Vic Bacile, NJSGA Volunteer Of Year In 2013, Passes Away

Vic Bacile of Spring Brook, who served the NJSGA for nearly three decades as a tournament official and last October was the second recipient of the Honey Gantner Award, has passed away at age 82.

The Honey Gantner Award instituted in 2012 to honor a deserving NJSGA volunteer.

Funeral arrangements are private.

Bacile started with the NJSGA in the 1980s. He served as chairman of the NJSGA tournament committee for nearly a decade until recent years.

Bacile worked in labor relations for PSE&G in Newark before retiring in 1997. He is a graduate of Cornell University, enrolling after a stint in the Army. Bacile enlisted in the Army after World War II and served in Korea as a Sergeant First Class.

“Vic has set a very high standard for all of our volunteers with his commitment and dedication to the NJSGA,” said Mike McAneny, NJSGA tournament director. “He served our organization tirelessly.”

Bacile remembered his early infatuation with the game.

“My father was an obstetrician and he put a club in my hand when I was two years old. I started in golf in my backyard in Poughkeepsie, N.Y,” said Bacile last fall. He often accompanied his father on patient visits.

One of Vic’s favorite stories was of a trip with his dog to the post office, which was located midway between his hometown of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Hyde Park.

Vic spied an important looking gentleman with a dog. A conversation about the two dogs ensued and the gentleman asked if Vic wouldn’t mind taking the two dogs for a walk while he spoke to a group of men who had joined him. The dog was a Scottish terrier named Fala and the gentleman was President Franklin D. Roosevelt!

After the Army, Vic managed to pick up the game of golf once more.

“Later, when I was in college, we had some local courses where my friends and I could sneak onto and play.”

After earning a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations, Vic was recruited by PS&G, which brought him to Northern New Jersey.

“Company big wigs were always calling me up to join them in a foursome for some business golf,” said Bacile, who at one point lowered his handicap into the single digits.

Bacile joined Spring Brook in 1974 and has served on the club’s board of trustees as well as various committees. He was made an honorary lifetime member in December of 2011.

In the 1970s, Vic and his wife, Joyce, served on Spring Brook’s Membership Committee. Vic also served on the House Committee.

While serving on the Board of Trustees at Spring Brook, Vic voted to build the tennis courts and expand the tennis program, worked on golf tournaments, and used his skills as a photographer to create beautiful images of the course that were used in various publications.

He worked on a pool renovation project, writing the work contract himself. He helped the club structure employee salaries and benefits and was also asked to form a General Manager Search Committee.

“Vic’s contributions on behalf of Spring Brook will be forever appreciated by his fellow members. He and his wife Joyce are a treasure to Spring Brook,” said past vice president Tim O’Neill.

Bacile and wife Joyce have two sons and two grandchildren.

Dick Kline, a member of the NJSGA Tournament Committee, played for years in a regular foursome with Bacile at Spring Brook.

“Vic was the person who got me involved with the NJSGA. I became a rules official and we would go to every tournament all over the state for three of four years. Vic would teach me the rules,” Kline said.

He also said Vic had a keen interest in architecture and was a big admirer of his father.

“Vic had a great sense of humor, he has a very dry sense of humor and likes to tell jokes,” he said. “He also has a great love for the game of golf.”