Longtime USGA, NJSGA volunteer Dot Paluck honored with Ike Grainger Award

Photo Courtesy: USGA

Dot Paluck of Bernardsville, a longtime volunteer for the United States Golf Association and the New Jersey State Golf Association, has been named one of 25 recipients of the USGA’s Ike Grainger Award.

The award is presented each year to individuals who have served the USGA for 25 years. She served as chair and vice-chair of the USGA Women’s Committee and USA captain for the 2016 Women’s World Amateur Team Championship.

She also served on the USGA Regional Associations and Regional Affairs committees. Paluck is a former president of the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association and the Garden State Women’s Golf Association. She and her husband Tom, a former NJSGA president, are Baltusrol Golf Club and Somerset Hills Country Club members.

In 2010, the Palucks received the NJSGA’s Distinguished Service Award. Dot has served on the NJSGA’s Women’s Committee, Tournament Committee, Hall of Fame Committee, and Course Rating Committee.

The Palucks are lifetime sustaining donors to the NJSGA Caddie Scholarship Foundation, and manage the annual New Jersey Evans Scholar Classic, which takes place this year on Monday, July 12, at Hawk Pointe Golf Club in Washington, N.J.

“It is nice to be recognized with the Ike Grainger Award. I fully respect what the USGA has done in golf and how they have run things and accepted change. I admire their leadership and the way they move forward,” Dot Paluck said. “I’ve always enjoyed working with the USGA, dating back to my first course-rating seminar in the 1980s.”

She is a native of Pompton Plains and attended Butler High School for two years before the family moved to Reseda, Calif. She graduated Michigan State University with degrees in History and English, and later Fairleigh Dickinson University, with a master’s degree in Special Education.

“I always loved golf and tennis. My father (Bill) first took me out on a golf course when I was ten years old. I like being outside. I like the people and the atmosphere of golf,” she said.

Dot has been volunteering in the game since 1980, when the U.S. Open was conducted at Baltusrol GC. In 1990, she also volunteered at the Curtis Cup Match at Somerset Hills CC.

Specifically, Paluck served as the chair of the USGA Women’s Committee in 2013 and 2014 after serving as vice-chair in 2011 and 2012.

Dot sits as golf commissioner for the Somerset County Park Commission. She is an honorary member of the Women's Metropolitan Golf Association, and in 2005 received the organization's highest honor, the Judy Bell Award, for contributions to the game of golf for women and/or juniors.

Also honored with an Ike Grainger Award was Short Hills resident Mike Helmer of Baltusrol Golf Club. A partner in a law firm, Helmer has provided valuable pro bono legal assistance to the USGA Museum and Library Committee, in addition to sharing his expertise and passion for golf history.