METROPOLITAN GOLF ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT TOD PIKE
JOB #1: MULTIPLY GOLFERS
Incoming MGA President Tod Pike is one of us. He loves the sport, plays it
well and has spent years promoting golf here and in New York. His job:
Grow the game that connects family, friends and profession.
P
erhaps it’s appropriate that an ex-
ecutive who’s spent a career in the
fi eld of duplication should now
be tasked with duplicating golf-
ers. For sure, that will be Tod Pike’s main
focus as the incoming 64th president of
the Metropolitan Golf Association.
He’ll use his own history with the game,
he hopes, to get that done.
Pike, an elite golfer, a golf club leader,
the president of KOTA Solutions which
does business here in Connecticut and
supports the CSGA, began his career sell-
ing Xerox equipment out of his car in the
1980s, contributed to Canon’s involve-
ment in the GHO in the 90s, served
as Senior Vice President of Samsung
Electronics America, and in 2015 stepped
into the spot at KOTA, a Mohegan LDI
Enterprise. It seemed natural to use golf
to spread the word about KOTA.
“Th e most important things in my
life—friends, family, business and golf—
have intersected all my life,” says Pike.
“Th ey all cross over. My family plays. I
have used golf for business. I’ve made
many friends in golf. It’s central to my
life.”
KOTA’s support of the CSGA, then
fi t nicely, too. “It was a case of getting
our name out.’ Hey, I’ve heard of them.’
Our involvement in the association is less
about entertainment, say, than simple
name recognition. Th at’s really important.
We think the business environment, the
audience that golf provides is ideal. And
it’s working. I know, because we’ve heard
from people and clubs who say they fi rst
learned of us that way.”
Pike is the former president at the
Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y. where he has
played for 48 years and been eight times
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For the Pikes, golf is a family aff air. Tod (far left) and borther Dana (far right) took
sons Jeff (blue shirt) and Connor (white shirt) to Scotland to play.
its club champion. He and son Jeff won
the Met Father & Son. His wife Dawn
plays, as does his daughter Lizzie. He and
brother Dana are often partners.
In accepting the MGA presidency,
Pike used his own history to promote
the association’s game-growing eff orts.
“My mom and dad did not play golf and
the only reason I got into the game was
because I had easy access. Th e city I lived
in, Rye, had a golf course and I had ac-
cess. Th at’s a point I’ll always remember,
about the importance of providing access
to juniors.” Pike recalled playing his fi rst
MGA competitive event, the Met Junior,
in 1970.
“My point here is that it’s 48 years later,
and I played in four MGA events this
year, the Senior Am, the Senior Open the
Mid-Am and the Father and Son, with
my son Jeff . What other game could we
have that, almost 50 years after starting,
we’re still playing, we’re still working at
our game, still trying to get better? Aren’t
we lucky! And isn’t that enough for us
to really work hard and spread the game
with others who might not have ever been
introduced to it? It’s a labor of love.”
It’s a lot to juggle, but the tall, af-
fable Pike appears unfl appable, both on
course and off . “He never gets rattled,”
says Dana, the younger brother who Tod
brought into the game with cut-down
clubs when the younger Pike was 6. “He
reminds me of Matt Kuchar. In 1000
rounds I don’t think I’ve ever seen him
throw a club or heard him curse. Kuchar
will say, ‘Oh Matty.’ Th at’s Tod.”
“One of the most enjoyable rounds of
golf I can recall in recent years was in a
twosome with Tod Pike,”says CSGA Exec-
utive Director, Mike Moraghan.“Likeable,
smart, talented in a wide range of areas.
Th ere probably are not enough superla-
tives to describe Tod. And he has been
enormously successful in everything he
has done in life. A man with the Midas
touch.”
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