CHARLESTON – When most people think of golf’s heavy hitters, they picture Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau or even Tiger Woods.
But as Golf Inc. Magazine noted in its latest “2025 Most Powerful People in Golf” list, power in the industry comes in many forms, be it financial, organizational or cultural.
One name on the list will be familiar to South Carolinians: Jay Karen, CEO of the Daniel Island-based National Golf Course Owners Association. Karen was ranked No. 16, jumping four spots from last year.
“The 2025 Most Powerful People in Golf list reflects a sport in transition,” Golf Inc. said. “This year’s leaders are not simply maintaining influence; they are redefining it. They are driving investment, reimagining operations and using technology, design and media to bring golf to new audiences.”
Karen is the highly visible and public face for the Charleston-based association, advocating around the country for more than 1,700 members of the organization and the industry at large.
In April, he testified at a U.S. Senate Committee hearing about daylight saving time and the idea of “locking the clock” in permanent daylight saving time. Karen was invited by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to discuss the impacts, good and bad, of the time changing process and how adopting either standard time or daylight saving time across the U.S. could have a nearly $2 billion impact on golf.
Karen also brought course operators, technology companies and policy voices together in October for the industry’s first Golf Tee Time Summit to define new rules for the online tee time market.
The full Golf Inc. list includes 25 leaders around the country who have had direct influence over the sport in 2025. Tim Schantz retains the top spot as CEO of Arizona-based Troon, the world’s largest golf hospitality management company that operates seven South Carolina courses in the Beaufort County, Myrtle Beach and Lancaster markets.
In second and third were Steve Skinner, CEO of KemperSports, and David Pillsbury, CEO of Invited, who Golf Inc. said, “continue to modernize the private-club experience and set the standard for service, culture and innovation.”
New names on the 2025 list include Derek Sprague, now CEO of the PGA of America, and Brian Rolapp, the PGA Tour’s first-ever CEO. Golf Inc. said the two “represent a new generation of executives shaping how golf is organized, broadcast and consumed.”
