Born in the summer of 1958, Seth Waugh grew up the son of a prep school English teacher who also coached baseball and basketball. After graduating from that institution, the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, Waugh earned a B.S. in Economics and English from Amherst College in Massachusetts. Soon after, he began working in the financial services industry, doing well enough to become CEO of the Americas for Deutsche Bank. He held that position for 10 years, and it was during that time that he created in 2003 the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston. His rationale for that move came from recognizing that the game was a very effective and efficient way of reaching the sort of customers – both individual and corporate - his company coveted.
Waugh’s involvement in the business of golf only grew from there. A single-digit handicapper and a member of Seminole, Cypress Point and Shinnecock Hills among other clubs, he eventually joined the PGA of America’s Board of Directors. Then in September 2018, Waugh assumed the position of CEO at that organization.
With thick, dark eyebrows and hair that has become more gray than black, Waugh is married and the father of five. He met his wife, Jane, on a driving range. The following comments came from a phone conversation with GGP/Biz as the 63-year-old prepared for this week’s PGA Championship at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And his first words, in the latest installment of The 19th Hole, were in response to a question about the differences in running one of the world’s top banks and the PGA of America:
Leadership is leadership, right? No matter where you work. The idea is to wake up every morning thinking of how to make the place you are leading better. But there are certainly differences between the corporate world and what I am doing in golf. At Deutsche Bank, we had shareholders, of course, as well as employees, clients and regulators. And one of the ways you measured success was by share price. But the PGA of America is different in that we are mission-based and not-for-profit. We also have a different structure and are more like a government entity than a corporation, which is something I had to learn when I came on board.
At the PGA, we have four primary stakeholders. First are our nearly 28,000 members, and we are trying every day to make their lives better as they work to make the lives, and the games, of millions of golfers better. Next comes the game itself. We are stewards of golf along with the other entities, like the R&A, the USGA, the PGA Tour and the LPGA. A big part of our collective mission is growing the game while at the same time making it feel more welcoming. And what’s been particularly great in this area is how well we are working together to do those things since the pandemic. The level of collaboration has been really good.
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