DAN BELDEN, JR.
Dan has won the Brookside Club Championship 11 times, including every year that he entered from 1963 through 1989. He is a three-time Brookside CC Senior Club Champion and also a Firestone CC Senior Club Champion. Dan has played on the golf teams at Central Catholic High School and Georgetown University. During his senior year at Georgetown he was Captain of the golf team and won the University’s Scholar-Athlete Award.

Dan won the 1961 North Canton Jaycee, the 1962 SCAGA Junior Championship and the 1987 SCAGA Tournament of Champions. He played in the 1995 U.S. Senior Open, qualifying as medalist, the 1987 U.S. Amateur, making the match play, the 1991 British Amateur and four USGA Mid-Amateurs. Dan was a three-time medalist with the low qualifying scores in the USGA Mid-Amateur. He has qualified approximately 20 times for the Ohio Amateur. Dan has played in the Crump Cup at Pine Valley Golf Club for 27 years. The Crump Cup is a nationally recognized invitational tournament featuring elite mid-amateur players.

Dan has given back to the game by serving on the Ohio Golf Association’s Board of Governors since 1989, and as the USGA Mid-Amateur Committeeman for Northeastern Ohio from 1983 to 1997. He has served as Green Committee Chairman and Trustee at Brookside CC for 8 years, including President of the club in 2008.
 

HOWARD BLACK
Howard and his sister Margaret opened the Elms Golf Club for play in 1946. Elms had previously been closed for 15 years and the course needed major reconstruction. Howard attended Mass every morning and then worked tirelessly at the course until dark. During the Fall and Winter months he worked at the Timken Company.

Elms has a rich tradition among the public golf courses in the Stark County area as it has held many Stark County Amateur tournaments and also the Ohio Public Links. In 1951 Howard started the TigerTown Open that has been played every year since. It is a very well-known one-day tournament among professionals, with the winning professional now receiving $5,000.

Howard was Stark County’s first mass marketer of golf clubs, his pro shop was always full of any club you wanted. He would buy truck loads of clubs from various manufacturers and sell them to local golfers at very competitive prices.

Howard was a very strong man, who could hit the ball a long way, which helped him win many long-drive contests. He was a member of the Professional Golfers Association and was an officer and a contributor to the Stark County Amateur Golf Association for many years.

Howard and his wife Alice raised five children, all graduating from Central Catholic High School. When he retired from the Elms in 1968, he and Alice moved to Florida where he passed away five months later from heart problems. 

 

DR. MARK MOOTS
As an amateur golfer Dr. Mark Moots, played golf with professionals including Jack Nicklaus, Paul Runyan, Pete Dye and Julius Boros. His father, Harry, was a golf professional at Tam O’Shanter and his mother, Francis, was a leading amateur golfer in Northeastern Ohio. He won four Stark County Junior Championships, two Stark County Amateur Championships in 1942 and 1948 and he won the Stark County Open Championship in 1947. In 1942, he lost the State Schoolboy Championship to Mr. Pete Dye, the famous golf course architect. In 1939 he was Paul Runyan’s partner in a two man bestball tourney. In 1958 he was barely defeated by Jack Nicklaus in the Ohio State Amateur. Several years ago he was Julius Boros’s partner at the Naples Beach Club.

He held two course records and won club championships at Brookside Country Club. He was an active supporter of the Caddie Scholarship Program for College Education known as the Chick Evans Caddie Scholarship of the Western Golf Association. He was a life member of the WGA, club president of Brookside Country Club and a former director of the Ohio Golf Association from 1961 to 1977.

Dr. Moots practiced Internal Medicine in Canton for 23 years and for 24 years in Naples, Florida before retiring at the age of 75. He was the Chief Internal Medicine Doctor for a MASH unit for nine months during the Korean War. At age 86 he traveled to the slums of Kingston, Jamaica to perform medical missionary work with poor children, performing physicals and treating ailments.

Dr. Moots passed away in 2012 in Naples. He and his wife Frances raised eight children. 

 

RENEE POWELL
Renee was introduced to golf at the age of three by her father Bill, a PGA Life Member and the 2009 PGA Distinguished Service Award recipient. Her father was inducted into the First Class of SCAGHOF members. Renee graduated from Central Catholic High School in Canton in 1964 and attended Ohio University and Ohio State University, serving as captain of the women’s golf team at each institution.

She made her professional debut on the LPGA Tour in 1967, and her first tournament was the U. S. Woman’s Open. She competed in 250 professional golf tournaments and won the 1973 Kelly Springfield Open in Brisbane, Australia, posting a final-round 67 to set a course record. Renee was chosen to represent the United States in the US vs. Japan Team Matches on four separate occasions during the 1970’s. In each of Renee’s four matches, her team won. Also, during the 1970’s Renee was part of the USO Tour to Vietnam. She gave golf clinics in hopes of bringing “a little bit of home” to our troops abroad.

