Joe Hubbard, Golf Superintendent, Shares his Adventures in Life

With over fifty years of experience in the golf industry as a player and in turf maintenance, Joseph Hubbard, CGCS brings unlimited experience to the golf course operation.

Since 2016, Joe oversees the golf course at Boca Delray Golf & Country Club for maintenance, design, aesthetics, and playability.

Previously, Joseph served as Director of Golf Maintenance for Broken Sound Club for 9 years, Toll Brothers, Inc.’s National Director of Golf Course Operations for several years.  He oversaw the planning, design, construction, grow-in, and operational maintenance of all Toll Brothers’ golf courses (15) in the United States.  He worked with noted golfer designers Arnold Palmer, Peter Jacobsen, Jim Hardy, and Chi Chi Rodriguez.

He also has had the privilege of working with respected architects over the years, including Pete Dye, Art Hills, Rick Robbins, the late Ed Seay, Harrison Minchew, Erik Larsen, Greg Stang, Ray Wiltse, Cory Williams, Vicki Martz, Gene Bates, Kevin Benedict and the late, Dale Winchester (irrigation).  In that time he also worked with golf course builders Landscapes Unlimited, Wadsworth, Medalist, and Ryan Golf.

Joseph has been a golf course superintendent for over thirty-eight years from around the country with 32 years of those years being fully certified.  Over the past several years he was awarded a spot on the national committee for the environment and has become fully EMP (Environmental Management Program) certified as well, adjoining his full superintendent’s certification. 

Related: Joe Hubbard, CGCS/CEMP Boca Delray Golf & Country Club

With his diverse background of clubs, he has worked in Idaho, Washington, California, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, South Carolina, and several select locations in Florida.  Joseph attended Florida State and Boise State Universities on full-ride golf scholarships.  In 1989, Joe graduated Summa cum laude from Northern Virginia Community College with a degree in Turf Management.  Afterward, he was asked to stay on to teach the Turf Management Program while overseeing sixteen golf courses for three years.

To his credit, Joseph’s experience and knowledge are not just limited to the maintenance and construction of golf courses as he once was a top amateur player in the ’70s and ’80s within the western United States. He established over 29-course records and several tournament records during that time.  In 1979 he played for his PGA Tour Card at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego.  Before that year, Joseph played mini-tour golf in Arizona before returning to golf agronomy in the early ’80s.

On an important note, almost all of the golf courses under Joe, were in the process of or have accomplished full International Audubon Sanctuary Certification for the environment.  Both courses at Broken Sound were Audubon certified and Broken Sound Club was only the second club in the United States to be GEO (Golf Environmental Organization) Certified by the UN and Prince Charles Fund.  He is noted in the golf industry for his skill at having tournament-quality greens worthy of national championships year around on the clubs that choose that distinction. 

Related: Golf Course Superintendents Drive Environmental Accountability

Joseph is married to a native Floridian out of Miami Shores, Kelley Hubbard, and has three children, Blake (40), Tennison (35), and Tommie Shelley (31).  Joe and his wife have been blessed with three grandbabies; Lillian (9) and Wyatt Hubbard (2) of Jupiter, Florida with Palmer Lucas (2) of Charles Town, West Virginia with one on the way in May 2021, rounding out the legacy of future golfers. Joseph’s favorite hobby is fly-fishing for trout and salmon in the Northwest as well as photography.  He plays odd golf tournaments to raise money for charities.