By Jonathan Bym
Insider Staff Writer
Having someone with a wealth of institutional knowledge like Jack Nance has been a blessing for the Carolinas Golf Association. At the same time, though, there’s been impending uncertainty over the 64-year-old’s coming retirement.
The new year brings that change for the association with a new executive director for the first time since 1992, following Nance’s retirement on Jan. 1.
“ I turned 64 this year, and you know getting close to that 65 age, I think if I had started this job 10 years ago, I wouldn’t be here,” Nance said. “ I’ve been with the CGA for 41 years, and as executive director for 33.
“I think the fact of my friends around me retiring, and I’m getting close to 65, we’ve had some staff changes that were coming about and I had to kind of make a decision. Do I want to tackle these new projects and new staff coming in, or is it maybe time also to bring somebody else in and let them tackle it and make it their own?”
Nance admits he has a lot of knowledge of the CGA “between his ears,” having worked for the association for over a third of its existence. Filling that void is never easy, but much like finding a four-ball partner, it requires finding someone you trust and who has the knowledge as well.
A decade ago, Nance’s right-hand man was Andy Priest. At that time, he was believed to be the next one to take over when Nance eventually stepped down, but in 2015, Priest left the Carolinas to serve as the Alabama Golf Association executive director.
Bringing Priest back was far from the formality expected by many, but it further showed that the CGA will remain in the right hands moving forward.
“ They ended up making a big formal search, which in the end validates Andy’s position. It validates that we got the best candidate for the job,” Nance said. “ Just to go hand-pick somebody in the field, the board thought, ‘No, we need to go out and really research and vet all these people.’ There might be some great people out there we haven’t heard of, but to Andy’s credit, we went through them all, and he came out on top.”
While overseeing amateur golf in Alabama, Priest doubled its championship program, increased membership by 75 percent, and established the Alabama Golf Foundation, modeled after the CGA in a way.
“ To be transparent, Jack and I had a conversation back when I was offered the Alabama job of whether to take it or stay,” Priest said. “ Jack said, ‘Look, Andy, you’re going to run in different circles. You’re going to learn different skills. You’re going to learn how to be an executive director, and that is going to pay dividends to you down the road.’ It was exactly right, and I’m a much more skilled executive now than if I had stayed here.”
The growth in Alabama is similar to what the Carolinas went through under Nance’s leadership. The CGA has grown to over 700 member clubs with over 220,000 golfers in the Carolinas,but Nance said he couldn’t take claim to all of the recent spike in golf interest.
“ The CGA is the best it has ever been since I’ve been around, and probably ever because I know what it was like beforehand,” Nance said. “ I would love to say that all of our junior programs work and the development program has been great and got us to where we are today, but listen, COVID knocked it out of the park for us, and we’ll take it, but I want to give credit where credit’s due.”
The CGA staged 370 golf events this year, another measurable increase in the 40-plus years with Nance as part of the association. When he started in 1984, approximately 60 events were played.
“ We just knew that we weren’t servicing a whole lot of people other than that male adult. We just tackled, by hiring these directors of women’s and junior golf at different occasions, and gave them the go-ahead to just run with it and do what they wanted to do to build up these programs, and they did that,” Nance said. “ We hired a director of junior golf to concentrate on junior golf. And they ran with that. We’ve had several since, but really created a great junior program.”
Growth also brought in more staff, and the building of a permanent home for the CGA on Ridge Road across the street from Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in 2014. In 2018, Carolinas Golf House opened the Xan Law Jr. Hall of History.
“ The biggest thing is, kind of like kids growing up it reminds you of how old you get, but for us, it’s the staff we kept adding,” Nance said. “ We’ve got something around 21 full-time staff members and that’s why we pretty much outgrew wherever we were.”
To help aid in the changing of directors, Priest began working alongside Nance last month, and Nance will stay on until April, as well. Acclimation has been fast-tracked in a way, with Priest bringing his own knowledge and history with the CGA from earlier in his career. Priest also knows what kind of situation he is walking into with Nance as his predecessor.
“Jack’s handed me the keys to a Ferrari. I’m just trying not to run it into the wall, you know? I did not get a Ferrari in Alabama,” Priest said. “ I knew if I went and did what I was supposed to do, that when the day that Jack decided to retire, that I would be in the best possible position to have the opportunity to come back.”
Nance will be retired but not completely out of touch with the association.
“When you have so many friends and you’re vested in this thing so much, you want to help them any way you can. So, I’ll continue volunteering and do whatever they need me to just to pitch in,” Nance said. “Being in such a golf area, I’ve thought about maybe I might caddie some. I’ve already been asked to run a women’s conference championship in Fripp Island. I’ll probably do that. I’ve been asked about being a golf coach at a high school or assistant golf coach. So these are all golf-related things.”
Now it’s Priest’s time to continue to press the Carolinas Golf Association forward into the second half of the decade and beyond.
“ We’ve got our foundation. Jack and the team here internally have been doing a lot of the hard work that goes into the foundation. But for us to really unlock its potential, we probably need some dedicated resources to the foundation,” Priest said. “ If we dedicate even more to it the sky’s the limit. That’s an area too that we’ll get to.”
The number of tournaments and other personnel matters are other items on the list with the changes in executive director. It’s a major change in a way, but the mindset from the top position will stay the same.
“ There’s a lot on the to-do list, but thankfully I’m not walking into ‘the sky’s falling’ situation here,” Priest said. “ We always want to constantly improve, and that’s what Jack always did here.
“Each year we want to be a little bit better than we were the prior year. And that’s kind of our goal.”
Contact Jonathan Bym at (910) 693-2470 or jonathan@thepilot.com.
