In a golfing life spanning more than 40 years, Tedesco Country Club’s Michael Zmetrovich has experienced a plethora of highlights as a golf competitor and golf industry businessman.
At the same time, the Marblehead resident has never forgotten where his life in golf began — as a teenage caddy at Haverhill Country Club and recipient of a Francis Ouimet scholarship.
“I’ve always remembered the positive impact caddying had on me and the interesting people I met during those formative years,” said Zmetrovich, 57, the current CEO of Salem-based M/R Rockett Real Estate Management and the Salem Waterfront Hotel and Suites. He’s also a prominent golf industry expert with his Z Golf Properties management, development and consulting firm.
Which explains in part Zmetrovich’s extraordinary support of the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund dating back 30 years. Support in the form of personally raising more than $700,000, much of that via his participation in the Ouimet Fund’s Marathon and Sprint, as well as the extraordinary support his fellow Tedesco members have provided.
It has not gone unnoticed. Zmetrovich will be receiving The Ouimet Fund’s 22nd Richard F. Connolly Award at the Fund’s annual banquet April 21 at Encore Boston Harbor.
Connolly himself, the modern day father of the Ouimet Fund, will receive the Francis Ouimet Award for Lifelong Contributions to Golf as well. His firm, The Connolly Group/Morgan Stanley, has been the presenting sponsor of the banquet for many years and turned the banquet from a modest affair attended by several hundred into what is now the largest annual golf banquet in the country, with more than 1,500 attendees.
The banquet hit the big-time, bringing together virtually a “Who’s Who” of the state’s golf population, once Woburn native Connolly convinced his investment client, Arnold Palmer, to receive the Francis Ouimet Award in 1997. Palmer returned to Boston in 2013 to receive the Richard F. Connolly Award.
Zmetrovich, who during his career worked for Jack Nicklaus’s development firm Golden Bear Services and was co-owner of private clubs in Texas and Florida (where Presidents Bush 41 and 43 played), becomes the fifth North Shore-connected individual to receive the Connolly Award. The others are Salem’s Michael Douvadjian in 2023, fellow Tedesco member Peter Lynch (2010), Lynnfield’s Anne Marie Tobin (2008) and the late Dennett (“Denny”) Goodrich of Essex CC (2000).
“For all that the game has given to me personally, professionally and competitively, I can’t think of a better way to give back to the game than by supporting The Ouimet Fund,” said Zmetrovich, who won the 1985 Massachusetts Junior Amateur at Kernwood, where he is currently a member.
“I’ve known Mike a lot of years,” said Connolly, who will present the award to Zmetrovich. “He’s been a good player, but most important has been a tremendous supporter of the Ouimet Fund for many years. At the same time, Mike has been a great ambassador for the Ouimet Fund. He talks about it with everyone, or so it seems, and has made Tedesco one of the most financially supportive of all the clubs in Massachusetts.
“He is also one of our great supporters who always says yes when we need him. He epitomizes that familiar saying about giving back to golf more than golf has given him. That’s Mike Zmetrovich.”
“As a Ouimet Alumnus,” said Ouimet Fund executive director Colin McGuire, “Michael has passionately given back to the Ouimet Fund for 30 years by participating in the Golf Marathon and Sprint, advocating for caddie programs and young people who work in golf, and serving as Ouimet Chair to the Tedesco Country Club members and an advocate for others across the North Shore.
“His Sprint fundraising efforts have eclipsed $700,000 over the years, and 68 Scholars from Tedesco CC have received more than $1.3 million in aid during his time in that role. Much like Dick Connolly, Michael’s modest beginnings are part of the story of a passion for the game, a priority on personal relationships, and the privilege to pay it forward.”
The primary way Zmetrovich, a multiple club champion at Tedesco, has supported The Ouimet Fund has been through his enthusiastic support and participation in the annual marathon, which has morphed into the Ouimet Fund Sprint.
“I started out raising money for the marathon from my fellow Tedesco members and my own golf network (through his golf management firm Z Golf Properties),” Zmetrovich recalled. “My dad Tony got involved driving the cart, then my wife Holly became my driver a few years later, and daughter Sophie followed Holly.”
Following in the footsteps of his father, son Oliver Zmetrovich joined in becoming a Ouimet marathoner and a Ouimet Scholar himself before graduating from St. John’s Prep, then the University of Pennsylvania. He then took a job as an investment analyst at Empire State Realty Trust, the New York City REIT that owns the Empire State building.
Team Zmetrovich has always ranked among the top Ouimet fundraisers. The patriarch has not, however, rested on his laurels. He has served on a variety of Ouimet Fund committees and has participated frequently in the interview process, part of the selection format for naming the annual class of Ouimet scholars.
Zmetrovich was indeed a Ouimet scholar, but when he received a full golf scholarship to Florida International University in Miami he happily rescinded the award, thus allowing another candidate to receive the bounty.
He has served as Ouimet chairman for Tedesco for 15 years, succeeding the late Peter Dalton.