the Utah Senior Open’s annual honoree and won the Super-Senior division at Toana Vista GC.

Now approaching 80, Simkins is among the players who helped make senior competition meaningful in Utah, and he also made a lasting administrative impact. The growth of 50-over participation was illustrated this year when more than 250 golfers registered for the Senior State Am, requiring multiple qualifying sites.

Still playing regularly in the senior men’s league at Green Spring Golf Course, Simkins “has always been an ambassador for Utah golf and the UGA,” Rick Shew said in nominating him for the award.

“I hope I’m viewed that way,” Simkins said. “Amateur golf in the state of Utah is the best in the country, and we all know that. I’m grateful to be a small part of that.”

Shew, the UGA’s Treasurer added, “He loves playing golf, tinkering with his golf swing, working on golf clubs, watching golf on TV and teaching golf to his friends and grandchildren.”

Allen Simkins, nearly 80-years old, still plays regularly in the senior men’s league at Green Spring Golf Course in Washington, UT.

Is it any surprise that Simkins’ home in Washington, Utah, is on Fairway Drive? He shares a love of the game with his wife, Susan, a three-time president of the Women’s State Golf Association, prior to the 2012 merger with the UGA. “My passion in life has been golf for the last 55 years,” he said.

Basketball once occupied that place in Simkins’ heart, as he grew up in Circleville and played for Piute High School. Golf entered his life only later, when he played a round at Cove View GC in Richfield with his brother-in-law, Jerry Bertelsen. After hitting a soaring shot on No. 3, Simkins said, “Instantly, I was hooked.”

The game permanently took hold of him during an academic career that was capped by 15 years as Weber State’s Vice President of Administrative Services. The experience of having WSU’s athletic director report to him made him more than qualified to serve as the UGA president in 2008 and ‘09, near the end of his nine-year board tenure. That was a pivotal time for the UGA, with the retirement of longtime Executive Director Joe Watts.

Simkins led the hiring of Thomas Pagel, while predicting that the United States Golf Association would quickly grab Pagel. That proved true, but the lasting impact would be the high standard for UGA executive directors, with Bill Walker, Jake Miller and Easton Folster following Pagel.

UGA Gold Club Award feature written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photos by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson.