Fred Perpall was elected to serve as the 67th president of the United States Golf Association on Saturday at the Association’s Annual Meeting in Napa, California, the USGA announced.
Perpall will serve a three-year term leading the USGA Executive Committee, the all-volunteer, policy-making board that provides strategic direction and oversight to the USGA’s full-time staff. He is the first Black man to hold that post in the association’s history, dating to 1894. “We talk too much about what separates us, and not enough about what unites us. In golf, we’re a community,” said Perpall following his election. “When we lean in together, when we include more people in the game, not only will the game get better, but our lives will get better, too.”
Perpall succeeds Stu Francis of Hillsborough, California, whose term ended this month. Perpall was first elected to the Executive Committee in 2019 and has served on the Governance, Nominating, and Compensation/Leadership Development committees. In 2021, he became the chair of the USGA Championship Committee, which introduced the U.S. Adaptive Open during his tenure along with the announcement of several USGA championship anchor sites. He was appointed president-elect during last year’s Annual Meeting. “The USGA is stronger with global business leaders like Fred on our board,” Mike Whan, USGA’s CEO, said in a release. “Beyond his work with golf in the last three years, Fred clearly loves the game and wants to leave it better than he found it. We couldn’t ask for better energy to propel our strategy and mission, and we’re rolling up our sleeves with that inspiration and drive to guide us.” A native of the Bahamas, Perpall earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Texas at Arlington and graduated from the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He played basketball and ran track in college and was a member of the 1994 Bahamian National Basketball Team. A registered architect, Perpall is CEO of The Beck Group, where he leads the firm’s domestic and international architectural design, planning, real estate consultancy and construction businesses. He is an avid golfer and was a member of the board that helped build Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas. He welcomes three new members elected to the USGA Executive Committee, who will also each serve three-year terms beginning today. They are Leslie Henry of Houston, Bryan Lewis of South Haven, Michigan, and Michael McCarthy of San Francisco.