Stafford, VA – Steve Greiner, the Head PGA Professional at Fort Belvoir Golf Club (Fort Belvoir, Va.), is the recipient of the MAPGA’s 2014 Player Development Award. This award bestows special recognition on a PGA Professional for exemplary contributions and achievements in the area of Player Development and for extraordinary efforts in conducting and/or supporting Play Golf America initiatives. This award considers the PGA Professional’s growth of the game leadership commitment at the Section and National levels, plus the impact made at his/her own facility. Greiner will be recognized in front of his family, friends, and peers at the MAPGA Hall of Fame and Awards banquet to be held on March 8, 2014 at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va.
Steve Greiner has been awarded the PGA Player Development Award for his strong work in programs for military personnel. Through his partnership with the Warrior Transition Units at both Fort Belvoir and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Greiner is making a difference in the lives of soldiers and their families, and he is growing the game by creating golfers who are emotionally invested in golf.
Greiner grew up on New York’s Long Island and learned golf from his dad at the age of eight. Some of his early golf memories include him and his dad lining up outside the entrance to Bethpage State Park Golf Course in Farmingdale at three o’clock in the morning to beat the three to four-hour wait list. His success as an amateur golfer includes winning the New York State Troy Invitational, the Sanka Invitational Amateur and qualifying twice for the US Amateur Public Links; finishing third on Bethpage’s Black Course in one qualifier. These early successes propelled Greiner’s love for the game, and lead him to earn a golf scholarship at John B. Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He turned professional in 1993 and earned his PGA membership in 2002.
His professional career started as a golf instructor with Fairfax County Adult Education and Northern Virginia Regional Parks. Then, in 1999, he joined the staff of Fort Belvoir Golf Club as the retail manager. In 2006, he was named to his current position as Head PGA Professional at Fort Belvoir and has served the United States Army with distinction by starting the U.S. Army/Fort Belvoir Wounded Warrior Golf Program in 2008.
This program has grown into an Army “best practices program” that now serves Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, U.S. Army AW2 (Wounded Warrior) Program, the Warrior Transition Battalion at Fort Belvoir, and the Warrior Transition Brigade located at Walter Reed NMMC. In 2010, in front of his golf membership at the annual Member-Guest Golf Tournament, Greiner was bestowed a Wounded Warrior Challenge Coin signifying honorary membership into the Warrior Transition Battalion as “one of their own.” Also, in 2012, he was most honored as the recipient of the US Army’s prestigious “Distinguished Civilian Service Medal.” The presentation was made even more special because the presenting official was the Fort Belvoir Garrison Commander, COL Greg Gadson, himself a highly decorated, double amputee wounded warrior.
Greiner’s 2013 Fort Belvoir Wounded Warrior Golf Program touched 165 lives (Wounded Warriors of several different services, their spouses and children, and Warrior Transition Battalion Cadre) over the two 8-week sessions. These 16 sessions averaged 28 participants, 7 PGA/LPGA Professionals and 6 Volunteers per week. His vision of using golf as a method of healing for our wounded heroes and their families is what earned him this distinguished player development award.
About the Middle Atlantic Section of the PGA of America
The Middle Atlantic Section of the PGA (MAPGA), located in Stafford, Virginia, is one of 41 Sections of The Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA), headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. As a part of The PGA since 1925, the MAPGA consists of over 1,100 members and apprentices in Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia and small portions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Together, the MAPGA golf professionals, volunteers and staff support the mission of The PGA to promote enjoyment and involvement in the game of golf and to contribute to the game’s growth by providing services to PGA Professionals and the golf industry.
Contact:
Stephanie Jennings, PGA
sjennings@pgahq.com
(540) 720-7420 ext. 116
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