For all the language in contemporary job listings across the PGA of America’s website about career skills, Jason Epstein has a slightly different opinion about what makes a professional stand out.
“We don’t talk enough about relationships – being around good people and having the opportunity to meet new, fun and interesting people, and be a part of different communities,” says Epstein, PGA, the Director of Golf and Athletics at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, and the 2025 Bill Strausbaugh Award recipient.
“You need teams to accomplish goals. When you can get others to buy in, and you can learn what motivates others, you can tap into that and it becomes this amazing thing. I think some people underestimate the value of doing just that.”
Epstein has been building team-focused cultures for more than 20 years, from The Biltmore in Coral Gables, Florida, and Tucker’s Point in Bermuda to Las Campanas in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now at Congressional, he oversees a massive operation with 36 holes and a new, cutting-edge practice facility. Epstein has been at the forefront of the club’s expanded relationship with the PGA of America, acting as the liaison between the club and the Association for the expansive major championship schedule at the club –including the 2022 and 2027 KPMG Women’s PGA Championships, 2025 Senior PGA Championship, 2030 PGA Championship and 2037 Ryder Cup.
The lessons of energy, attitude and service professed by both the Strausbaugh Award’s namesake and Epstein’s college coach at New Mexico State University, PGA of America Hall of Famer Herb Wimberly, fueled Epstein from the start.
“I had an internship in college at The Biltmore, and when I got there out of school, I was the eighth assistant out of seven,” Epstein jokes. “My key was the first one to hit the lock every morning, and I didn’t leave until the last golf car was parked.”
Epstein worked his way up from assistant professional to running the entire golf operation. In 2008, he took on a new challenge, accepting an assignment to move to Bermuda for a three-year term to train the first generation of professionals in that country in operations and hospitality. Epstein returned to New Mexico to become the PGA of America Director of Golf at Las Campanas, which started a run where he won the Sun Country PGA Merchandiser of the Year Award for private facilities from 2012-14 and the national PGA of America Merchandiser of the Year Award for private facilities in 2015.
Making the transition from New Mexico to the Beltway was a big one for the Epstein family. Jason and wife Tina had never been to Congressional or Maryland when he interviewed for the job, and he didn’t have a resume studded with experience at historic Eastern clubs.
“It wasn’t my familiarity with Congressional or my trajectory as a golf professional, but it was the culture I’ve been able to build and the trust I’ve been able to generate – the atmosphere around the golf program,” says Epstein, who was the Middle Atlantic PGA Bill Strausbaugh Award recipient in 2021 and ’23. “That was a huge leap of trust from the membership and the leadership, to bring me halfway across the country – somebody who hadn’t worked at a Top 100 course. It was very humbling. To this day, I drive through the front gates and think, ‘Am I really driving into Congressional Country Club as the Director of Golf?’”
In all his stops, Epstein has prioritized finding the right team members and building them up. More than 70 of his mentees have gone on to become directors of golf, directors of instruction or take other leadership positions.
“The best days you ever have are when your team achieves things they set out to do. Whether it’s the next level of the PGA of America, getting a dream job or going through a wedding proposal. Those are the meaningful things,” Epstein says. “If you looked back through the list of the Strausbaugh Award winners, I think that would be the common thread: I’m getting way more out of my team’s success than I am out of my own.”
—Matthew Rudy
