Going into his 31st season at Penfield (New York) Country Club – six as an assistant and 25 as the private club’s PGA of America Head Professional – Mike D’Agostino is one of the most decorated professionals in the Western New York PGA Section. And now, after beating cancer for a second time, he’s also a national PGA of America Award winner.
D’Agostino is the 2026 Deacon Palmer Award winner, adding the national award after winning the Western New York PGA Section’s Deacon Palmer Award in 2024 and ’25. D’Agostino has also won the Section’s PGA Golf Professional of the Year, Professional Development, Player Development, Patriot Award and Bill Strausbaugh awards.
“Any time you’re honored by your peers with an award, it feels great, and so does this – but it feels great in a very different way,” says D’Agostino, the Honorary President of the Western New York PGA Section. “Anything associated with the Palmer family is pretty amazing. It’s something I’m still wrapping my head around.”
D’Agostino uses the same phrase to describe being a two-time cancer survivor. His first bout with the disease came in 2009, when he beat thyroid cancer.
“At the time they told me thyroid cancer was one of the best cancers to have, though there’s nothing easy about any type of cancer diagnosis,” D’Agostino says. “But looking back at that, I’m like ‘Wow, that was child’s play compared to the second time around.’”
While teaching at a junior clinic in 2023, D’Agostino felt a bump under the collar of his golf shirt and thought it was a bee sting. But the bump continued to grow, and within two weeks a diagnosis of tonsil cancer was confirmed. A painful surgery to remove D’Agostino’s right tonsil was followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments, all during the busy summer season at Penfield – including hosting the 2023 PGA HOPE Secretary’s Cup.
“I had seven weeks of chemo and radiation, and the first three or four weeks was nothing,” D’Agostino remembers. “But the doctors told me that last few weeks were going to get real, and it got bad. I couldn’t get out of bed for a good week and a half, and if I had to go get treatment I would come home and go right back to bed.”
D’Agostino completed his treatment on Oct. 19, 2023, and had a very important date beyond that circled on his calendar: Oct. 30, when he was scheduled to become President of the Western New York PGA at the Section’s annual meeting.
“That was my big goal, to attend the annual meeting in person and be sworn in as President with my treatment being over and done with so I could move on,” D’Agostino says. “It wasn’t easy at all, but the support I received from my fellow PGA Professionals was unbelievable. Everyone knew what I’d been going through, and that being President was my goal. Then I went to the PGA Annual Meeting in Frisco, Texas, a week and a half later, and that gave me a real feeling of normalcy for the first time in a while.”
D’Agostino has returned to a full schedule at Penfield and with the Western New York PGA Section, including serving as Vice President of PGA REACH Western New York and overseeing PGA HOPE programming in the Rochester, New York, area. He estimates his energy level is 85 percent of his pre-tonsil cancer diagnosis, and he’s making the most of being cancer-free again.
“I feel good now, and I’m going with it – little things that I would worry about before, stuff that would bother me, it’s different now. I don’t tend to worry about things the same way,” D’Agostino says. “Everyone at the club, all the members as a whole, they were unbelievable to my family, and the Section and professionals I know from around the country – the outpouring of support was amazing.
“I even had Veterans from my PGA HOPE programs over the years reaching out to see if I needed anything. That made it easier to keep doing what I was doing, and has made this into ultimately a very sweet journey in a lot of ways. I feel good now, and I’m going with it.” —Don Jozwiak
