By Helen Farrelly
On most days for the past 25 years, Mike Summa has pulled through the front gate of The Stanwich Club, driven up the road through the course, and headed to the golf shop where he oversees the golf operations from his upstairs office. He’ll have a change in routine later this fall, when he’s set to retire from the Greenwich, Conn., club, after a long and successful career as the club’s second director of golf, a position he’s held since 2001.
Summa took up golf as a young teenager, after using clubs he found in the garage with plastic golf balls and setting up “holes” in the yard with Maxwell House coffee cans. From there, Summa’s father would drop him off at the public course near their home in Torrington, Conn., then called East Lawn.
“He’d drop me on his way to work in the summertime,” Summa says. “I’d play, and he’d pick me up at five o’clock. I’d go ’round and ’round with a friend or two. That’s how I learned to play.”
After not making his high school golf team his freshman year, Summa used that as motivation to work on his game the following summer. He returned the following season and made the team, competing alongside his talented teammates, including the top two players headed to play at Duke and Furman.
A small ad in the back of a Golf Digest magazine led him to Ferris State College (it became Ferris State University in 1987) and the school’s Professional Golf Management Program. “What do you think about this, Mike?” his dad said to him, pointing to a little square ad about training you to become a club professional. He thought it sounded pretty good, and the two of them went out to Ferris State in Big Rapids, Mich., and Summa applied.
Internships throughout college led Summa to Beacon Woods Golf Club in Florida and to Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas, where the current PGA president, Joe Black, was the golf professional. Summa graduated with a degree in marketing and was applying for jobs when his resume landed on the desk of Frank Cardi at the Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y., but Summa almost didn’t take his call.
“Frank called me at school, actually,” Summa says. “It was late, 10 at night, and I was preparing for my last class. My phone rings, and he says, ‘This is Frank Cardi, from the Apawamis Club, looking to speak to Mike Summa.’ I had heard of Frank and heard of Apawamis, but I thought it was one of my friends pulling a prank.”
Summa hung up the phone. Luckily, Cardi called back, and shortly thereafter, Summa was on his way to Apawamis to become the third assistant pro. After working his way up, six years later in 1988 he became the head professional at age 27.
When the legendary Billy Farrell was preparing to retire as Stanwich’s golf professional for its first 37 years of existence in 2001, Summa reached out, attracted to the club’s strong tradition of golf and its outstanding practice facility, where he could continue his love of teaching.
Those include the U.S Mid-Amateur Championship; the Palmer Cup; two AJGA championships; a number of MGA events, including the Met Amateur and French-American Challenge; countless other local events; and for the past four years, The Farrell, the mid-am and senior invitational named for his predecessor.
“Mike has always been a true student of the game and deeply passionate about its history, traditions, teaching, and competition,” says Jeff Holzschuh, who was co-head of the club’s selection committee when Summa was hired at Stanwich. “In every aspect of his career, Mike has carried himself as a complete professional, earning the respect of his peers and his members alike.”
Summa, a PGA Master Professional, has given thousands of lessons, expanded junior programs, grown the caddie program, hired and mentored dozens of assistants, interns, and employees, and managed the golf shop. Summa’s wife, Julie, worked alongside him for many years, starting out by buying the women’s clothing for the shop at Apawamis. She had worked for a company that refurbished and rebuilt retail stores, and she applied that background to the golf shop, eventually taking over to manage the soft goods.
“She bought, she displayed, she dealt with outings, special orders,” Summa says. “Without her, I certainly wouldn’t have made it this far, this long.”
Summa was responsible for hiring the club’s first four women professionals, who did much to advance the ladies’ programs and tournament profiles, and growing the junior programs.
“He and his assistants helped produce many club champions, from Courtney Tincher on the ladies’ side, to our current club champ Zach Munno on the men’s side,” Laux notes. “He’s a huge believer in a strong caddie program, which we’ve had throughout his tenure. He’s a tireless worker, never more so than in the 2020 Covid era, handling about five jobs at once in those crazy first few months.”
