IBJ Podcast: Tony Pancake, the PGA’s pro of the year, walks fine line at Crooked Stick

Central Indiana isn’t necessarily known as a golf mecca, but it’s well represented on the national championship stage by Crooked Stick Golf Club and its singular course designed by the legendary Pete and Alice Dye. It recently announced that it will host the 2028 U.S. Senior Open. It last hosted the Senior Open in 2009, drawing nearly 150,000 attendees to Carmel for three days of practices and four days of tournament play.

In the last 20 years, Crooked Stick has hosted the 2005 Solheim Cup, 2007 USGA Women’s Amateur, 2009 U.S. Senior Open, the 2012 BMW Championship, the 2016 BMW Championship, and the 2020 Western Amateur. This brings us to Tony Pancake, the director of golf at Crooked Stick, who has worked at the club for 21 years. He didn’t compete in any of these events, but in late January he was announced as the recipient of the highest award granted by the PGA of America: Golf Professional of the Year. In the words of the PGA, the award recognizes leadership, strong moral character and a substantial record of service to the association and the game of golf.

Pancake walks a fine line. He’s charged with preserving one of the most significant golf courses in the country while pleasing the club’s exclusive membership. He also needs to be sensitive to contemporary trends in golf while remaining faithful to the purpose of the club when it was founded in 1964: to provide a venue for championship-level golf. For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he discusses the mix of talents required to do his job justice—from a strong grasp of accounting to an instinctive ability to read people’s unspoken needs. Golf is a people business, and Pancake explains in detail how the skills needed for success as a golf pro are the same tools needed for success in any business. He also shares a hair-raising story about a last-second trip last year to see his youngest daughter compete in the final of the British Amateur Championship, filled with twists and turns and ultimately made possible by the members of Crooked Stick.

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You can also listen to these recent episodes:

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Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ’s The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, a monthly discussion about diversity and inclusion in central Indiana’s business community.