Mangum inducted into GGSCAA Hall of Fame

Johns Creek – Ken Mangum, the director of golf courses and grounds at the Atlanta Athletic Club, has been inducted into the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Association of America’s Hall of Fame.

Mangum came to the club in September 1988 and has overseen course preparations for five national events: the 1990 U.S. Women’s Open Championship, the 2002 Junior Amateur Championship, and the 2001 and 2011 PGA Championships. Mangum’s next challenge is the 2014 U.S. Amateur Championship in August.

“Accomplishment is almost an understatement when you talk about Ken,” said Anthony Williams of the Stone Mountain Golf Club, the GGCSAA’s past president who presented the award. “He is always giving back, not just to Georgia but around the nation.”

During his acceptance speech, Mangum specifically thanked his family, his colleagues and the Atlanta Athletic Club’s members and staff.

“I’m like that turtle sitting on a fence post,” Mangum said. “I didn’t get there by myself. A lot of people helped me get here.”

Mangum got his golf course training early. His family moved to a home on a nine-hole golf course in Anniston, Ala., when he was a boy; he was soon mowing the grass and won the club’s junior championship. He attended Jacksonville State and Lake City (Fla.) Community College, where he got a chance to work alongside legendary superintendent Palmer Maples, the first of his occupation to be named to the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame, as an intern.

Maples had a great influence on Mangum, teaching him lessons in a simple, understated way, and introducing him to people who would change his life. Mangum has a painting of Maples, now retired and living in Kansas, hanging on the wall of his Athletic Club office. Mangum was pleased to have Maples attend his induction.

Mangum had stops at Mystery Valley Golf Course in Lithonia and Lagoon Park in Montgomery, Ala., which blossomed under his care into one of the city’s best facilities. He joined the Idle Hour Club in Macon, where he had a chance to change the surface of the greens and install an irrigation system.

Mangum has also overseen many changes on the courses at the Atlanta Athletic Club. One of the most important was the club’s decision to change the greens on the Highlands Course from bentgrass to Champion Ultradwarf Bermuda greens. The switch allayed many of the fears that came from hosting a championship in the Deep South during the hot summer and was well received by the members and competitors.

Since then the club voted to make a similar conversion to the greens on its Riverside Course. Despite a rainy summer, the change was successful. It allows the members to enjoy the same conditions on both courses.

Mangum has been a member of the USGA Green Section Committee for more than two decades. In 2013 he received a plaque from the USGA for 25 years of service and was one of four recipients for the GCSAA’s national John Morley Distinguished Service Award.