Club Management - January/February 2008 - (Page 53) Feature Different Strokes From golf club management to painting a Tiger Woods portrait, Tom Pinch’s professional palette is quite colorful Pinch’s Tiger Woods portrait will be unveiled at the World Conference in Orlando and then shipped to the USGA Museum. Pinch also will unveil a portrait of Old Tom Morris, which will be auctioned off to raise money for CMAA’s Club Foundation. By Pat Dooley I It was one of those leisurely days in Southern California, the family out at a large mall to do some shopping. Little did Tom Pinch know how it was going to change the direction of his life. Strolling along a sidewalk, Pinch peered in through a window at a Korean man working on an oil painting. “You guys go ahead,” Pinch told his family. An hour later, he was hooked. That’s how a former member of the Club Managers Association of America came to this place nine years later, working on a painting of Tiger Woods that has been commissioned by the United States Golf Association Museum and Archives in Far Hills, New Jersey. “My personality is that I immerse myself in things I fi nd interesting,” Pinch, who is 49, said. “I drive people crazy because I get so absorbed. I got into this real late and real fast.” And he has been real successful. His Web site includes portraits of golf architects, golfers, multi-millionaires and a concert violinist, among others. At the CMAA World Conference on Club Management in Orlando, the portrait of Tiger Woods will be unveiled and then shipped to the USGA Museum where it will rotate with other portraits. Pinch is also working on a portrait of Old Tom Morris, the four-time British Open winner and golfing icon, which will be auctioned off at the conference to raise money for CMAA’s Club Foundation. Not bad for a guy who had no idea what he was going to do a month before his graduation from California State University Long-Beach in 1983. “If I had known I was going to do this, I’d have gotten a degree in art instead of administration,” he said. But just before his graduation from college, a job opened up at the Southern California Golf Association where his father Newell was the CEO. A dinner one night turned into a 20-year career in club management. With the SCGA, Pinch was involved in course ratings, handicapping, junior golf and memberships. After seven years, he moved to the for-profit arm of the organization, which was trying to purchase a golf course. Once the course was purchased, he served as the general manager of the Southern California Golf Association Course. Until that day at the mall. “I was fascinated with how that Korean man could JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 • 53
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