Lindsey Hoffman, Renee Rioux and Joseph Roberts each have been awarded $5,000 postgraduate grants by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

GCSAA awards Watson Fellowship Program winners

Lindsey Hoffman, Renee Rioux and Joseph Roberts each have been awarded $5,000 postgraduate grants by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) as winners of the 2011 Watson Fellowship Program.


The Watson Fellowship is funded by a partnership between The Toro Co. and The Environmental Institute for Golf (EIFG). It is named after James R. Watson, Ph.D., a retired vice president for Toro who pioneered turfgrass research. The winners, students working toward postgraduate degrees, have been identified as promising future teachers and researchers in the field of golf course management. They also received an all-expense paid trip to the 2012 GCSAA Education Conference (Feb. 27-March 2) and Golf Industry Show (Feb. 29-March 1) in Las Vegas.


Hoffman is a doctoral student studying turfgrass physiology at the University of Massachusetts. Renee Rioux is a doctoral student studying plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Joseph Roberts is a doctoral student studying turfgrass pathology at North Carolina State University.


Watson is a leading authority on turfgrasses and was vice president for customer relations and chief agronomist for Toro. The winner of the USGA Green Section Award in 1976 and the 1977 Agronomic Service Award by the American Society of Agronomy, Watson was named a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America in 1979. He also won the 1991 Harry Gill Memorial Award of the Sports Turf Managers Association and GCSAA’s highest honor in 1995, the Old Tom Morris Award. Over the course of five decades at Toro, Watson conducted research on adaptability of species and strains of turfgrasses, fertilization practices, snow mold prevention techniques for the winter protection of turfgrasses, etc. He has authored more than 400 popular articles on turfgrass cultural practices and water conservation.