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UGA Super-Senior Player of the Year: Mark Gardiner

Mark Gardiner once qualified for a Professional Bowlers Association event. His 2025 Utah Golf Association season was the equivalent of a 300 game, something he has achieved numerous times on the lanes.

There’s no flawless score in golf, but a perfect scorecard is possible in the Player Performance Rankings.

In a system counting each Super-Senior golfer’s top six events, Gardiner claimed six titles. His four biggest-earning performances (the Senior State Amateur, Senior Stroke Play, Winterchamps and the Don and Ron Branca Utah Senior Open) added up to 300 points.

Mark Gardiner is known for being long and straight off the tee and hitting a lot of greens in regulation.

Gardiner added 40 points each for winning the Bloomington and The Ledges Amateurs. That gave  him a 380-290 win over Randy Hicken, who had claimed the first two 60-over Player of the Year presented by Primo titles awarded by the UGA.

Hicken produced another good season, while being overshadowed. Hicken lost to Gardiner in the Senior State Am semifinals and finished second to him in three major events.

Gardiner labeled his season “just a great start to another stage of my golf career,” adding, “Coming into the state, you kind of want to put a stamp on your play.”

Gardiner and his wife, Michelle, arrived in Washington, Utah, after each retired from the U.S. Air Force. With a daughter living in North Salt Lake, they considered Northern Utah before choosing an area Gardiner knew about it, thanks to golf publications.

They live near Green Spring Golf Course as neighbors of Allen Simkins, the 2024 UGA Gold Club Award winner and a former Super-Senior champion in the Senior State Amateur. Simkins has become a fan of his golf career, so Gardiner was happy to add his own name to that trophy with his 23-hole victory over defending champion Rick Lloyd. In the round of 16, Gardiner outlasted Keith McLaughlin in 26 holes.

Amid all of those wins, when asked about his most memorable day of 2025, Gardiner picked a runner-up finish in the Coral Canyon Senior Amateur. That’s because an eagle-birdie-eagle-par finish on Nos. 5-8, after a shotgun start, pulled him to within one shot of  Ron Davis.

The irony of Gardiner’s two-season Utah performance is how the 2024 Senior State Am at Hill Air Force Base was a rare case of his not contending for a trophy, as he lost in the round of 16. Gardiner’s 26-year tenure in the Air Force was a big platform for his golf game, nationally and internationally, prior to his retirement with a Chief Master Sgt. rank.

Mark Gardiner plays his tee shot on the fourth hole during the first round of stroke play of the 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Kinloch Golf Club in Manakin-Sabot, Va. on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (Logan Whitton/USGA)

Gardiner is known for his long, straight driving and hitting a lot of greens in regulation. He’s consistent on the golf course, just as he was in a sport that paid a lot of prize money to amateurs.

Bowling can be mastered, with minor adjustments to lane conditions. Golf is different, as practically every shot comes with variables. “That’s why I love golf,” Gardiner said. “It’s just so much more difficult. You never conquer it.”

That’s true, even if his 2025 results suggest otherwise.

2025 UGA Player of the Year features are written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography by Fairways Meida/Garrit Johnson and the USGA.