By John Strege
The PGA of America's search for a successor to retiring chief executive Joe Steranka has culminated with the appointment of former USGA executive Pete Bevacqua.
It seemed a natural fit for an organization involved in both the business of golf and operating championship events. Bevacqua was the director of the U.S. Open for the USGA before becoming that organization's first chief business officer in 2007.
Steranka announced in April that he would retire at the end of the year, his seventh at the helm of the PGA of America, an organization of 27,000 golf professionals and one that conducts the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup.
Related: How the U.S. lost the Ryder Cup
Bevacqua, 41, is a graduate of Notre Dame and earned a law degree from Georgetown. He joined the USGA in 2000 as in-house counsel. He resigned from the organization in March of 2011, three weeks after the USGA appointed Mike Davis as its executive director, a position for which Bevacqua reportedly was a candidate.
He also was rumored to have been a candidate for LPGA Commissioner, before the LPGA hired Mike Whan in October of 2009.
Bevacqua, who has run the golf division of CAA Sports, a division of Creative Artists Agency, since May of 2011, is an accomplished golfer, carrying a 2.4 handicap index at Manatee Golf Club in Branchburg, N.J., and at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, N.Y.