In 1979, Renee became the first woman to be named Head Professional at a golf course in the United Kingdom. The course was Silvermere, near London. In 1980, Renee finished her Tour career and taught golf in Africa and Europe. In 1999, Renee was named as an honorary member of the LPGA Teaching & Club Professional Division. In 2003, Renee was the recipient of the PGA First Lady of Golf Award. In 2007, Renee received the first Rolex “For the Love of the Game” Award. Selected by Golf Digest as one of the top 50 women professional golf instructors, she has served as development and programming consultant for The First Tee and in 2000 began the LPGA Girls Golf Club in East Canton. In 2011, Renee founded Clearview HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere), which is the sole year-round women’s military rehabilitative golf program in the country. The chapter currently serves more than 50 female veterans from throughout Northern Ohio. In 2013, Renee was a recipient of the Walsh University Founder’s Award and was also named one of the top ten female golf instructors in America.

Renee is a member of the Ohio Golf Hall of Fame and the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame. She currently serves as the head professional at the Clearview Golf Club. 

 

GREGG SCHORSTEN
“Giving back to the game” has qualified Gregg for induction into the Stark County Amateur Golf Hall of Fame. But, as a junior golfer he played number one on the Lehman High School golf team for three years. In his senior year, 1965, he came in third at the district tournament held at Shady Hollow CC, shooting 73. He then enrolled into Kent State University and played on the golf team. As a senior, he made the travel squad and earned a varsity letter.

After graduating in 1969 with an ROTC commission, he reported to the Army. Due to the unexpected death of his father, Gregg was able to come back to Canton, Ohio to serve his military obligation in the reserves and continue the family insurance business. Then he and his brothers started a junior tournament in memorial to their father, known as the Schorsten Memorial Junior Golf Tournament. This year was the 44th Annual tournament. Scholarships have been awarded to the winning male and female through the Schorsten Memorial Junior Golf Fund c/o the Stark County Foundation.

In November of 1997 the National First Tee was formed with the mission to provide affordable and accessible to golf to kids, especially to those who would not have the opportunity to be exposed to the game and its inherent values. Through Gregg’s leadership in recruiting an enthusiastic committee, collaborating with the Mayor’s office and city council, The First Tee of Canton was formed. With support from local foundations, grants, individual donors, and contractors, especially Beaver Excavating, a nine hole par 3 golf course was constructed on 25th St. N.E. The course took two years to construct and was dedicated August 16, 2004. Gregg continued to serve as board president for the next 12 years. Thousands of kids have participated in this program over the years.

Other golf activities include being a volunteer with the World Series of Golf for 12 years from 1981 to 1993. Just recently he was a volunteer at the Crown Plaza Colonial Invitational assisting his youngest son who is the golf instructor to the Colonial Country Club. Also, he is the volunteer assistant boys golf coach at GlenOak High School where his oldest son is the head coach. 

 

KEN YOUNGMAN
Ken was a two-year letterman at Fairless High School and a two-year letterman at Ashland College. He was golf coach at Fairless High School for 24 years with a record of 440 wins and 180 losses, winning eight league championships and making nine district appearances. Ken was named Conference Coach of Year eight times and Stark County Coach of Year three times. He created the All-County Golf Team in 1985 and the Academic Awards for Stark County High School golfers in conjunction with the Stark County Golf Coaches Association. Ken was elected President of Ohio High School Coaches Association 1993-1997 and was inducted into the Ohio High School Golf Coaches Hall of Fame in 1997. He also started the Ping Junior Scramble and Hardee’s Invitational Tournament (now the Tillapaw Appraisal Invitational).

Ken has been Tournament Manager of Boys Division II Sectional Tournament since 1981, the Girls Division I District/State Qualifying Tournament for 13 years, and has Co-Managed Girls Division II District Tournament for four years. He has managed the Division II and III State Champions for the last six years and has officiated the Ohio State Golf Championships since 1989.

Ken has been a golf rules interpreter for the OHSAA for 15 years and has assisted writing the managers handbook for the state golf tournaments. He has donated over 600 golf books to the OSU Professional Golf Management Department and the library is named “The Ken Youngman Professional Golf Library.”

Ken won the 1997 National Federation High School Golf Coaches Championship in Florida. He was Head Golf Coach at Ashland College 2001-2003 and Assistant Girls Coach at Perry in 2008.

Ken is married to Diana and has a son Mark who played golf at Fairless HS and also was a golf letterman at Ashland University. Ken currently is Adjunct Professor of Education at Ashland University.