“Mike’s lasting impact on Stanwich, its membership, and the thousands who have been fortunate to visit during his 25 years will be ever remembered,” says Brian Mahoney, Stanwich member and the MGA’s Executive Director/CEO. “His passion for the game and unwavering commitment to service excellence has set him apart as one of the very best in his profession.”
In addition to the impact he’s made at Stanwich, Summa has been recognized by his peers in the Metropolitan PGA Section, winning the Professional of the Year Award in 2012, the Bill Strausbaugh Award (for mentoring fellow PGA professionals) in 2000, the PGA Professional Development Award in 1994, and Merchandiser of the Year in 1990. He’s given back to the game on all levels, including serving in a variety of volunteer roles with the Met PGA, and has attended and instructed over 800 hours of PGA Education Programs. He served on numerous advisory boards and is currently an advisory board member for Titleist/FootJoy and Summit Golf Brands. For his teaching work, he’s been recognized by Golf Digest, Golf Magazine, and the countless members he’s taught throughout the years.
“In every organization, it seems that there are leaders who are front and center, and there are also those who are under the radar,” says Charlie Robson, who was the executive director of the Metropolitan PGA for 43 years. “Mike Summa is the latter. If you need advice or help with a problem, Mike is always willing, and more importantly, able to help. Among the professionals, he is known for the outstanding operation he engineered, great staff, exceptional programs, a love for competition as a player and administrator, a loyal supporter of the PGA’s college intern programs, and the ability to deal with a top membership at one of the busiest facilities in the section.”
Even with increasing responsibilities and a growing to-do list, Summa still made time to teach. “I love teaching the game,” he says. “And probably the most enjoyable part of teaching for me is taking someone who’s either never played before, or is considered a beginner, and help them feel comfortable to be on the golf course and explain to them that they have as much right to be on the golf course as the club champion does.”
He's applied his teaching skills to mentoring assistants throughout their careers, too. “I enjoy when those people first get those (head pro) jobs and they call back for advice,” he says. “Charlie Robson said something to me a long time ago when I was really young. He said, ‘Mike, ask people for their advice that you respect, because when you ask someone for their advice, they want to help you, and they want to mentor you because you thought enough of them to ask for their advice. Be sincere about it.’ So, when they call me back for advice, it makes you feel good about yourself, that they feel you have some form of knowledge that can help them.”
Ever the hard worker, Summa plans to continue to give back to the game that’s given him so much. “I’m interested in what the next chapter is, and the next chapter may be a combination of two or three things, and the next chapter may be to try something for a couple of years,” he says. “If that’s not perfect on either side, maybe try something else. It’s not like at this point in my life, I’m building a career. I want to do something that I really enjoy and can be as beneficial to any organization or group or students that I can be.”
One thing he knows he’ll do for sure is spending more time with Julie, their son Joe (who he frequently plays in father-son events with), their daughter Stephanie and her husband, and their first grandchild, born in May.
Even when he hands the keys to his office to Casey Pyne, who will take the reins later this fall, it won’t be surprising when those phone calls to Summa from those he’s mentored and worked with through the years keep coming.
“Mike will leave his own legacy at The Stanwich Club…one of guiding it from a golf-only facility to a golf-centric family club, all while treating members with kindness and respect. It has been a great 25 years under his leadership,” says Holzschuh.
“We are deeply grateful for his service, his friendship, his counsel, and all that’s given back over the years,” adds Mahoney. “Quite simply, the game of golf is better for having Mike Summa as part of it.”
Adds Robson: “His professional skills are only outshined by a personality that welcomes everyone he comes in contact with. He has the ability to make whoever he’s with feel like they are the most important person in the room. A career of service and excellence at two great clubs – Apawamis and Stanwich – will leave a legacy long celebrated.”