After moving on from life in the corporate world, Larry Stowell, Ph.D., and Wendy Gelernter, Ph.D., started what eventually became PACE Turf Information Center nearly 40 years ago with one simple goal — help golf course superintendents do a better job at managing turfgrass.
Together, the pair has provided superintendents with independent, science-based information and advice for maintaining fine cut turfgrass.
Now retired after passing the PACE torch to Micah Woods, Ph.D., Stowell and Gelernter have been named the recipients of the GCSAA 2025 Outstanding Contribution Award, that is given to an individual(s) who has made a significant contribution to golf course superintendents through outstanding contributions for the golf course industry. That contribution must be significant in both substance and duration, and it may be or have been regional in nature, according to GCSAA. Stowell and Gelernter will receive the award at next year's GCSAA Conference and Trade Show in their hometown of San Diego.
"It's really humbling. We certainly were not expecting anything like this," Stowell said. "We've always been satisfied contributing what we could. To win an award like this is icing on the cake."
As an agronomist with the Asian Turfgrass Center, Woods had been a devoted follower of PACE before acquiring it when Stowell and Gelernter retired. Taking over what they had started only seemed to make sense, he said.
"Because I was following what they were working on, in a way, and collaborating some, and really using them as a resource and asking them questions about particular issues, and invariably they would have two or three management guides or research summaries they'd written about the topic, so I was a student of theirs too," Woods said. "And I knew that the PACE Turf website has this wealth of information, and I didn't want that to go away.
"When Larry and Wendy were ready to retire, I had the opportunity to acquire PACE Turf, and I did so because I wanted all this information to continue to be available, and I wanted to try to share some of it more widely, and make sure that others could have the same type of beneficial learning experience that I had. And that this type of practical and actionable information, still scientific, based on careful and rigorous research, but also directly applicable to solving real problems that turf managers face every day, I wanted to keep that information available and try to add to it as best that I can."
Stowell founded PACE in 1986 after leaving the corporate world behind, and Gelernter joined him seven years later. The pair officially retired in January after a transition period that has Woods of the Asian Turfgrass Center now running PACE.
In the pre-PACE years, Stowell and Gelernter worked for Mycogen, then a San Diego-based company that conducted seed work for the agriculture industry. The company has since been acquired by the Dow Chemical Corp.
"I was not satisfied at my job in the corporate world. Wendy was still working there for several years after I left, and I wanted to stay in San Diego," Stowell said. "I was looking for a way to market my skills as a plant pathologist, and the turf market happened to be underserved."
It's really humbling. We certainly were not expecting anything like this. We've always been satisfied contributing what we could. To win an award like this is icing on the cake.
Since then, according to GCSAA, Gelernter and Stowell were responsible for much of the second phase of the association's Golf Course Environmental Profile, tweaking survey questions, analyzing data from the survey, writing reports for distribution to superintendents, writing articles for GCM and outlining the results. The project was extensive, spanning three years until its completion.
Their intention throughout their work with PACE Turf was to help superintendents solve many of the problems they face in the day-to-day operations of managing a golf course. Their work, along with Woods, the current PACE director, on Minimum Levels of Sustainable Nutrition has become seminal work in sustainable fertilizer practices.
"What always impressed me about their work was how practical it was," Woods said. "Take the growth potential concept, for example. This is now used all over the world, for things like nutrient prediction, aerification timing, sand topdressing rate estimates, overseed timing assessment, turf stress indices, etc. And they had the insight to see the turf seasonal growth curves that we are all familiar with, and to realize that they could use an equation to generate those curves from the temperature.
"They were always doing research on things that were practical. Firmness of Torrey Pine greens prior to the U.S. Open there in 2008. Really taking a deep dive into soil oxygen and soil CO2 levels. Leading the way in identifying and coming up with effective management of rapid blight. Knowing more about algae than anyone I know. Then in 2011 Larry had the main idea for what would eventually become MLSN."
Gelernter and Stowell also were instrumental in developing an Integrated Pest Management program for GCSAA that was completed in 2010 and has served as a blueprint for many IPM programs used at golf courses across the country today. The IPM program is continually updated and required several years of focus and attention to create.
"Our goal was to provide an honest, independent service to clients that mimics university extension services and research in an education-type model," Stowell said. "We did our best to do a good job, and I hope people were helped by our work and that the industry is better off and more sustainable because of people properly using our advice."
Previous winners of the award are: 2024 — Tenia Workman, Georgia GCSA; 2023 — Fred Yelverton, Ph.D., North Carolina State University; 2022 — Jack Fry, Ph.D., Kansas State University.