MOST USGA Green Section Award winners have a lifetime of scientific accomplishments, such as turfgrass strains or equipment. This year's recipient, Bob Williams, assembled a living legacy.

The retired course superintendent of Bob O'Link Golf Club in Highland Park, Ill., accepted the Award during the GCSAA Conference's gala dinner. Fittingly, that day his son, Bruce, became the GCSAA's 60th president, a post his father held in the late 1950s.

The elder Williams groomed more than turf. He was mentor to upward of 100 apprentice superintendents, including his son, who in 1979 succeeded him at Bob O'Link.

"Some of them were members' sons just looking for summer work," Robert Williams recalled. "As they went along, they just grew toward turf."

In much the same way the elder Williams did, by the example of his father, himself a superintendent. Robert Williams attended the first GCSAA Conference as a pre-teen in the early 1920s; by age 18 he was superintendent at Bellaire Country Club in Wauconda, Ill.

Although his major contributions were to his pupils, Williams' 50-plus years as a superintendent did result in revolutionary equipment: he designed and constructed one of the first automatic irrigation systems and a three-nozzle, tractor-mounted boom sprayer.

A family affair: the 1996 recipient of the USGA's Green Section Award (left) with the newly inducted president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.