Paul R. Dillon (2010)

Paul Dillon has been an advocate of the game as a leader, coach and artist, and his service on behalf of the Metropolitan Golf Association and Westchester Golf Association has made him one of the most recognizable faces in Met Area golf during the last 35 years.

First exposed to the game as a caddie, Dillon did not play his first round of golf until 23. After attending Iona College, Dillon began a 30- year career with the Union Camp Corporation and put golf on hold for a while to raise his family of six with wife Mary Ellen in Mamaroneck N.Y. At 45, he came back to the game, joining Wykagyl and later Winged Foot.

Dillon began volunteering his time with the MGA and WGA in the early 1990s. Paul’s dedication to spreading the game’s values and traditions allowed him to rise through the ranks of the MGA, including a post as the Public Links Committee chairman and two terms as MGA President and MGA Foundation chairman (2003-’04). He was instrumental in launching the MGA’s Capital Campaign, “Golf Grows Here,” on which he served as co-chairman with Lowell Schulman, and in expanding the MGA Foundation’s cornerstone junior programs, GOLFWORKS and The First Tee. The success of the Foundation’s programs and the current building expansion are direct results of Dillon’s efforts to promote the importance of golf to future generations and he remains active in these pursuits to this day. In addition to his service with the MGA and WGA, Paul Dillon has been the head coach of Fordham University’s men’s golf team since 1995.

Dillon has also served golf with his paintbrush, for he is the Met Area’s most prolific and celebrated golf artist. He has painted, and donated, hundreds of portraits of the game’s great players, many of which hang prominently in clubhouses across the country and abroad. Paul has created portraits of MGA and Metropolitan Golf Writers Association award recipients, a tradition which goes back more than 15 years, and painted his graduating Fordham golf team seniors. His masterpieces have become a cherished tradition for the associations, honorees and student-athletes. At the MGA’s Golf Central, the ‘Dillon Hall’ is home to many of these works of art.